Chapter 6
The “everything else” included a caregiver record.
Maribel maintained a spreadsheet titled:
Ivy Care Hours.
Week one:
18 hours.
Week two:
Week three:
Week four:
Week five:
Week six:
By the seventh week, the sheet described Maribel as providing more direct care than Elowen.
That was absurd.
Maribel did visit constantly.
She held Ivy.
Brought meals.
Sometimes watched her while Elowen showered or napped.
But she had never spent fifty-one hours in a single week caring for the baby.
Stellan pulled household security records.
Week six:
Maribel had been inside their home for eleven hours total.
Not fifty-one.
The spreadsheet counted:
Phone calls.
Shopping.
Nursery preparation at Maribel’s house.
Travel time.
Research.
“Emotional planning.”
Even time Lucinda spent with Ivy appeared under Maribel’s column.
Why build inflated caregiver hours?
A family-law attorney answered.
They did not create legal parenthood.
But in a contested emergency proceeding, evidence about who had actually cared for an infant could affect credibility and temporary safety proposals.
Especially if someone claimed a parent was impaired.
Then investigators found the draft petition.
Not an adoption petition.
Emergency Petition for Temporary Guardianship of Minor Child.
Petitioner:
Maribel Shaw.
Allegations included:
Elowen’s postpartum instability.
Inconsistent feeding.
“Episodes of emotional detachment.”
Dependence on extended family.
Statements of inadequacy.
Stellan’s demanding travel schedule.
And an alleged pre-birth agreement that Maribel would assume care if Elowen could not cope.
Attached exhibit:
The forged adoption-planning acknowledgment.
The petition had never been filed.
The lawyer who drafted an early version had refused to proceed.
His email to Lucinda was blunt.
You do not have evidence supporting emergency removal from fit parents. Parenting exhaustion and ordinary postpartum distress are not incapacity. Do not exaggerate facts, and do not present any consent document unless authenticity is confirmed directly with Elowen.
Lucinda replied:
We are only preparing for emergencies.
The lawyer withdrew from further representation anyway.
Maribel hired another attorney for a consultation.
That attorney gave the same answer.
No emergency basis.
No automatic standing.
No adoption without valid consent.
No shortcut.
Then came Elowen’s postpartum counselor.
With Elowen’s permission, Rachel obtained a summary.
Elowen had experienced anxiety after the C-section.
Sleep disruption.
Tearfulness.
Fear she was doing everything wrong.
No psychosis.
No suicidal ideation.
No impaired reality testing.
No inability to care for Ivy.
The counselor had actually written:
Patient demonstrates strong attachment to infant, appropriate help-seeking, and intact judgment.
Lucinda’s timeline quoted only:
tearful... overwhelmed... fears inadequacy.
Three fragments.
Three omissions.
The same technique again.
Stellan looked at Elowen.
“They were turning every normal hard day into evidence.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me how bad the comments had gotten?”
She stared at him.
“I did.”
He stopped.
Because she had.
May you like
He simply kept hearing them as individual comments instead of a pattern.
That realization changed something in their marriage more quietly than the forged signature did.
