Chapter 6 - The Diary I Never Kept
Discovery began faster because of the emergency custody case.
Julian’s attorney submitted a packet arguing that I had developed “severe postpartum anxiety with compulsive medical fixation.”
Attached were screenshots.
Journal entries.
Medication logs.
Emails.
Statements from Evelyn.
Even a declaration from Julian describing nights when I supposedly woke him repeatedly because I believed Toby had stopped breathing.
Some of those events had happened.
Others had not.
The most disturbing document was a diary.
My diary.
Except I had never written it.
Entries appeared under my name:
I’m terrified I’ll give Toby the wrong dose.
Sometimes I can’t remember whether I already medicated him.
Maybe Julian is right and the children would be safer if I rested somewhere else.
I stared at the pages until the words stopped looking like English.
Mara asked where the file originated.
Julian’s lawyer claimed it had been exported from my laptop.
My actual laptop.
That was possible because Julian knew my password.
But metadata told a different story.
The entries had been created in batches.
Several were written on days I was physically at my office and nowhere near the computer.
One was created while I was in Lily’s parent-teacher conference.
Another while I was having a dental procedure.
Julian had manufactured my mental-health record.
That was clue number three.
He had fake messages.
A fake diary.
A retained custody attorney.
And a real child becoming medically ill.
Mara requested forensic imaging of the family devices.
Julian fought it.
The judge ordered preservation anyway.
Meanwhile, Evelyn gave a sworn statement saying I often became “irrational around medicine” and once nearly gave Toby the wrong medication.
That incident had never happened.
But the wording matched the fake portal messages almost exactly.
It was coordinated.
The question was why they needed Toby actually sick.
The answer started appearing in an email Julian had sent his custody attorney three weeks earlier.
If there is a documented medication incident serious enough for hospitalization, how quickly can temporary custody be transferred before relocation?
The attorney had replied cautiously, saying courts require actual evidence and that manufacturing or provoking such an incident would be unlawful.
Julian never responded.
May you like
He didn’t need to.
He had already asked the question.
