At bedtime she asked questions that pierced me with their precision.
“Do judges know who tells the truth?”
“Can dads decide not to be dads anymore?”
“If somebody lies in court, does God get mad?”
“Would you still find me if I had to sleep somewhere else?”
I answered as carefully as I could, my own terror locked under my ribs like something radioactive. “Judges try to know the truth.” “Dads don’t stop being dads, even when they act wrong.” “Yes, I think God cares about lies.” “I would always find you. Always.”
The last one I said without hesitation because there are promises mothers make from a place deeper than certainty.
One night, about three weeks before the hearing, she sat cross-legged on the living room rug with her tablet propped against the coffee table. I had bought the tablet used the year before for educational games and drawing apps. It came in a thick purple case with rubbery handles and a cracked corner I could never quite clean. She loved it because it was hers, a small portal to cartoons and coloring pages and the occasional dance video she tried to imitate in the hallway.
She looked up at me while I folded laundry on the couch.