Chapter 5 - THE FIRST SUPERVISED VISIT
Jason’s first supervised visit took place inside a family-services center near Lincoln Square.
The room contained soft chairs, wooden puzzles, stuffed animals, and a camera mounted near the ceiling.
A licensed monitor sat in the corner with a clipboard.
I brought Lily to the doorway.
The moment she saw Jason, she buried her face against my neck.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
Jason’s eyes filled with tears.
He opened his arms.
“Come here, baby girl.”
Lily would not move.
The monitor asked me to sit beside her for several minutes.
Jason crouched six feet away.
“I’m sorry Grandma scared you.”
My jaw tightened.
He had not said Grandma hurt you.
He had said Grandma scared you.
Lily looked at him carefully.
“Grandma hit.”
Jason glanced at the monitor.
“Grandma made a mistake.”
“Grandma hit.”
“I know.”
“You sit.”
The monitor stopped writing.
Jason’s face changed.
“What did you say?”
Lily pointed toward the chair across the room.
“Grandma hit.”
Then she pointed at him.
“Daddy sit.”
Jason looked at me as if I had taught her the sentence.
I had not.
Lily had remembered the most important part.
He had stayed seated.
For the rest of the visit, Jason tried to play with her.
She allowed him to stack blocks but flinched whenever he moved too quickly.
Near the end, he removed a stuffed rabbit from a gift bag.
“Daddy brought this for you.”
Lily touched one ear.
Then she noticed something tied around the rabbit’s neck.
A silver bracelet.
It belonged to Diane.
I recognized the engraved initials immediately.
I stood.
“That visit is over.”
Jason looked confused.
“It’s just a bracelet.”
“It belongs to the person prohibited from contacting Lily.”
“My mother wanted her to have something familiar.”
The monitor intervened.
“Mr. Bennett, indirect gifts may violate the no-contact order.”
“It is jewelry, not a message.”
I removed the bracelet and handed it to the monitor.
On the inside was a tiny folded strip of paper.
The monitor opened it.
Three words had been written in Diane’s handwriting.
GRANDMA STILL LOVES YOU.
Jason’s face went pale.
“I didn’t know that was there.”
The monitor documented everything.
Outside, I buckled Lily into her car seat while Rebecca spoke with the center director.
Jason followed me into the parking lot.
“Emily, wait.”
“You used a supervised visit to deliver a message from your mother.”
“I said I didn’t know.”
“You never know.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No, Jason.”
I closed the car door.
“Fair would have been our daughter having one parent brave enough to stand up.”
He stepped closer.
“I’m trying to fix this.”
“You’re trying to make it disappear.”
His expression hardened.
“Your evidence folder will not make you a perfect mother.”
“I never claimed to be perfect.”
“No, you just planned to destroy everyone.”
“I planned to survive everyone.”
He looked toward Rebecca.
Then his eyes returned to me.
“What exactly is in that folder?”
The question came too quickly.
Too carefully.
He was not asking because he feared what I had endured.
May you like
He was asking because he needed to know what I could prove.
That night, someone attempted to access my encrypted storage account seventeen times.
