Chapter 3
I thought everything would be over once Dad came home.
I was seven.
I didn’t understand that sometimes being rescued was only the beginning.
Officer Collins asked Dad to take Lily and me into the living room.
Another officer stayed with Amanda in the kitchen.
Dad sat between us on the couch.
Lily refused to let go of his sleeve.
I refused to let go of Lily.
Dad kept one arm around each of us.
His attorney came inside a few minutes later.
Her name was Rachel Kim.
I had met her once at Dad’s office Christmas party.
That night, she didn’t look like the smiling woman who had given me extra cookies.
She carried a folder thick enough to be a school textbook.
“Daniel.”
Dad stood.
Rachel looked at Lily and me.
Then her expression softened.
“Hey, guys.”
Neither of us answered.
She crouched.
“Tonight might feel confusing. There are going to be adults asking questions. But nobody is angry with either of you.”
Lily pointed toward the kitchen.
“Mom is angry.”
Rachel paused.
“I mean nobody who is here to help you.”
That made more sense.
Dad told us Mark’s wife, Susan, was waiting next door.
I immediately shook my head.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You’re not leaving me.”
“You might go away.”
“I’m staying right here.”
Amanda’s voice suddenly rose from the kitchen.
“You cannot keep my daughter from me!”
Lily flinched.
Dad’s jaw tightened.
Rachel quietly said, “The children shouldn’t hear this.”
Dad nodded.
He walked us next door himself.
Susan had blankets on the couch and a plate of cookies on the coffee table.
I stared at them.
She noticed.
“You can have anything you want.”
I looked at Dad first.
He looked like the fact that I needed permission hurt him.
“Eat, buddy.”
I took one cookie.
Lily took two.
Then she broke one in half and handed half to me.
That almost made Dad cry.
He hugged us before leaving.
“I’ll be twenty feet away.”
“You promise?” I asked.
“I promise.”
I watched him cross the yard.
Susan turned on a cartoon.
Neither Lily nor I watched it.
We sat near the window.
Through the curtains, I saw lights moving inside our house.
Thirty minutes passed.
Then an hour.
Finally Dad returned.
He looked older.
Rachel came with him.
Dad sat on the floor in front of us.
“Amanda is leaving the house tonight.”
Lily whispered, “Where’s Mommy going?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Is she going to jail?”
Dad looked at Rachel.
Rachel answered carefully.
“The police are still deciding what happens next.”
Lily started crying.
That surprised me.
After everything Amanda had done, Lily still wanted her.
I understood later.
Children can love someone and fear them at the same time.
Dad understood immediately.
He pulled Lily onto his lap.
“It’s okay to miss your mom.”
“But she hurt Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“And me.”
Dad’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
“Does that mean I’m bad because I still love her?”
Dad hugged her.
“No. Never.”
I looked toward the window.
A police car was still parked outside.
Amanda came through the front door carrying a suitcase.
An officer walked beside her.
She turned toward Susan’s house.
Even through the darkness, I knew she was looking at us.
Lily ran to the window.
“Mom!”
Amanda started walking toward the yard.
The officer stopped her.
She said something I couldn’t hear.
Then Amanda shouted.
“Lily! Mommy loves you!”
Lily pressed both hands against the glass.
“I love you too!”
My chest hurt.
Amanda looked at me.
Her expression changed.
She pointed at me.
Even from across the yard, I understood the words.
This is your fault.
Dad moved in front of the window.
“That’s enough.”
He closed the curtains.
I stared at the floor.
“She hates me.”
Dad knelt.
“No.”
“She does.”
“What Amanda feels is Amanda’s responsibility.”
“She’s leaving because of me.”
“She’s leaving because of her choices.”
I didn’t believe him.
Not then.
The next morning, two women came to our house.
One was from child protective services.
The other was a child interviewer.
They talked to Lily and me separately.
I hated being separated.
The interviewer gave me crayons.
She asked what happened when Dad traveled.
I told her about noodles.
Then I told her about other things.
The locked pantry.
The nights Amanda told me dinner was only for family.
The time she made me stand in the laundry room because I accidentally spilled juice.
The trash bags she made me use when I got sick because she said I was not allowed to throw up in “her bathroom.”
I hadn’t planned to tell all of it.
Once I started, I couldn’t stop.
The woman’s face barely changed.
But her eyes did.
“Did your dad know?”
I shook my head.
“Amanda said if I told him, Lily would get sent away.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Yes.”
That afternoon, Dad heard what I had said.
He went into the garage alone.
I followed him without him noticing.
He stood beside his car with both hands over his face.
Then he started crying.
I had never seen Dad cry.
Not even at Grandma’s funeral.
I wanted to run away.
Instead I whispered, “Dad?”
He turned quickly.
He wiped his face.
“Hey.”
“Are you mad?”
His expression crumpled.
“At you?”
I nodded.
He crossed the garage and picked me up.
“No.”
“You’re crying.”
“I’m crying because I should have seen it.”
“Amanda said you’d choose her.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“She told you that?”
I nodded.
He carried me inside.
Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table with papers everywhere.
Dad told her.
Rachel stopped writing.
Then she said something I didn’t understand until years later.
“That’s coercive control through a child.”
Dad sat down.
“What happens now?”
“We file for emergency temporary custody of Lily and a protection order for both children. Daniel, there’s something else.”
She pulled a document from the folder.
“I asked your accountant to review the household accounts after what you told me last night.”
Dad frowned.
“Why?”
Rachel slid the paper toward him.
“Because abuse like this rarely stays in one category.”
Dad read it.
His face slowly changed.
“What am I looking at?”
“Withdrawals.”
“From where?”
Rachel hesitated.
Then she looked at me.
“From Ethan’s trust.”
I didn’t know I had a trust.
May you like
Dad did.
And from the look on his face, Amanda had just made everything much worse.
