I did that.” And he agreed, then and there, to joint custody with me as the primary residential parent, to a clear and legally binding visitation schedule, and to court-ordered support.

He did not fight me on a single term.

The man who had, a week earlier, tried to trade our son for a house he did not own, sat across from me and, for the first time, put the child ahead of himself.

It did not undo what he had done.

But it was not nothing, and I made myself see it.

Chapter 16 — What He Could Prove