Chapter 1
Theron did not read the entire guardianship packet in the driveway.
His daughter was still kneeling beside her scattered school supplies.
That came first.
He crouched again.
“Ione.”
She looked up.
Her cheeks were wet.
“Come here.”
She moved into his arms immediately.
Theron lifted her.
Then he looked toward his sister.
Her name was Corinne.
Thirty-five.
Recently separated.
Mother of an eight-year-old boy named Miles.
Corinne was pulling a handbag from the muddy wheelbarrow with both hands.
“You’re paying for these.”
Theron nodded.
“Yes.”
That answer stopped her.
Melisande stared at him.
“You’re admitting what you did?”
“I dumped her property into mud.”
Theron looked toward the handbags.
“I’ll deal with that.”
Then he lifted the manila envelope.
“And you’re going to deal with this.”
Melisande folded her arms.
“You’re confused.”
“Am I?”
The first page was titled:
CONSENT TO TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP OF MINOR CHILD
Child:
Ione.
Proposed guardian:
Melisande.
Duration:
Ninety days.
Authority included:
School enrollment.
Routine medical decisions.
Temporary residential placement.
Management of ordinary care reimbursements from Ione’s trust.
And permission to maintain Ione’s primary residence while Theron was allegedly “unable to provide stable daily care due to extended occupational absence.”
Theron looked at the signature.
His signature.
Almost perfect.
The date was four days earlier.
He had been working two counties away on an emergency bridge-repair project.
He had signed nothing.
Corinne walked over.
“You left her.”
“For nine days.”
“That’s leaving.”
“I arranged care with Mom.”
Melisande’s voice became sharp.
“You disappear whenever work calls.”
“I call her every night.”
“You missed Tuesday.”
“I was standing under a damaged bridge with no signal.”
Ione buried her face in his shoulder.
Theron immediately stopped arguing.
His daughter did not need adults litigating her life over her head.
He carried her to his truck and set her carefully in the back seat.
“Stay here for one minute.”
“Are you leaving?”
The question cut through him.
“No.”
He held up the truck key.
“You keep this.”
Ione took it.
“I can’t drive.”
Despite everything, Theron almost smiled.
“That’s reassuring.”
He closed the door without locking it.
Then returned to the driveway.
“Where is her bed?”
Corinne looked away.
Melisande answered.
“Sold.”
“To who?”
“A family from Albany.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Why?”
“We needed the room.”
Theron looked through the open front door.
Boxes were stacked inside the foyer.
Corinne’s boxes.
Miles’s bicycle.
A gaming chair.
Two suitcases.
“You moved Corinne and Miles in.”
“They needed somewhere to stay.”
“So you sold Ione’s bed.”
“She won’t be using it.”
Theron went very still.
“Where is she going?”
Melisande glanced toward the guardianship packet.
There was a second document behind it.
An enrollment reservation.
Northfield Children’s Residence.
A private therapeutic boarding and assessment program in western Massachusetts.
Start date:
Monday.
Three days away.
Theron stared.
“My six-year-old is going to a residential program?”
“Temporary assessment.”
“She doesn’t need an assessment.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m her father.”
“That isn’t a diagnosis.”
Theron read the application summary.
Emotional dysregulation.
Separation anxiety.
School refusal.
Aggression toward peers.
Destructive tantrums.
He looked at his mother.
“Ione has none of this.”
“She has problems.”
“She’s six and her mother died.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
Theron’s wife, Laurel, had died twenty-two months earlier from complications of an autoimmune disease.
Ione had struggled.
She cried.
She occasionally crawled into Theron’s bed at night.
She hated when he traveled.
None of that made her dangerous.
Theron folded the papers.
Then called his attorney.
After that, the police.
Corinne laughed.
“You’re calling police because Mom tried to help?”
Theron looked at the forged signature.
“No.”
“I’m calling because somebody signed my name to a legal document involving my child.”
Melisande’s expression tightened.
Then Theron added:
May you like
“And because my daughter says you sold her bed before anybody had the legal authority to send her anywhere.”
For the first time, Corinne stopped worrying about her muddy handbags.
