Bang. Bang. Bang.
My first thought was Ruth. She was always misplacing something.
I opened the door and literally froze.
Mia was standing there.
She was soaked, terrified, and completely ALONE.
Her hair clung to her face, her lips were almost blue, and she kept looking over her shoulder toward the street.
“Where is the baby?” I asked.
Mia’s face twisted. “He took her.”
My anger disappeared, replaced by something colder.
“Who took her?”
“Bruce.”
I should have shut the door. Some wounded part of me wanted to. But Mia looked nothing like the woman who had smiled on my porch and told me she had won.
She looked hunted.
“Come in,” I said.
She stepped inside, trembling so badly I had to help her sit down. I gave her a towel and one of my sweaters. She wrapped both hands around a mug of tea but didn’t drink.
“What happened?” I asked.
Mia stared at the table.
“After Lily was born, Bruce changed.”
“Lily?”
“My daughter.”
Mia wiped her face. “At first, I thought he was just nervous. He cried when he held her. He kept saying, ‘My daughter. My blood.’ I thought it was sweet.”
A chill moved through me.
Bruce’s father used to say things like that. Blood. Name. Legacy. As if children were not people, but proof.
“Then what?” I asked.
“He started correcting everything I did. How I held her. How I fed her. How long I let her sleep. If she cried, he said I upset her. If I cried, he said I was unstable.”
I sat across from her.
“He installed cameras in the nursery,” she continued. “Then the living room. Then the kitchen. He said it was for safety, but he watched me all day. If I called my sister, he asked why. If I wanted to leave the house, he said Lily was too young.”
“Mia…”
“He took my bank card. My passport. Lily’s birth certificate. He said I was too emotional to handle important things.”
Her voice cracked. “Tonight, I found out he filed for sole custody.”
She pulled damp papers from inside her hoodie and pushed them toward me.
I read the first page.
Bruce had accused her of being unstable, careless, and emotionally dangerous. He claimed she had abandoned the baby and had requested emergency custody.
“He planned this,” I said.
Mia nodded, crying. “He took Lily this afternoon. Said he was going to his brother’s house. Then he sent me a message saying I could speak to his lawyer.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Not with his hands.”
I understood that kind of answer.
