Chapter 7: The Morning He Didn't Expect
The courtroom was smaller than I had imagined.
I had pictured something formal and imposing — high ceilings, wood panels, the kind of room that announces its own gravity.
What I got was a beige room on the fourth floor of the family court building, with fluorescent lighting and plastic chairs and a clerk who was eating a granola bar when we walked in.
Patricia was already there, two folders open on the table, a yellow legal pad covered in notes.
"He filed a counter-motion at seven this morning," she said before I had even sat down.
"What kind?"
"He's claiming you removed Lily from the marital home without consent and that you've been engaged in a pattern of emotional instability since the birth." She said it the way a doctor reads a diagnosis — factually, without alarm.
"He attached the physician's letter."
"Who signed it?"
She turned the page toward me.
A name I didn't recognize.
Dr.
A.
Prentiss.
"He's a general practitioner," Patricia said.
"Not a psychiatrist.
Not a psychologist.
He has no specialist standing to make a competency assessment.
I've already flagged that for the judge." She tapped the folder.
"He also listed Mitchell Hargrove as a character witness."
"Hargrove was at the party yesterday.
He saw everything."
"Which is exactly why Daniel listing him is a mistake.
I'll be asking Hargrove to explain the nature of his prior consultation with Daniel.
In front of the judge." She almost smiled.
"He won't enjoy that."
Daniel arrived eight minutes before the hearing.
He came in with a younger attorney I didn't recognize — someone new, someone who hadn't been at the party.
He sat on the opposite side of the room and did not look at me.
His mother walked in two minutes later.
She sat on my side of the room.
Daniel turned when he heard the chair.
He stared at her for a long moment.
She folded her hands in her lap and looked straight ahead.
The judge was a woman in her late fifties, reading glasses low on her nose, who reviewed both filings without expression for three full minutes before she spoke.
"Mr.
Chen," she said, "you've submitted a physician's letter raising concerns about your wife's mental stability.
Can you tell me when this letter was written?"
Daniel's new attorney leaned in and murmured something.
"February fourteenth," Daniel said.
"February fourteenth." The judge looked over her glasses.
"Your wife was six months pregnant in February."
"Yes, Your Honor."
"And the physician who signed this letter — Dr.
Prentiss — is he a psychiatrist?"
"He's our family doctor."
"He's a general practitioner."
"Yes."
The judge set the letter down.
"Mr.
Chen, a general practitioner's opinion on psychiatric fitness carries no legal weight in a custody proceeding.
I'm setting this letter aside." She picked up Patricia's filing.
"Mrs.
Chen, you've submitted evidence of unauthorized transfers from a joint marital account totaling approximately fifteen thousand dollars.
You've also submitted a documented record of communication between your husband and a third party, including communications in which your husband refers to managing you as — " she paused and read from the page — " 'a problem to handle.' Is this correct?"
"Yes, Your Honor," Patricia said.
"And you have a witness prepared to testify regarding the nature of a prior legal consultation between Mr.
Chen and attorney Mitchell Hargrove?"
"We do."
Daniel's attorney was on his feet.
"Your Honor, attorney-client privilege—"
"Does not apply to communications made in furtherance of a fraudulent scheme," the judge said, without looking up.
"Sit down, counselor."
He sat.
The judge wrote something on her pad.
"I'm granting the temporary protective order," she said.
"Mr.
Chen, you may have supervised visitation with your daughter, to be arranged through counsel, until a full hearing can be scheduled.
You are not to approach the marital home, your wife's workplace, or her mother's residence." She looked at him over her glasses.
"I'm also referring the matter of the joint account transfers to the financial review division.
Someone will be in touch."
Daniel's face had gone the same color it had been at the party.
He leaned toward his attorney and said something sharp and low.
His attorney shook his head.
"We're adjourned," the judge said.
I sat still for a moment after the gavel came down.
Patricia put her hand briefly on my arm.
"First round," she said.
"But it's a good first round."
I nodded.
Across the room, Daniel stood.
He buttoned his jacket.
He picked up his phone.
And then he looked at me — directly, for the first time since the hotel — and said, quietly enough that only I could hear: "This isn't over."
May you like
"No," I agreed.
"It isn't."
