The video on my iPad was from Jasons visit in March. Lily had been sitting on the stairs with it, and nobody knew. On the screen, Jason was in my kitchen on his phone, saying that once he got custody, the trust fund kicked in, Kristys life insurance, two hundred thousand dollars, and that the old lady did not even know it existed.
I did not know it existed. Eight years, and I had never heard of any trust.
The judge did not look at Jasons lawyer. She was looking at Courtney, and she told her to sit down, because the next part of the video was about her. On the recording, Courtney could be heard telling Jason that the minute they had the girl and the money, they would send her off to boarding school and be done with it.
They came to court saying I was too old and too poor to raise Lily, and my twelve-year-old granddaughter had already caught them saying exactly why they really wanted her.
The judge did not grant the recess Jasons lawyer kept asking for. She ruled that day. Custody stayed with me, permanently, and she ordered that Kristys life insurance trust be placed under court supervision, for Lily, where Jason could never touch it.
Jason and Courtney left in the new BMW with nothing they came for. The diamond the size of a peanut went with them.
Lily sang in the church choir that next Sunday, straight As and all. She calls me Mamaw, and she will finish growing up in the little two-bedroom house her mother grew up in, with a grandmother who was never too old or too poor to love her right.