Chapter 7: The Nursery

We went to the house at ten the next morning with a police officer and a borrowed van.

Zelda drove, and I sat beside her with my hand against my stitches and the folded court order on my knee.

The officer's cruiser followed us down my own street.

Two of the neighbors were out already, one salting a driveway and one pretending to look at a hedge.

Our house was a white colonial with black shutters, and Dean had hung Christmas lights along the gutters.

They were still on in daylight.

"Ma'am, to be clear," the officer said, as we climbed the front steps, "I'm here to keep the peace."

"You can take your personal belongings and items for your child. You can't take anything that's in dispute."

"I understand."

"Everything in the nursery is for the child?"

"I bought it all myself," I said. "Before my husband had a job that paid."

I knocked.

I had lived in this house for three years, and I knocked on my own front door.

It opened almost at once.

Brandy stood in the doorway in my gray cardigan with her hair in a loose braid.

"Claire," she said, and her whole face went soft with surprise. "Oh, I didn't know you were coming. Dean's at the office."

"I know," I said. "He told me he changed the locks."

"I'm only here to help. He's been a mess, you know. I make him eat."

The officer stepped forward.

"Ma'am, do you live at this address?"

Brandy glanced at him, and at the cruiser, and at the neighbors on the sidewalk.

"I'm a friend of the family," she said.

"Then I'll need you to step aside. The homeowner's wife has a right to remove her belongings, and I'm going to stay with her."

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