Chapter 14 - My Son Was Born Into a Story I Refused to Give Him
I named him Caleb James.
Not after Michael.
Not after the anonymous donor.
Not after anyone in the Mercer family.
Caleb because I liked the name.
James after my grandfather.
Seven pounds, two ounces.
Healthy.
Loud.
Beautiful in the strange, wrinkled way newborns are beautiful only to people biologically programmed to adore them.
Michael was not in the delivery room.
Neither was Ashley.
My sister was.
Maya sent flowers.
Riverside did not.
Good decision.
When Caleb was six weeks old, Michael’s attorney requested a pathway toward professionally supervised contact.
I did not answer emotionally.
We followed evaluation.
Treatment.
Risk assessment.
The legal process moved slower than Michael wanted.
Faster than Linda wanted.
Exactly as slowly as safety required.
Michael began intervention therapy focused on coercive behavior.
Not:
anger management only.
Anger had not buried me.
Entitlement had.
Humiliation.
Control.
The belief that fear inside him justified force against me.
He had to work on the actual thing.
One day a therapist asked me whether I wanted Caleb to grow up knowing Michael.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want him never to know?”
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Both answers were honest.
For once, I did not force certainty simply because uncertainty hurt.
