The fireworks reach their crescendo, painting the sky in colors I don’t have names for, and I hold my fiancée close and let myself feel it all. The joy, the gratitude, the bone-deep certainty that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
For the first time in my life, I’m not running calculations about what could go wrong.
I’m just happy.
Epilogue Two
two months later…
DAVID
My father never calls unless something is wrong.
In forty-two years, I can count on one hand the number of times Brent Kingsley has phoned me for anything resembling casual conversation. Birthday calls are sent as a voice note. Holiday greetings come through his secretary. When he wants to discuss something, he summons you to his office like opposing counsel.
So when his name flashes across my screen in the middle of our first official Kingsley & Kingsley partnership meeting, my stomach drops.
“I need to take this,” I tell Caleb, who’s mid-sentence explaining our fee structure to a nervous startup founder. I show him my phone screen with Dad’s contact card lighting up.
Caleb’s eyebrows rise. He knows this can’t be good. “Go.”
I step into the hallway of our new office—still smelling of fresh paint and possibility—and answer.
“David.” My father’s voice is clipped, professional. “We have a situation.”
“What kind of situation?”
“Kelsie’s filed a petition to have her parental rights reinstated.”
The words don’t make sense at first. They bounce around my skull like a foreign language, refusing to form coherent meaning.
“That’s not possible. She signed a voluntary termination. You drew up the paperwork yourself.”
“I’m aware of what I drew up.” There’s an edge to his voice—not quite defensive, but close. “She’s claiming the termination was obtained under duress. That she was suffering from untreated postpartum depression and wasn’t mentally competent to make that decision.”
“That’s bullshit. She waited six months after leaving to sign the papers. It was her idea—she knew exactly what she was doing.”
“I know that. You know that. But her attorneys are arguing that the six months she spent away from Michaela exacerbated her mental health crisis, and that I—” He pauses, and I hear something I’ve never heard in my father’s voice before. Uncertainty. “That I took advantage of her compromised state to pressure her into signing.”
“This is bullshit.” I rake a hand through my hair before bracing against the wall to try to stop myself from shaking. “We did everything right. We were clear about what it meant. We both advised her to get a lawyer of her own. But she was in such a hurry to cut ties that she didn’t want it.”
I lower myself onto the new office bench, knees weak with a memory I’ll never outrun—Kelsie in the boardroom at my father’s law firm, flanked by no one, chin up and jaw set, lookingmore like a client than the woman I’d once married. She didn’t even look at Michaela. She looked past her, like she was already erasing her daughter from a whiteboard and moving to the next problem.
My father’s silence stretches until it’s more threat than comfort.
“She’s also requesting temporary visitation,” he finally says, and my chest goes tight.
“No. She can’t. You know what she did. The utter…negligence.” It hurts to even say the word, let alone let the memories in.
My father coughs softly, a tell that he’s stressed. “The judge could grant interim visitation while the case is under review. Especially if Kelsie argues that denying her access contravenes Michaela’s best interests.”
I want to scream. Instead, I stare at the wall with its too-bright artwork—a cheerful print meant to inspire new business. But all I can think of is the absolute lack of care she showed our daughter. The state I found Michaela on the day Kelsie left. A toddler, alone in an apartment for hours. I swore to myself I’d never let her near Michaela again. I’d pay whatever it cost, fight as hard as I had to, become the parent she never was.
“We’ll fight it,” I say flatly. “There’s precedent. Especially with the evidence we have on record.”
“I’ve already initiated a response with the court,” my father says, voice sliding back to its familiar steely cadence. “You need to understand that Kelsie has resources behind her on this, David. She remarried recently, and her new husband has money—a lot of it, the kind that buys very expensive attorneys. They’re arguing she’s rehabilitated, that she’s completed parenting classes and therapy, and that Michaela deserves to know her mother.”
“Michaela doesn’t even remember her mother. She was barely walking when Kelsie took off.”
