Chapter 3 - The Old Travel Letter
I had given my mother permission to take Ione to Canada before.
That complicated everything.
Two summers earlier, when Ione was five, my parents took her to Québec City for four days.
I was recovering from minor surgery and could not travel.
Her mother was dead.
I had been Ione’s sole legal parent since she was three.
My wife, Celeste, died from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm.
Sudden.
No long illness.
No custody dispute.
No missing-parent ambiguity.
Just me.
Before the Québec trip, our family attorney prepared a notarized travel authorization.
It allowed Vaughn and Marjorie to travel internationally with Ione to Canada during specified family holidays for two years.
Why two years?
Convenience.
My parents had a lake property in Vermont and relatives in Québec.
We expected repeat trips.
The letter required:
Advance itinerary to me.
Contact information.
No trip longer than fourteen days.
Either I or the grandparents could cancel.
And it expired on September 1 of the current year.
The current date was August 11.
Legally, the authorization had not yet reached its expiration date.
That made Marjorie’s plan more sophisticated than:
steal passport and hope nobody asks.
She believed the old letter still gave her enough documentary cover.
But she had not provided me an itinerary.
I had not approved this trip.
And the authorization had always been for agreed family travel.
Not unilateral removal after secret discipline.
I texted our attorney that night:
Effective immediately, I revoke any prior authorization for international travel with Ione by Marjorie or Vaughn Duvall.
He called within five minutes.
“Send that by email too.”
I did.
He contacted the airline’s legal desk the next morning and advised what records to preserve.
No dramatic national border alert needed because the flight had departed without them.
Ione remained beside me.
Passport remained with me.
The immediate travel risk was over.
May you like
The legal questions were beginning.
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