She knew exactly what my company was worth.
⸻
“Give me fifty-one percent of the business,” she said calmly, like she was negotiating a used car instead of her own sons, “and I’ll withdraw the case. Say no, and I’ll take the boys out of state.”
⸻
I refused.
⸻
My attorney, a careful woman named Priscilla Farrow, warned me that courts often give biological parents another chance, regardless of past absence, unless there was clear, documented evidence of ongoing unfitness.
⸻
“We have ten years of abandonment,” I told her. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
⸻
“It counts,” Priscilla said. “It isn’t always enough on its own, unfortunately. Judges want to see current fitness, current intentions. Desiree’s attorney will paint tonight’s version of her as someone who’s changed.”
⸻
At the hearing, Desiree cried while talking about “wanting to reconnect” with her sons after years of what she called “personal healing.” Then she claimed I was “too old” to safely raise two active twelve-year-old boys, her voice cracking convincingly at exactly the right moments.
⸻
I could see the judge, a careful, measured woman named Judge Alvarado, beginning to lean, at least slightly, toward believing her.
⸻
Then Milo stood up.
⸻
The same boy who hated speaking in front of his own class, who’d needed three separate accommodations from his school just to survive a required oral book report the previous spring.
⸻
He walked into the center of the courtroom. Theo stepped up beside him without a single word passin
