Chapter 9 - David Strikes Back
I thought I had misheard her.
“How do you file for custody of a baby who hasn’t been born?”
“You generally don’t.”
My attorney, Rachel Kim, sounded irritated.
“But David filed a broader emergency petition claiming you are medically and psychologically unfit.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“The same petition from his study.”
“Modified.”
Rachel paused.
“He says your father is influencing you.”
Dad, who had been standing near the doorway, immediately left the room.
He understood boundaries.
He had spent his career understanding them.
“What does David want?”
“Control.”
Rachel said it plainly.
“He wants a court order limiting your travel and medical decision-making.”
“Can he get it?”
“Not based on what I’ve seen.”
She hesitated.
“But he’s creating paper.”
David had always taught younger associates that litigation was partly about creating records.
If reality did not favor you, create enough documents that future people had to sort through your version.
Now he was doing that to me.
The petition accused me of hiding my identity.
Manipulating him into marriage.
Suffering paranoid episodes.
Fabricating abuse after a disagreement.
He attached photographs of broken dishes from our home.
I remembered them.
David had smashed those dishes during arguments.
Then ordered me to clean them.
Now they were labeled “Anna’s destructive behavior.”
I felt something inside me settle.
Not fear.
Clarity.
“Rachel.”
“Yes?”
“I kept a journal.”
Silence.
“What kind of journal?”
“Dates.”
“Arguments.”
“Things Sylvia said.”
“Things David broke.”
Rachel’s voice sharpened.
“How far back?”
“Two years.”
“Where is it?”
My old apartment storage unit.
David thought I had closed it when we married.
I had not.
That afternoon, Rachel and Detective Ruiz went with me.
The journal was inside a sealed box behind old college textbooks.
Page after page contained the marriage David insisted had never happened.
March 14.
David smashed the bathroom mirror.
June 2.
Sylvia said I should quit my job because a wife’s income makes a husband look weak.
August 19.
David took my car keys for three days after I visited a friend.
November 11.
David said if I ever left, nobody would believe me.
Rachel closed the journal.
“This changes things.”
But another box sat beneath it.
I did not recognize the label.
When I opened it, I found copies of letters addressed to me.
May you like
Letters David had never given me.
Every one was from my father.
