Chapter 7 - The Woman Damon Expected to Choose Him
Loretta agreed to meet with the detective handling the case.
She provided the messages Damon had sent her over several months.
The most disturbing ones were not angry.
They were practical.
What should I document?
Would a judge care if she stops sleeping?
Does postpartum anxiety count against custody?
Loretta had answered some of those questions before realizing what Damon was doing.
That complicated everything.
She had not invented the plan.
But she had participated long enough for Damon to believe she supported him.
Blythe struggled with that.
“You helped him.”
“I did.”
“Then changed sides.”
Loretta shook her head.
“I stopped pretending there were sides.”
Blythe did not forgive her.
But she listened.
Loretta explained something about Damon’s childhood that Blythe had never heard.
After Damon’s parents divorced, his father spent years warning him that Loretta might “take him away.”
Every schedule change became a threat.
Every argument became evidence that one parent might disappear.
Damon grew into a man terrified of being abandoned.
Then he transformed that fear into control.
It explained him.
It did not excuse him.
Blythe understood the distinction.
A second pattern also emerged.
Damon had pushed for Blythe to become financially dependent months before the pregnancy became difficult.
He complained about her evening shifts.
Then about Kara.
Then about Ellis “dropping by too much.”
Then about Blythe’s job being stressful.
One restriction had always been presented as temporary.
Together, they formed a cage Blythe had not seen while standing inside it.
That night she pulled out old calendars.
Canceled dinners.
Missed shifts.
Weekends she had skipped because Damon became moody.
She did not need new evidence to make the relationship look worse.
She needed to stop describing old evidence generously.
The next morning Blythe made a deliberate choice.
She contacted her clinic.
“I’m not ready to return yet,” she told her supervisor. “But I want to know what returning part-time could look like.”
Her supervisor said they would discuss options when she was medically cleared.
No miracle.
No instant independence.
Just the beginning of income that belonged to her again.
Two hours later, Damon’s attorney requested temporary access to the marital home so Damon could retrieve personal belongings.
Blythe did not object.
Then her attorney called back.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Damon is asking for the bassinet.”
Blythe stared at Arlo sleeping inside it.
“The bassinet?”
“He says he purchased it.”
Blythe almost laughed.
May you like
Then she realized what the request really meant.
Damon was already preparing to argue that Arlo should spend time in his home.
