Walter hadn’t stayed in his room. Of course he hadn’t. He’d been standing just behind the hallway wall, listening to every word.
He ran straight into my arms.
“Is she coming back?”
“Not tonight.”
He hesitated, pulling back just enough to look up at me. His voice got very small.
“So… am I still going to live with you?”
It was the question he’d been carrying for eleven days. Maybe for four years. Maybe since the day he’d stood at his father’s grave and understood that the people you love can simply disappear.
My chest
ached so badly I could hardly breathe.
“Oh, sweetheart.” I cupped his face in both hands. “You are not getting rid of me that easily.”
He threw his arms around my neck and held on, and I held on right back. And I thought about how hard he’d fought for me while I couldn’t fight for myself. A nine-year-old boy in a hospital chair, keeping watch, refusing to leave, guarding the one person who had never let him go.
Now it was my turn to guard him.
A few days later, I sat in my attorney’s office with the video, the envelope, and the social worker’s notes.
“Lisa’s guardianship attempt is finished,” she told me. “No court is going to look at that footage and hand her anything.”
“And the trust?”
“Moved to independent management. She’ll never be able to touch it.”
“Good,” I said.
It was the only word
I had. But I meant it with every bone in my body.
Lisa would never again have any say over his safety or his future.
Part Fourteen: What I Couldn’t See
A few weeks later, Walter found me tearing the kitchen apart on a school morning.
“You’re doing it again,” he announced from the doorway.
He held up my glasses. “Next to the toaster.”
“I knew that.”
“You checked the refrigerator.”
“I was looking for the milk.”
“We don’t need milk.”
I snatched the glasses out of his hand. “Go get your backpack before you’re late.”
