She held out a handwritten letter. I kept my arms folded.

“Someday you’ll regret turning your back on your mother.”

“The only thing I’d have regretted is arriving home a week later than I did.”

Chapter 11 — Molly

Our daughter was born twelve days after the first court hearing. We named her Molly — for light, after the darkest chapter of our lives. She was healthy, and she had the exact serious expression Samuel used to make while waiting for his food.

When the nurses laid her on Ashley’s chest, my eyes filled, and I understood how close we had come to losing all of it.

After the trial, we sold the house in Columbus — not in defeat, but because we wouldn’t raise our children in rooms full of those memories. We bought a house near a quiet coastal town, with a backyard for Samuel and a sunlit nursery for Molly.