Chapter Eleven

The notice came on Friday.

A thick envelope, too stiff for good news, stamped with the county seal and CERTIFIED MAIL – SIGNATURE REQUIRED in heavy black letters.

I signed without thinking. Sam balanced on one foot beside me, pretending to be a flamingo. The mail carrier gave me a sympathetic smile I didn’t return.

I waited until I closed the door before I opened it.

The paper inside was dense, printed on official stock that smelled faintly of toner and fear.

Petition for Custody

Filed by: Shivdasani, Naveen

Hearing date: May 4th

Response Required Within 21 Days.

I read it three times, hoping it would change.

It didn’t.

I’d filed first. I was the one raising her. But none of that mattered now.

Naveen had filed a counter-petition, and I had twenty-one days to prove I was more than a placeholder.

Sam plopped down in the middle of the kitchen floor, scattering crayons and half-finished drawings across the linoleum.

"Flamingos have pink knees," she said, matter-of-fact.

I wanted to believe that was the important thing right now.

I folded the papers back into the envelope carefully, as if neatness could control the damage.

Then I set it on the counter and turned away.

There were things to do.

Forms to fill out. Motions to file. Lists to make.

I pulled out the battered old laptop from the hall closet, the one Hugh and I had used for tax season and Christmas lists. It whirred to life slowly, the fan rattling like a breath caught in the wrong part of the lungs.

I opened a spreadsheet.

Started a new tab: Custody Defense 2004

Itemized everything I needed:

Proof of guardianship.

Sam’s medical records.

Temporary guardianship letter from the court.

Witnesses. Character references.

Updated background checks.

I typed until my fingers ached.

The faucet dripped steadily in the background — plink, plink, plink — a metronome counting down the seconds until the hearing.

Sam sat next to me, a box of crayons spilled across the table. She had a dark gray one clutched in her hand, making slow spirals.

“Where’s my magic rock?”

She’d asked a few times before, but I’d managed to distract her. Today was different. She’d been asking over and over.

I knew I couldn’t keep putting her off.

“It’s not by your bed?”

“I looked everywhere. It’s disappearded.”

“Well, it is magic, baby girl. That’s what magic rocks do sometimes.”

She looked up from her drawing, brow furrowed, expression serious.

“Disappear? Where did it go?”

“Maybe your mom needed it so she wouldn’t get lost.”

Sam considered that, then nodded solemnly. “She needs it in China. That’s where the sky is upside down.”

She began to hum under her breath—something wordless and strange, half lullaby, half nursery rhyme. Her drawings were bright and busy and wrong.

One showed a door with no handle.

Another showed black vines creeping across a moonless sky.

Getting rid of the rock hadn’t helped. Something else was happening.

I turned back to the laptop.

After awhile, the spreadsheet blurred. The numbers twisted, danced, rearranging themselves into patterns I almost recognized.

I slammed the laptop shut, hard enough to make Sam jump and her crayons rattle.

“Oops! You maked a big noise!” she said, blinking up at me. Then she went right back to her drawing, still pressed against my side, still humming that strange little tune under her breath.

Everything was fine.

Everything was still under control.

Lies.

I wiped my palms on my jeans, dug the cordless phone out from under a pile of unopened mail, and punched in the only number I trusted not to vanish. The only person I trusted to help me.

Bianca picked up on the third ring.

"Allison?" She sounded surprised, cautious, like she already knew something was wrong.

"I need that lawyer's name," I said, skipping hello, skipping everything.

A pause.

The faint rustle of papers on her end of the line.

"I’ll text it to you," she said finally. "Do you want me to—?"

"No," I said quickly. Too sharp. I softened it by force. "No. I just… I just need the name. Please."

"Okay," she said. “You’re not going to like her. She’s a real bitch. I hate her. But that’s not why you hire a lawyer. And she’s a very good one. Her name is. . ."

After I got the name and number I hung up before she could say anything else.

I made another list. This one on the back of an envelope.

Not for court. Not for the lawyer.

Something for after.

Emergency contacts who won’t ask questions?

Storage units close to the highway

Backup IDs

Get as much cash as I can from ATM

Cash-only motel

One bag for me. One for Sam.

A story Sam will believe when I wake her up in the middle of the night and tell her we’re going on an adventure.

A way to leave no trace.

I stared at the list, heart pounding, hands cold.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I didn’t know anyone who wouldn’t ask questions. Even Bianca would want to know what I was doing—and then she’d tell me how stupid it was. But this is what people do—on TV, in books, in stories where the moms don’t wait around to be told it’s already too late. And I wasn’t going to wait around.

You get a storage unit. You pull out cash. You pack a bag.

I had no idea where to get a fake ID. Craigslist? The back of a gas station?

I stared at the list, knowing full well it wasn’t a plan. It was a story.

And I was pretending to be someone who knew how to survive it.

I made the list anyway.

Just in case. That it was smart to be ready. That it didn’t mean anything.

But my hands shook as I typed, and no amount of neat columns could turn the panic into something clean.

I thought about Bianca. Really thought about her. Not as if she were some TV character. About the way she offered help without asking for explanations. The way she always had.

And I knew—if I picked up the phone and told her everything—she would help me. No hesitation. She would do anything for me if I asked.

But there are some things you don’t ask other people to carry.

Not even the ones who love you.

Especially not them.

I couldn’t ask her to give everything up and walk away.

She’d worked so hard to build her life.

Me? I didn’t have a life without Sam.

I added one more thing to the bottom of the list:

Places we can disappear to.

And under my fear, something else stirred for the first time in years.

Magic. My magic. Old and familiar, unwelcome and inevitable. It moved inside me, slow as a river carving a canyon.

For a heartbeat, I almost let it in.

Almost.

Because I’d made a promise. To Hugh.

His hand wrapped around mine in that too-white hospital room, skin paper-thin, bones like twigs. The machines hummed and clicked around us, but all I could hear was his voice—rough from tubes and too many nights without sleep.

“Promise me, Allie. No more magic. Promise me.”

He’d been dying, and I’d been helpless.

So, I gave him the only thing I had left to give. My promise.

And I would not—could not—break faith with the only piece of him still tethered to this world.

I slammed the door shut on the magic, walled it up behind layers of stubborn, aching love.

There was still time.