PART 3 The courthouse smelled like wet coats, old paper, and coffee that had been burned for too many hours.

for protecting herself.

Years passed.

Not perfectly.

Never perfectly.

Co-parenting with Bryce remained complicated. He was sometimes attentive, sometimes inconsistent, sometimes still too focused on appearances. But the legal boundaries held. The girls grew up knowing their father, but they never grew up believing their mother had to disappear to keep continue reading …