Chapter 4 - THE COST OF CUTTING THEM OFF
I gave the paper to the Children Services caseworker and contacted a family-law attorney named Marissa Cole.
Marissa filed for a temporary protection order preventing Diane and Bethany from contacting Rosie, entering her preschool, or coming to my house. She also notified the trust administrator that no caregiver requests involving either woman should be approved.
The changes cost me immediately.
I withdrew Rosie from afternoon preschool care because Diane was listed as an emergency contact and knew the pickup routine. I hired a licensed nanny recommended by the hospital social worker.
The new arrangement cost nearly half my monthly take-home pay.
I also told my supervisor I could not travel to a hospital-renovation project in Cincinnati. The assignment went to another estimator, along with the promotion I had been working toward.
Diane left twelve voicemails.
In the first, she cried.
In the second, she accused me of misunderstanding a therapeutic exercise.
By the seventh, she was threatening to tell the court I was mentally unstable.
Bethany sent only one message.
You’re hurting Mason to punish me.
I did not respond.
The trust administrator called that afternoon. She sounded concerned rather than surprised.
Diane had already submitted three reimbursement packages claiming that Bethany provided Rosie with forty hours of weekly therapeutic care.
The requests totaled $18,600.
They included meal receipts, mileage logs, photographs of Rosie’s bruises, and statements describing my home as emotionally unsafe.
“My signature isn’t on those requests,” I said.
“It appears on two electronic authorizations.”
Diane once helped me reset the trust password after I lost access to the account. I had entered the new password on her tablet while she sat beside me.
I had never changed it.
The administrator suspended all pending requests and started a fraud review.
One attachment listed Bethany’s house as the location where Rosie would live if “family conditions required emergency placement.”
Another requested permission to use trust money for housing modifications.
The amount matched exactly what Bethany needed to stop her mortgage foreclosure.
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The bruises were not only being hidden.
They were being submitted as evidence that my daughter should be removed from me.
