Sign the papers, sweetheart, or I’ll make sure everyone in this courtroom knows what

I didn’t sign. I slid the folder across the table to Priya, who slid it to the judge’s clerk. Damon’s smirk held for about nine more seconds. Inside that folder were three things. First: certified bank records showing forty-seven thousand dollars transferred from our daughter’s college fund into an account registered to Damon’s fiancée, Brielle, between February and June. Second: a notarized letter from Damon’s own mother, Diane, stating under oath that Damon had asked her to lie about my “unstable behavior” in exchange for him paying off her second mortgage. Diane had called me at 2 a.m. three weeks earlier, crying, saying she couldn’t do it to Mae. Third: time-stamped hospital records proving that on every single date Damon claimed I had “abandoned” our daughter for night shifts, I had actually been home, because I had switched to day rotations in March specifically so I could be there for bedtime. Damon had never bothered to check. The judge, a soft-spoken woman named Honorable Renata Alvarez, read for eleven full minutes in complete silence. Then she looked up, removed her glasses, and asked Damon’s attorney if his client understood the penalty for perjury in the state of Connecticut. Brielle stopped giggling. Damon’s face went the color of wet paper. Full custody was awarded to me that afternoon. The college fund was ordered restored within thirty days, with interest. A separate referral was made to the state’s attorney regarding the financial fraud. As I walked out into the September sunlight, Mae’s small hand finally back in mine, Damon caught up at the steps. “Ellie, wait, we can work this out.” I didn’t stop walking. I just said, quietly, “You told me I had nothing, Damon. Turns out nothing was exactly enough.”