Chapter 5 - THE MOTHER WHO HAD BEEN WRITING FOR FOUR YEARS
Leah lived ninety miles south in Eugene.
She was thirty-four.
She worked as a veterinary technician.
She had been sober for four years and lived in a small apartment with a roommate and two elderly cats.
Nothing about her life matched the monster Dennis described.
That did not mean her history was simple.
Five years earlier, after Sophie’s birth, Leah developed severe postpartum depression. She was also dependent on opioid pain medication after a complicated C-section.
Dennis took Sophie frequently during those months because Leah was unstable.
Barbara helped arrange treatment.
Leah entered a residential program when Sophie was seven months old.
She signed a temporary agreement allowing Dennis to care for the baby while she completed treatment.
“I thought it was six months,” Leah told Marissa during their first attorney-to-attorney conversation.
It became years.
While Leah was in treatment, Dennis filed for sole custody.
Not secretly.
There had been a court case.
But notices went to an old apartment after Leah moved between programs. Barbara knew where Leah was and did not give Dennis the new address.
“Why?” Elmer asked when Trisha finally brought Barbara to a meeting.
Barbara sat rigidly in Elmer’s living room.
“Because Leah was using drugs.”
“She was in treatment.”
“She always relapsed.”
“Did she?”
Barbara looked away.
Leah did relapse once.
Then she returned to treatment.
By the time she stabilized, Dennis had primary custody.
Leah lacked money for a lawyer.
She began sending letters.
Some to Dennis.
Some to Barbara.
Some addressed directly to Sophie.
Barbara kept them.
“For what reason?” Trisha demanded.
Her mother began crying.
“I thought contact would destabilize everyone.”
“You mean me.”
Barbara did not answer.
The truth was worse than simple deception.
Barbara knew Dennis fathered Sophie with Leah during a brief period when Dennis and Trisha had temporarily broken up.
When Trisha reconciled with Dennis, Barbara begged everyone to keep the paternity secret.
Trisha had been devastated by Leah’s addiction and disappearance.
Barbara told herself revealing that Sophie was Leah’s child would destroy Trisha’s marriage and push Leah backward.
So the family built a replacement story.
Jenna Collins.
A fictional woman easy to hate and impossible to contact.
Dennis took custody.
Trisha became Sophie’s stepmother without knowing she was also Sophie’s aunt.
Elmer stared at Barbara.
“You let your daughter raise her own sister’s child without knowing.”
Barbara wiped her eyes.
“I thought I was protecting both of them.”
From the hallway came a small voice.
“Grandpa?”
Everyone stopped.
Sophie stood clutching her rabbit.
May you like
“Is Leah coming to take me away?”
Elmer realized then that truth itself could become another adult weapon unless they handled it carefully.
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