Chapter 13

Callie's POV

"Derek please."

Five days. I had been saying those two words in different combinations for five days. On the phone. Through his lawyer. In a text he read and did not answer. Please withdraw it. Please wait. Please think about what this does to her.

He had not withdrawn anything.

The filing had arrived on a Tuesday. Formal and thick and full of language that turned my life into evidence. Callie Dawson demonstrates erratic judgment in matters concerning the minor child. Inappropriate associations introduced into the child's medical environment. Unstable decision making during a documented health crisis.

Michael's name appeared fourteen times in eleven pages.

I counted.

---

I sat across from my lawyer on Wednesday morning with the filing on the table between us and she walked me through it section by section with the careful voice of someone delivering a diagnosis.

"They have used two external incidents as supporting evidence," she said. "The first is a video clip from a public park. The second is a daycare incident report."

I looked at her.

"The daycare report," I said. "That was filed to protect Lily. A worker documented what Noah said to her."

"Derek's legal team has reframed it," she said. "They are presenting it as evidence of a volatile social environment surrounding the child. They are suggesting that Lily's exposure to ongoing conflict is a result of choices you have made."

I sat with that for a moment.

The daycare worker had done exactly the right thing. She had written it down. Dated it. Signed it. And Derek's lawyers had picked it up and turned it around and pointed it at me.

"And the video," I said.

"Vanessa's clip is being presented as documented evidence of your temperament in public spaces around children."

I thought about standing in that park. About walking away. About the angle of Vanessa's phone.

She had known exactly what she was doing.

She had known before I even opened my mouth.

---

Michael met me at the coffee shop near his clinic on Thursday afternoon.

I told him what the filing said. What his name was being used for. What testifying publicly would mean for the campaign Derek was already running against his license.

He listened without interrupting.

When I finished he was quiet for a moment.

"I was in that ER," he said. "I have the chart. I have the timestamps. I have the monitor readings from the moment she arrived to the moment her fever broke." He looked at me steadily. "I can show exactly what happened and exactly what would have happened if she had gone anywhere else that night."

"Derek will use it," I said. "Whatever you say in that room he will use it to go after your license harder. He has already sent people to your clinic once. If you testify publicly he will not stop at questions. He will file complaints. He will make it expensive and long and—"

"Callie."

I stopped.

"She is four years old," he said. "And she nearly had a cardiac event last week because nobody was screening for the right thing." He picked up his coffee. "Yes. I will testify."

I stared at him.

"Without hesitating," he said simply.

I did not know what to say to that.

I did not think there was anything to say to a person who looked at the cost of something and said yes anyway.

---

Lily was already in bed when I got home that evening.

She was not asleep. She was lying on her back with Mr. Rabbit on her chest and her eyes on the ceiling doing the thing she did when she was thinking something through very carefully.

I sat on the edge of her bed.

"How are you feeling?"

"My tummy is okay," she said. "My arms are a little bit tired."

"That is normal sweetheart. Your body is working hard."

She nodded slowly. Still looking at the ceiling.

I reached over and tucked her blanket up around her shoulders.

"Mummy."

"Yes baby."

She was quiet for a moment. The particular quiet that meant the question had been sitting in her for a while and she had finally decided to let it out.

"If the judge says I have to live with Daddy." She said it carefully. Like she had practiced the words. "Will Mr. Rabbit be allowed to come."

I did not move.

"Or will it just be me." She looked at him. "Alone. Without Mr. Rabbit."

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

"Because Mr. Rabbit does not like being alone," she said quietly. "He gets scared at night without me. And I get scared without him." She looked at me finally. "So I just want to know if he can come too."

I pulled her into my arms and held her.

"Mr. Rabbit goes wherever you go," I said into her hair. "Always. I promise."

She seemed to accept this.

She was asleep within twenty minutes.

I sat beside her bed in the dark long after her breathing slowed and her grip on Mr. Rabbit loosened and her face went smooth and peaceful.

Then I went to my own room.

And I cried until there was nothing left.

Not for myself.

For a little girl who was facing a custody hearing and a birthday and a body that was running out of time and whose biggest fear in all of it was that her rabbit might have to sleep alone.