Chapter 3 - THE REPORT THAT INCLUDED MY NAME
Because Rosie had repeated an accusation involving me, the hospital could not simply treat me as the safe parent.
Franklin County Children Services opened an assessment covering everyone who had regular access to her.
A caseworker photographed the bruises, interviewed me, and contacted Rosie’s preschool. I agreed to an immediate safety plan prohibiting Diane and Bethany from seeing Rosie while the assessment remained open.
The caseworker also asked whether I had ever grabbed, struck, or physically punished my daughter.
“No.”
“Have you had problems with alcohol?”
The question came too quickly to be routine.
After Megan died, I drank more than I should have. Never while caring for Rosie and never during work, but enough that Diane confronted me once after finding whiskey bottles in my recycling bin.
I stopped drinking eighteen months earlier.
“How did you hear about that?” I asked.
The caseworker closed her notebook.
“Your mother filed a report three weeks ago.”
I felt as though the floor had shifted beneath the chair.
Diane had claimed Rosie sometimes arrived at her house hungry, unwashed, and afraid of my temper. She reported seeing bruises but said she had been reluctant to accuse her grieving son without proof.
No one had contacted me because the first report lacked enough detail for an immediate investigation.
The birthday incident changed that.
At home, I packed Rosie’s pajamas and slept on the floor beside her bed. She woke twice, screaming that she was sorry.
The next morning, her preschool director called.
Diane had visited the school several times over the previous month. She asked teachers to write down every occasion when Rosie cried at drop-off, resisted going home, or mentioned that I was angry.
“She said you were preparing for a custody review,” the director explained.
“I’m not.”
“She brought forms with your signature.”
I asked her to preserve everything.
After the call, I examined Rosie’s stuffed rabbit. One ear had been torn open when Bethany crushed it on the table.
Inside the stuffing was a folded strip of paper.
It contained four sentences written in Diane’s handwriting.
Daddy grabbed me.
Daddy leaves me alone.
I’m scared to go home.
I want to live with Grandma.
May you like
At the bottom, my mother had written one final instruction.
Practice until she can say it without stopping.
