Patricia’s chin lifted slightly, the way it always did when she was preparing to disagree with something. But she stayed silent. She had learned, finally, that this was not a room where her certainty carried weight anymore.
“Effective today,” the judge said, “primary physical custody of Lily will remain with the mother. The father will retain regular, structured visitation, because I have no evidence before me that he poses a danger to his daughter’s physical safety, and I will not sever a relationship a child clearly values without cause. However, that visitation will be supervised for a period of ninety days, not because of any single act of violence, but because both the father and the paternal grandmother have demonstrated, in this courtroom and apparently in front of the child, an inability to separate their anger at the mother from their responsibility to protect Lily from that anger.”
