Daniel’s jaw tightened. I watched the muscle move along the side of his face, the same tell I had learned to read across nine years of marriage.
“The paternal grandmother,” Judge Hanley continued, and this time his eyes moved to Patricia directly, “will have no unsupervised contact with the child until she completes a course in coparenting communication approved by this court, and until Ms. Bell confirms that Lily is no longer repeating statements that frame her mother’s illness as fabricated. I want to be plain about why. A grandmother is allowed to disagree with her son’s ex-wife. She is not allowed to teach a seven-year-old to distrust her own mother’s body.”
Patricia opened her mouth, and for the first time in this entire case, I watched her decide not to speak. It was such a small thing, but it told me more than anything she had said in two hearings.
