for the visits to be moved to the family center.”
“Fine, I will tell my parents to give up their Saturdays to appease you, and I will attach myself to our daughter’s hip because that is what you want.”
“Stop acting more immature than your child; it is ridiculous. Your parents are ‘giving up’ two hours every other weekend, and they can spend time with their grandchild in doing so.”
“I am done with this conversation. I will see Alison at her next visit.”
“Fine.”
“Bye,” we said in unison.
The next visit seemed to arrive faster than any in the past. Renee rode with me, but needed to go over to the mall during the two-hour visit. Instead of dropping her off on the way over to Carole and Andrew's, I decided to drop Alison off first, then take Renee and shop with her. We shopped for about an hour and a half before driving back to wait for Alison. As we were pulling in, another car was pulling in behind us. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Paul in the driver’s seat with my precious little girl in the back of the car. He looked like a deer caught in headlights when we locked eyes because I knew he thought he would pull this one over on me.
I stormed out of the car and told Renee to call the police and also asked her to take Alison to the car and buckle her in once Paul parked the car. A wave of rage came over me as he parked the car, and I saw his mother start to walk outside. We stood in a monkey in the middle formation with me as the monkey. I hated that he pulled something like this and put Alison in a situation where she would have to see her parents and grandmother fight as well as see police officers in a space that is supposed to be safe. I immediately started screaming as soon as Alison was in the car and Renee turned her Spanish CD back on.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Paul? We just fucking talked about you following the court’s order and the very next visit you take my daughter out without any permission!” I began.
“Well, I told him that the order was ridiculous and any father has the right to take their child to a park if they would like,” Carole said.
“Carole, I don’t really give a fuck what you said. The only part that this has to do with you is that you let it happen. Thanks to your idiotic advice, your ass for brains son is going to jail.” I said, turning her way.
“I am not going to jail. I did nothing wrong. Alison is my daughter too.” Paul said.
“Paul, you did do something wrong. While biologically she is your daughter, you have zero rights to her anymore because of the stunt you pulled at the beginning of the year. What you just did is kidnapping.” I said.
“He did not kidnap his daughter! He took her to the park for one hour.” Carole said.
“And I bet on your little adventure you didn’t even stay with her the entire time. I would bet hard money that you sat your fat ass on a bench the entire time.” I said as the police pulled into the driveway. Two officers walked up to the three of us to assess the situation, one pulling me to the side and the other pulling Paul and his mother to her porch.
“Okay, what exactly is going on here?” The officer speaking with me asks.
“My now ex-husband has supervised visitations every other weekend, today being one of them. I have the court documents in my car if you need to see them once we go through everything that is going on.” I said.
“Yes, I would like to see the documents. Go on.”
“Paul is not to leave with Alison, my daughter, for any reason during his two-hour visits and today I pulled up about thirty minutes before the visitation was set to end and pulling up behind me was Paul and our child.”
“Okay, ma’am. Let me look at the documents and see what I can do.”
I went over to the car and grabbed the documents and told Alison that Mommy would be back soon and then we could go grab something to eat. The officer came over and kindly introduced himself to Alison and took the documents to look over. After a few minutes, the officer told me Paul indeed kidnapped Alison, and he and his partner are prepared to take him in if that is what I would like to have happen. I decided to have the officers arrest Paul for kidnapping and child endangerment because I knew if I let this go he would continue to treat the visitation order like a joke.
As the officers pulled away with Paul, I went straight to my car so that I was not harassed by Carole and Andrew, who was now standing outside. Once I was in the car and off of my ex in-law’s property, I asked Renee and Alison where they wanted to go for dinner after we picked Rose up from Tom’s mother. Alison wanted Rainforest Café, but she only likes it because of the sound effects and the dessert. She is not a big fan of their meals. We tried to stay close to the mall because we were picking Rose up from around there and Renee and I knew that if we had to drive far, it would not go over well on the drive home with two sleepy kids. We decided to go to Olive Garden because the kids haven’t had pasta in a few weeks. Dinner was relatively uneventful with highlights including crayon drawings over every inch of the paper tablecloth, endless breadsticks which ended up becoming walrus teeth for the girls, and cheesy comas for all four of us.
Since today is Saturday, all parties involved had to wait until the next business day to proceed with Paul’s case. He was arrested in my jurisdiction, so usually, this case would land on my desk. I, of course, needed to recuse myself from the case and appoint the next best prosecutor to the case. I drove Renee and Rose home for the evening and drove the five minutes east to my house. I sent Alison to her playroom so that I could call my “work husband” to ask him about taking the case. After two rings James picked up; “Hey girlfriend.”
“Hey! I have a lot to tell you.” I said.
“Girl, I just saw you yesterday. What the hell happened?”
“Well… today was Paul’s day to see Ally…”
“Oh, shit. What did that jackass do?” He said, interrupting my thoughts.
“So we have been so busy with catching up on cases, I haven’t been able to catch you up on anything. I’ve been a bad work wife.” I said, laughing a little.
“Oh, girl. I have my wine and popcorn. Let the movie play!”
“A few weeks ago after picking Ally up, we were driving home, and she happens to mention ‘Daddy watches television in the T.V. room when I am in the playroom and Grandma is always in the garden and Grandpa is upstairs reading.’”
“Umm aren’t his parents supposed to at least be on the same floor as them at all times?” James asks.
“Exactly. And there’s more.”
“Oh, no.”
“So today an entire shitshow transpired. Not only are Paul’s parents supposed to be supervising him, but Paul cannot leave with Ally under any circumstances.”
“He didn’t!”
“Oh, he did.”
“What happened? Was he not there when you came to pick her up?”
“Well you see, Paul honestly thought he was going to pull this stunt off because he pulled in thirty minutes before I was set to arrive. But what he doesn’t know is normally I sit at the top of the hill for the duration of the two hours waiting for it to be over.”
“Didn’t you today?”
“No. I had Renee with me, and we went shopping, but came back at the same time Paul was pulling in.”
“So? What happened?” He asked as if he was holding onto the edge of his seat.
“I called the police, and he was arrested for kidnapping and child endangerment.”
“Oh, my God! Are you serious? Tell me you are not serious!” James theatrically begged.
“I wish I could, but his ass is sitting in a jail cell as we speak. Which is why I called.”
“What?