But legal consequences were the easier part.
The harder question was whether I would ever let her near my child again.
For almost a year, the answer was no.
Not unsupervised.
Not supervised.
Nothing.
She wrote letters.
I did not give them to Noah immediately.
His therapist helped determine what was appropriate.
Diane wrote to me too.
The first letter said:
I made a terrible mistake because I believed my son.
I threw it away.
That sentence still placed Evan at the center.
Months later, another letter arrived.
Different.
I did not lose Noah because Evan fooled me. I lost Noah because when the truth became inconvenient, I chose the version that protected my son and then the version that protected me.
I kept reading.
The worst thing I did was not letting Evan take him for what I believed would be a weekend. The worst thing was Sunday night, when Noah did not come home and I understood something was terribly wrong. I could have called you then.
