Chapter 10 - The Plan Behind My Back
I forwarded the image to Leah.
Then I called her.
“What is this?”
“An inquiry form,” she said. “It isn’t authorization to place him anywhere.”
“She was planning to send him away.”
“We need the full document.”
My hands were shaking so hard I put the phone on speaker.
Three weeks earlier, Claire had suggested a “special preschool.”
I’d said we could discuss it after the wedding.
She’d called it a place that helped children become independent.
I had pictured art tables. A playground. Teachers with patient voices.
The form described a weekday boarding arrangement for young children.
Noah’s date of birth was typed correctly.
Beside reason for inquiry, someone had written:
Father agrees child needs separation to improve adjustment.
“I never agreed to that.”
“I understand,” Leah said. “Don’t go over there.”
I stayed with Noah.
The next morning, Leah contacted the program through its listed office.
There was no enrollment. No signed parental consent. No placement waiting to happen.
Only several inquiries from Claire, who had described herself as Noah’s mother.
That was enough.
Leah arranged to obtain the relevant correspondence, and I gave the information to the investigator handling our report.
Then Claire called.
I let it go to voicemail.
Her message began softly.
“I wasn’t trying to get rid of him.”
A breath.
“I was trying to save us.”
Another breath.
“You don’t know what it’s like being second to someone who’s dead.”
I listened once.
Then I saved it.
That afternoon, I went home with Rachel while Noah stayed with her husband.
Claire had agreed through Leah to collect belongings at a scheduled time later that week.
The house felt wrong without my son.
I removed the brass hook from the laundry room door.
The screw squealed.
Under the hamper, I found a folded sheet of paper.
A child’s drawing.
Me and Noah, holding hands.
May you like
On the back, in Claire’s neat handwriting, were three words.
DADDY NEEDS SPACE.
