Chapter 18: Ian's POV

Ian's POV

I didn't sleep on Saturday night.

I lay on my couch with my shoes on and told myself I had done the right thing.

On Sunday I told myself again.

On Monday morning I put on my one good tie and went to the county building in Media for the custody mediation.

Kristen was already in the hallway outside the room, with a lawyer I had never met.

She wore a navy suit and no sunglasses, and her eyes were swollen.

"Ian," she said. "Can we talk first? Just us?"

"No."

"I made a mistake. I was overwhelmed."

"You were at a lake house."

Her lawyer put a hand on her arm.

The mediator was a soft-spoken woman with a legal pad, and she asked each of us to say what we wanted.

"I want my weekends back," I said. "Every one. And the truth in writing."

"He's making this personal," Kristen's lawyer said.

"It is personal," I said. "It's my son."

I opened my folder and laid out the bank records.

Seventy Fridays, a hundred and fifty dollars each, from my account to hers.

Next to them I put the texts she had sent me over eighteen months.

My son is at my mother's, a work training came up.

My son has a cold, I'll keep him home.

Maggie has a stomach thing, don't come by.

I set down a printout of the doorbell video from Maggie's front step.

It showed Kristen handing her son over on a Saturday morning, kissing the top of his head, and getting into her van with an overnight bag.

The mediator watched the clip with her mouth set.

"Mrs. Walsh," she said. "Can you explain the training?"

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