Chapter 38 - The Father’s Claim
Marcus Wren filed for emergency temporary custody before Abigail finished her medical examination.
His lawyers argued biology, danger, instability, and the failure of Lydia’s secrecy arrangement.
The papers were brutal in their simplicity.
He was the alleged biological father.
The current guardian arrangement had failed.
Abigail had been manipulated and gone missing.
Therefore, he claimed, she should be placed with him pending adjudication.
Abigail refused.
“I don’t know him.”
The child advocate appointed by the court interviewed her privately.
Grant was not allowed in.
Neither was I.
That was correct.
Still, waiting outside the room felt unbearable.
Eleanor sat with both hands clenched around her purse.
“She’ll think I failed her.”
“You did fail her in some ways,” I said.
She looked at me sharply.
I did not soften it.
“But failure isn’t the same as not loving her.”
Her eyes filled.
“That’s what I’m afraid she won’t understand.”
“Children understand more than adults think. They also remember what adults admit.”
That had become one of the central truths of the Mercer house.
Grant sat across the hall.
Marcus stood farther down with counsel.
The two men did not speak.
When Abigail came out, she looked at Eleanor first.
Then at me.
Then Grant.
Not Marcus.
The next morning, the judge denied Marcus immediate custody.
Temporary placement would remain under neutral guardianship with Eleanor’s involvement, subject to further investigation.
Marcus’s face did not change.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Outside the courthouse, reporters shouted.
“Mr. Mercer, did your wife hide another child from you?”
“Is Abigail entitled to Noah’s trust?”
“Are you seeking custody?”
“Tessa, are you now caring for both Mercer heirs?”
That last one made my skin crawl.
Grant stopped.
Dawson touched his arm. “Keep moving.”
Grant did not.
He faced the cameras.
“This is an eleven-year-old child, not an heir-shaped headline. Stop using her as one.”
Then he walked away.
Simple.
Clean.
Necessary.
That evening Abigail was brought to a secure residential home near the Mercer property. She had refused the estate itself.
“I’m not living in his house,” she told the advocate.
Grant accepted it.
He visited only when invited.
The first visit lasted twelve minutes.
He brought no gifts.
Just Lydia’s real letters and copies of the forensic findings about the forgery.
Abigail asked him one question.
“Would you have wanted me?”
Grant took a long time.
Too long, maybe.
But this time he did not hide the pause.
“I wish I could tell you I would have known exactly what to do. I don’t know that. I know I would have been shocked. Hurt that Lydia hid you. Probably afraid of Marcus. But wanting you and knowing what to do are different things.”
Abigail watched him.
“So maybe Mom was right.”
“Maybe about part of me.”
“And now?”
“Now I know you exist.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Grant nodded.
“No. It isn’t.”
He leaned forward.
“Now I want the chance to know you without pretending I earned it before meeting you.”
Abigail looked down at her hands.
No hug.
No dramatic reconciliation.
But when he left, she asked the advocate whether she could meet Noah.
The next day, we prepared the nursery sitting room.
No cameras visible.
No crowd.
No pressure.
Abigail entered slowly.
Noah stared at her.
She stared back.
Then he held out his plush rabbit.
“For you.”
Abigail began to cry.
And somewhere beyond the window, a camera shutter clicked.
May you like
Eli turned toward the sound.
Someone had photographed their first meeting.
