Chương 7
“Sophie went through a blueberry phase.”
“Is she out of it?”
“Violently.”
Jenna found a bottle of sparkling water.
“Do you want one?”
“No.”
“Wine?”
“No.”
“Tequila?”
Mara looked at her.
“Jenna.”
“I’m establishing the range.”
The doorbell rang.
Both women froze.
Jenna put down the bottle.
“If that’s him, I get to hit him.”
“No.”
“Emotionally?”
“No.”
“Can I look disappointed?”
“You’re gifted at that.”
Jenna went to the front window.
“It’s Denise.”
Mara exhaled.
Her attorney entered carrying a leather bag, a laptop, and the expression of a woman who had postponed dinner for a problem important enough not to resent.
Denise Harlan was fifty-two and dressed as though she had never once been surprised by weather. Dark suit. Low shoes. Hair pinned neatly at the nape of her neck.
She hugged Mara briefly.
“Kids?”
“Upstairs.”
“Good.”
She looked at Jenna.
“Can I trust you?”
“No,” Jenna said.
Denise nodded.
“Perfect. Make coffee.”
Jenna saluted.
Denise sat at the table and opened her laptop.
“I received the authentic report directly from the lab.”
Mara leaned back.
“And?”
“It’s legitimate. Proper collection documentation. Proper authorization. No obvious issue.”
“Obviously.”
“I’m a lawyer. We live inside obvious.”
Jenna turned on the coffee maker.
Denise continued.
“Richard’s counsel also sent the trust payment records voluntarily.”
“Voluntarily.”
“He is trying very hard to be useful.”
“He feels guilty.”
“Guilt occasionally produces excellent discovery.”
Mara looked down at her untouched cereal.
“What can Owen do?”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Legally, he can ask.”
“That’s it?”
“For emergency access, he’d need a reason beyond suddenly wanting to see children he voluntarily stopped seeing for months. I do not anticipate a judge rewarding dramatic timing.”
Mara nodded.
“What about the old test?”
“We need the entire provenance.”
“Richard says it was a PDF Celeste gave Owen.”
“I know.”
Denise opened another file.
“Owen’s attorney sent me the email chain.”
Mara looked up.
“That was fast.”
“He appears to be in full cooperation mode.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t dismiss cooperation just because you hate the timing.”
“I don’t hate the timing.”
Denise studied her.
Mara sighed.
“I hate everything about him right now.”
“Better.”
“What?”
“Accurate statements are useful.”
Jenna placed coffee in front of them.
Denise rotated her laptop.
An email from Celeste to Owen appeared on the screen.
Attachment: Ellison_Paternity_Report_Final.pdf.
The message was short.
Results attached. I am so sorry. Call me before you call anyone else.
Mara stared at the date.
Eleven months earlier.
She remembered that night.
Owen had called at 8:17.
She had been drying Sophie’s hair after a bath.
He had not said hello.
He had said, Tell me the truth.
Mara had thought he was talking about a financial statement connected to the separation.
Then he said Luke’s name.
Then Sophie’s.
Then he said the word paternity.
She had laughed because the accusation was so absurd she assumed he was drunk.
He was not.
Denise tapped the screen.
“This is important.”
“What?”
“He received the report from Celeste.”
“We knew that.”
“Yes. But there’s no evidence here he ever received anything directly from a lab.”
Mara looked at the attachment again.
“How did he not notice?”
Denise gave her a long look.
“That is not a legal question.”
“No.”
“It may become an important human one.”
Jenna snorted from the counter.
“Because he’s an idiot?”
Denise looked at her.
“That is also not a legal question.”
Jenna sipped her coffee.
“I remain interested.”
Denise closed the laptop halfway.
“There is another issue.”
Mara waited.
“Richard’s financial evidence points toward Victoria. It does not yet establish what she understood the money was purchasing.”
“She knew.”
“I believe you.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Mara rubbed her forehead.
“What about Celeste?”
“She has retained criminal defense counsel.”
Jenna stopped drinking.
“That sounds promising.”
“It sounds cautious.”
“Can she be charged?”
Denise looked at Mara, not Jenna.
“Possibly, depending on exactly what was forged, how it was used, who created it, and what evidence exists. But we are not building your life around a criminal case.”
“Good.”
“What we are building around is the children.”
Mara nodded.
Denise reopened the laptop.
“Owen’s attorney proposes an interim agreement.”
“So soon?”
“He wants to resume contact.”
“No.”
“I told him no unsupervised contact.”
“Denise.”
“I said no unsupervised contact. I did not say no contact.”
Mara stared.
Denise remained calm.
“You told him?”
“I told his attorney that any future contact would need to proceed through a child-focused reunification process, if appropriate.”
“I haven’t agreed.”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because if you make a permanent decision tonight, you are making it in the same emotional condition you accuse Owen of acting from eleven months ago.”
Mara stood.
Jenna looked between them.
Denise did not move.
Mara’s voice stayed quiet.
“Do not compare us.”
“I didn’t.”
“You just did.”
“I compared decisions made under emotional pressure.”
“He walked away from his children.”
“Yes.”
“He ignored every request to retest.”
“Yes.”
“He let a woman he’d known for less than a year hand him a piece of paper that said his children weren’t his and used it to erase six years.”
“Yes.”
“And now I’m supposed to prove I’m more reasonable than him.”
“No.”
Mara turned away.
The kitchen sink was full of two breakfast bowls she had forgotten to wash that morning.
She stared at them.
Denise’s voice softened.
“You do not owe Owen access.”
Mara looked over her shoulder.
“You owe Luke and Sophie a decision that is about them rather than him.”
Silence.
Jenna looked down at her coffee.
Mara hated Denise for being right in exactly the way she paid her to be.
“What would the process look like?”
“Slow.”
“Define slow.”
“Evaluation first. Then perhaps letters. Maybe video. Maybe supervised visits. It depends on the children.”
“Owen will hate that.”
Denise’s mouth moved slightly.
“That is not our problem.”
Mara sat again.
“Okay.”
“Okay meaning?”
“Okay meaning I won’t say never tonight.”
Denise nodded.
May you like
“That’s enough.”
Three days later, Owen wrote his first letter to Luke.
