Chapter 1 - The Blue Binder
The fellowship hall of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church was dead silent except for the faint hum of the industrial refrigerator in the corner.
I stood holding the blue binder in my hands. The cover was protected by a clear plastic sleeve. Beneath it was a picture from two summers ago—Molly, radiant despite the early shadows of her heart condition, sitting on a picnic blanket with Nora on her lap and baby Sadie laughing in a sunhat.
Derek reached out, his hand darting forward to snatch the binder from my fingers. "That's my wife's personal property. Give that to me."
Before his fingers could touch the vinyl cover, my brother Richard stepped into his path. Richard was fifty-one, six-foot-two, and a supervisor for the Ohio Department of Transportation. He didn't say a word. He simply placed a heavy, calloused hand against Derek’s chest and pushed him back three paces.
"Touch my sister or those children again today, Derek," Richard said in a low, gravelly voice, "and the police won't need to drive far to find you."
"She’s stealing my property!" Derek hissed, his voice cracking as he looked around at the remaining guests. Most of our relatives—aunts, uncles, cousins, and old neighbors—were staring at him with a mixture of disgust and cold horror.
I turned the first page of the binder.
Molly’s handwriting was neat, slanted to the right, written in blue ballpoint pen on lined loose-leaf paper. My daughter had known. Long before her heart gave out, while I was busy making excuses for Derek's late nights and missed doctor visits, Molly had seen the truth with agonizing clarity.
Mom,
If you are reading this page, it means I am gone, and Derek has proven to be exactly who I feared he was becoming. I am so sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was embarrassed. I felt like a failure because my marriage was falling apart while I was fighting for my life.
Derek stopped loving our family the moment my diagnosis became permanent. He doesn't want the girls because they remind him of my illness, of responsibility, and of everything he cannot control. He will try to relinquish them. He will claim he is overwhelmed, or broke, or unfit.
Do not let him put Nora and Sadie into the system. Underneath Tab 1, you will find a notarized declaration of temporary custody, signed by me three months ago during my second hospitalization. Underneath Tab 2, you will find the bank records for an account he doesn't know about, along with evidence of where our family money actually went.
Fight him, Mom. Protect my babies.
All my love,
Molly
My eyes welled with hot, furious tears, but I refused to let them fall. I closed the binder and gripped it against my chest like armor.
"You knew," I whispered, looking past my brother at Derek. "She knew what you were going to do."
Derek’s face went from flushed red to a sickly, pale grey. "Molly was sick. She was on heavy medication during her last few months. She wasn't in her right mind. Whatever is in that book is the rambling of a dying, confused woman."
"She was clear enough to get a document notarized, Derek," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet room. "She saw right through you."
Nora was still holding Sadie’s hand. The seven-year-old looked up at me, her brown eyes unnaturally large in her pale face. "Grandma, is Daddy going away now?"
"Yes, sweetheart," I said, kneeling down so I was eye-level with both of them. "Your daddy is leaving. But you two are coming home with me. Right now."
"You can't just take them!" Derek yelled, though he took a step back as Richard shifted his weight. "I'm their legal father! I have parental rights!"
"Then use them, Derek!" my sister Karen interjected, stepping out from behind the coffee urns, her eyes flashing with rage. "Take them home! Feed them! Put them to bed! Oh wait—you packed their bags in cheap suitcases and brought them to a funeral home to abandon them! You surrendered your rights the moment you said the words 'foster care' in front of fifty people!"
Derek looked around the room. Kelsey was gone; her car engine could be heard starting outside in the gravel parking lot, followed by the screech of tires as she drove away, leaving him completely alone.
He looked at the two little girls. There was no affection in his eyes—only inconvenience, embarrassment, and resentment.
"Fine," Derek spat out, adjusting his suit jacket with trembling hands. "Take them for the night. See how much you like being a full-time mother again at forty-three. You think it's easy? You think raising two kids on your own is a picnic? Take them. But don't come crawling to me when you realize you can't afford them."
May you like
"I will never ask you for a single thing, Derek," I said, standing up and taking the handles of the purple and cartoon-animal suitcases. "Except to stay far away from my grandchildren."
He turned on his heel and walked out the heavy oak doors of the fellowship hall. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the room like a gavel falling.
