“Emily,” she said over the phone while I sat on the floor of my bedroom with the petition trembling in my hands, “I need you to listen carefully. His filing is strategic. It does not make it true.”
“They’re saying I’m unstable.”
“They’re saying you are under stress.”
“Because he left.”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “Convenient, isn’t it?”
I laughed through tears.
“Something is off,” she continued. “Men who intend fair custody arrangements usually don’t begin by trying to erase the mother. He’s planning something or hiding something. Either way, we answer with facts. Not panic.”
Facts. The cleanest tools in a dirty fight.