Chapter 3 - THE PETITION
Detective Ellis took the folder before Mercer could remove it.
He objected immediately.
“That contains privileged material.”
“You brought it into the room.”
“It was shown to Mrs. Cole as a courtesy.”
“It is now relevant to an active investigation.”
Mercer’s smile vanished.
“You cannot seize a legal filing.”
“I can photograph a public court filing.”
“It has not been entered into the public record.”
Detective Ellis looked at him.
“Then how did Mr. Cole file it electronically while officers were interviewing him?”
Mercer did not answer.
My heart pounded against the monitor leads on my chest.
David had moved quickly.
Too quickly.
The ambulance had carried me away less than two hours earlier.
Grace had been delivered less than an hour earlier.
Yet David already had a petition claiming I was mentally unstable.
That meant he had not created it after I left.
He had prepared it before Christmas.
“How long has that document existed?” I asked.
Mercer turned toward me.
“You should rest.”
“How long?”
He adjusted the cuff of his shirt.
“I do not know when David drafted it.”
“You’re his lawyer.”
“I am advising him in a rapidly developing situation.”
Detective Ellis opened the folder.
Several pages were attached to the petition.
A statement from David.
A statement from Sylvia.
A letter bearing the name of a psychiatrist.
Dr. Leonard Vale.
I recognized it.
David had insisted that I meet Vale after my mother’s death anniversary triggered several nights of insomnia.
The appointment had lasted forty minutes.
Vale had asked about grief.
I had answered honestly.
I had never returned.
Now his letter described me as paranoid, emotionally unstable, and potentially dangerous to myself and my unborn child.
The date at the top was December nineteenth.
Six days before Christmas.
“He wrote this last week.”
My voice sounded distant.
Mercer looked toward the door.
“I cannot discuss confidential medical assessments.”
Detective Ellis read farther.
“It recommends that Mr. Cole supervise all significant medical and financial decisions.”
I looked at Mercer.
“David planned this.”
“No.”
“He had the petition ready.”
“Prepared documents are common during marital instability.”
“We were not discussing divorce.”
Mercer’s eyes returned to mine.
“Perhaps you were not.”
The words landed harder than he intended.
Detective Ellis noticed.
“So Mr. Cole was preparing for separation.”
Mercer recovered quickly.
“I am not confirming that.”
“You already did.”
He straightened.
“This conversation is over.”
Detective Ellis blocked the doorway.
“You will be contacted for a formal interview.”
“I look forward to cooperating through appropriate channels.”
He glanced at the folder in her hand.
“I expect that returned.”
“You can download another copy.”
Mercer walked out.
The room felt smaller after he left.
I looked at Detective Ellis.
“Can he take control of Grace?”
“Not without a judge’s order.”
“Can he get one tonight?”
“Emergency petitions can be reviewed quickly.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“Judges are still available for genuine emergencies.”
She looked down at the psychiatric letter.
“This may complicate things.”
My father appeared in the hallway.
He had clearly heard enough to understand.
He entered only after I nodded.
“Who is assigned to emergency family matters tonight?” he asked.
Detective Ellis’s expression became cautious.
“Chief Justice Harrison, I must be direct.”
“Please.”
“You cannot contact the judge.”
“I have no intention of doing so.”
“You cannot contact the court administrator.”
“I will not.”
“You cannot make any statement that could be interpreted as pressure.”
“I understand.”
He looked at me.
“But Anna needs counsel.”
“I agree,” Detective Ellis said.
“I know someone,” my father replied.
I almost objected.
Then I stopped.
Refusing every form of help had not made me stronger.
It had only made me easier to isolate.
“Who?”
“Maya Chen.”
I knew the name.
Maya was a family law attorney in Washington.
She had argued several cases involving coercive control and complex financial abuse.
She had also once clerked for my father.
“Will she take a case on Christmas night?”
“She already said yes.”
“You called her?”
“I asked whether she was available.”
“That sounds like you called her.”
A trace of familiar impatience crossed his face.
Then he softened.
“I did.”
I should have been angry.
Instead, I felt relief.
“Tell her to come.”
Maya arrived forty-five minutes later wearing black trousers, a wool coat, and no makeup.
She carried a laptop and a paper cup of coffee.
She looked at me first.
Then at the monitors.
Then at the incision beneath the blanket.
“I’m Maya.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry we’re meeting here.”
“So am I.”
She placed the laptop on the table.
“Your father told me only that there was an emergency guardianship petition.”
“He did not provide details.”
“That is correct,” my father said from near the window.
Maya looked at him.
“You need to leave.”
He left immediately.
Maya waited until the door closed.
“Before I represent you, I need to know whether you are choosing me or whether your father is choosing me.”
“I’m choosing you.”
“Good.”
She handed me an engagement agreement.
“We can discuss payment later.”
“I have money.”
“Do you control it?”
The question cut through me.
“I don’t know.”
“That is also an answer.”
I signed.
Maya read the petition from beginning to end.
Her expression grew colder with every page.
“This was prepared in advance.”
“I know.”
“David claims you have displayed escalating delusions about your identity.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
She turned the screen toward me.
“He says you have repeatedly suggested that powerful government officials are secretly related to you.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“So telling the truth is now evidence of delusion.”
“He also claims you have threatened to destroy his career through political influence.”
“I never told him who my father was until tonight.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“My father.”
“Your father’s testimony will be attacked as biased.”
She continued reading.
“Sylvia states that you threw yourself against the counter after being asked to complete a simple household task.”
“That is a lie.”
“We will establish that.”
“How?”
“Witnesses.”
“Video.”
“Medical evidence.”
“Phone records.”
“Possibly smart-home data.”
I looked toward Detective Ellis.
“Ethan recorded part of it.”
“He already sent the video to the police cloud system,” Ellis said.
Maya nodded.
“Good.”
She scrolled farther.
“David is also seeking temporary authority over the child because he says you refused prenatal care.”
“I attended every appointment.”
“Do you have records?”
“The clinic does.”
“Did David ever accompany you?”
“Twice.”
“Did he have access to the patient portal?”
I thought about it.
“He set up the password.”
Maya stopped typing.
“Did you ever change it?”
“No.”
“Then we assume he had full access.”
She looked at Detective Ellis.
“We need the clinic to preserve every login record.”
Ellis wrote it down.
Maya turned back to me.
“An emergency hearing is scheduled for nine tomorrow morning.”
“So soon?”
“He requested immediate review.”
“Will I have to appear?”
“You can appear remotely from the hospital.”
“I want to be there.”
“You just had major surgery.”
“I want the judge to see me.”
Maya studied me.
“Wanting to fight is not the same as being medically able to fight.”
“I spent three years letting David decide what I was able to do.”
“I understand.”
“No, you understand the law.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I need you to understand that if I stay in this bed while he speaks for me, I will hear his voice every time I close my eyes.”
Maya remained silent for a moment.
Then she nodded.
“We will request that the hearing be conducted by video from this room.”
A NICU nurse entered.
“Anna, Dr. Park has approved a brief visit with your daughter.”
Everything else disappeared.
They helped me into a wheelchair.
Each movement pulled at the incision.
Maya stayed behind with Detective Ellis.
My father walked beside the chair without speaking.
The NICU smelled clean and warm.
Machines surrounded rows of transparent incubators.
The babies inside seemed impossibly small.
A nurse led us to the far corner.
Grace lay beneath a soft light.
A breathing tube covered part of her face.
Wires ran from her chest.
Her skin was red and delicate.
Her hands rested near her head.
I touched the side of the incubator.
“That’s my daughter.”
My father stood behind me.
“Yes.”
“I did this to her.”
“No.”
“I stayed.”
“You survived an abusive situation.”
“I kept thinking it would get better.”
“That is what people who cause harm depend on.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know that?”
His eyes moved toward Grace.
“Because your mother once said the same thing about me.”
I stopped breathing.
My father had never spoken about their marriage in that way.
They had appeared distant sometimes.
Formal.
But never cruel.
“What did you do?”
“Not what David did.”
“Then what?”
“I made her feel that my work was always more important than her fear.”
He placed one hand against the incubator.
“When threats began, I decided what she needed without asking.”
“I hired security.”
“I changed your school.”
“I moved both of you.”
“I treated protection like a court order.”
“She eventually left for six months.”
I remembered those months differently.
I had been nine.
My mother called it an extended visit with her sister.
“She came back.”
“She came back because I learned that being responsible for someone does not mean owning their choices.”
He looked at me.
“I should have remembered that lesson with you.”
Grace’s fingers moved.
I placed my hand through the opening in the incubator.
Her tiny palm rested against one finger.
The world narrowed to that touch.
A nurse approached.
“Her oxygen level is improving.”
I closed my eyes.
“Thank you.”
My father’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
His expression changed.
“What is it?”
He hesitated.
“Your husband has been released from the house.”
“Released?”
“Officers did not arrest him tonight.”
“Why not?”
“The local sheriff arrived.”
I looked at him.
“Nolan.”
“He claimed there was insufficient evidence of intentional assault.”
“But there are witnesses.”
“The investigation is continuing.”
The nurse reminded us that Grace needed rest.
My father pushed my wheelchair back toward the exit.
In the hallway, Maya was waiting.
Her face told me something else had happened.
“What now?”
She handed me a photocopy.
It was an amendment to David’s emergency petition.
He had added a new exhibit.
A marital agreement dated two months earlier.
It gave him control over all joint property if I became medically or psychologically incapacitated.
At the bottom of the document was my signature.
I stared at it.
The handwriting looked exactly like mine.
But I had never seen the agreement before.
Maya pointed to the notary seal.
“The document was witnessed by Sylvia.”
“And notarized by Dr. Vale’s wife.”
I looked at the signature again.
May you like
David had not only prepared to call me unstable.
He had prepared to take everything after he did it.
