He went outside and returned a moment later with the legal documents in his hand.
His face changed as he read the words petition and emergency custody and neglect.
“You are trying to take her because of one mistake?” Amber shouted as she entered the room.
I told her that it was not one mistake but a long pattern of making a child feel like an outsider.
“I did not sign up to be compared to a dead woman forever,” Amber said with a tone of bitterness.
The room went silent as Patrick looked at her with a sense of horror at what she had just admitted.
Daisy stood up and told Amber that she had hurt her many times by forgetting her and calling her selfish.
“And you let her do it,” Daisy said to her father before she walked upstairs.
Patrick sat on the stairs and admitted that he had screwed up because he did not know how to handle his grief.
“Skyla looks so much like Claire that it hurt to look at her sometimes,” he whispered.
I told him that he had punished his daughter for resembling the mother she had lost.
The court granted temporary custody to me and I began the process of moving Daisy to Tallahassee.
We packed her room and she found a birthday card from her mother, Claire, tucked inside a book.
She cried because she did not remember her mother’s voice, and I tried to describe it to her.
“Your mother’s voice was warm and she always laughed before she finished a joke,” I told her.
We framed the card and put it on the wall in my house so she could see it every day.
The first few weeks were filled with the logistics of school and therapy and buying new clothes.
Daisy had good days where she sang and played, but she also had days where she pulled away.
I found her crying in the pantry one afternoon because I had said we would see about a trip to the museum.
“To you, that means maybe, but to me, it always meant no,” she explained.
I sat on the floor with her and told her that we would work on using better words to communicate.
Anthony began attending therapy and parenting classes because he wanted to fix the relationship.
Amber wrote a letter to Daisy where she apologized for her actions and admitted she was wrong.
“Do I have to forgive her right now?” Daisy asked after she read the letter.
I told her that she did not have to forgive anyone until she was ready to do so.
The first visit with Patrick was supervised and Daisy was nervous about what to wear.