Chapter 13 - Building a Life That Didn’t Depend on Damon’s Mood
Blythe’s maternity leave continued.
Her body healed slowly.
Her confidence returned even more slowly.
She met with her clinic and arranged a gradual part-time return once medically cleared.
Ellis offered to provide childcare on two mornings.
Kara volunteered for one afternoon.
Blythe also joined a waiting list for licensed infant care.
She refused to build independence entirely around favors.
Her attorney helped untangle finances.
The separate account Damon had created was disclosed.
Temporary support obligations were addressed.
Bills continued.
The mortgage did not care that the marriage was collapsing.
The house eventually would need to be sold or assigned through the divorce process, but not overnight.
Blythe accepted that.
She no longer wanted cinematic justice.
She wanted reliable Tuesdays.
The parenting issue moved carefully.
Damon began supervised visits under the arrangement approved through the legal process.
Reports were factual.
He arrived.
He followed instructions.
He handled Arlo appropriately during the observed periods.
Blythe had complicated feelings about that.
Part of her wanted him to fail because failure would simplify everything.
Instead, reality required her to tolerate uncertainty.
A person could behave safely under supervision and still have committed terrible violence.
A person could love his child and still be unsafe without boundaries.
Damon also entered individual treatment.
Nobody promised Blythe that treatment meant transformation.
She appreciated that.
The criminal case moved toward resolution.
Before final decisions, the prosecutor asked whether Blythe wanted to provide a victim-impact statement.
She wrote four pages.
Then deleted half.
She did not want to tell Damon he had destroyed her.
He had not.
She wrote instead about Arlo’s first week.
How feeding times became police questions.
How the smell of her own bedroom made her nauseated.
How she had spent the first days of motherhood checking doorways.
She ended with one sentence:
You turned my vulnerability into evidence against me before I had even done anything wrong.
Her attorney read it.
“That’s enough.”
Blythe agreed.
Then Loretta asked for something Blythe had been expecting eventually.
She wanted to see Arlo.
Not through Damon.
On her own.
Blythe did not answer immediately.
Loretta had helped expose Damon.
She had also helped him build the first version of his case.
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The final family question was no longer whether Damon would face consequences.
It was what forgiveness, if any, Loretta had earned.
