Chapter 7 - THE SCHOOL HAD HEARD ABOUT “MOMMY” FIRST
Emma’s elementary-school counselor contacted Damian after receiving permission to coordinate with the child-welfare investigation.
She had something he did not know.
Three weeks earlier, Emma had told another child that her real mother might “come back soon.”
The teacher assumed it was grief-related fantasy.
When she gently asked Emma about it, Emma became nervous.
She said:
“Celeste says it’s a surprise.”
The school called Celeste because she was listed as the daytime contact while Damian traveled.
Celeste told them Emma had been struggling with imaginative grief.
She asked them not to mention it to Damian because he became “very emotional about Allison.”
Again.
She intercepted the warning.
Again.
She supplied the interpretation.
Damian sat in the counselor’s office gripping the arm of the chair.
“Why didn’t anyone call me?”
“You authorized your wife as primary daytime contact.”
He had.
That responsibility belonged to him.
The counselor continued.
Emma had also started drawing two houses.
One with Damian.
One with a woman labeled only through a stick figure with long yellow hair like Allison’s.
No words were visible in the artwork because Emma’s teacher had asked children to explain their drawings verbally.
Emma said the second house was where she might live “after Daddy goes away for work.”
Damian felt cold.
Celeste had built her plan around his travel schedule.
She knew he was supposed to remain in Chicago through Monday.
She knew Lauren could reach the house in under two hours.
She knew Emma had been primed to leave willingly if she believed Allison was waiting.
The rainstorm had changed nothing.
Celeste had still put the child outside.
Not because she expected Emma to wander away.
Because Lauren was supposed to arrive within minutes.
One question remained.
What was Celeste going to tell Damian afterward?
That answer arrived that night.
Lauren found a draft message Celeste had sent her accidentally, then deleted.
Lauren’s phone still showed the notification preview.
Emma begged me not to go back. Please let Damian cool down before you answer him.
May you like
The message was timestamped eleven minutes before Damian came through the garage.
Celeste had written the aftermath before the event was finished.
