Dana stopped smiling. She looked at the card in my hand. It had the name of the custody evaluator on it, a woman named Dr. Helen Park, and her office number.
Dana had requested the evaluation herself, in August. She wanted more time with the kids. She told the court we were keeping them from her. But Dr. Park did not just talk to the parents. She talked to the kids. She talked to their teachers. And she asked every parent to turn over their text messages with the children, going back two years.
My husband had given her everything. So had I. That included every message Dana had sent through her nine year old son. Tell your dad he forgot the check again. Tell your stepmom she is not your mother. Ask your dad why he does not love you enough to fight for you.
Dana looked over at her son, standing six feet away in his costume, holding a paper crown. She did not say anything else. She went back inside the auditorium.
Five years of being the stepmom trying to erase their real mother, and all I had ever done was keep the messages safe until somebody who could help was ready to read them.
The evaluation took six weeks. Dr. Park met with both boys, separately, at her office, with toys and coloring books on the table. She met with us. She met with Dana. She read everything.
Her report was fair. She did not say Dana was a bad mother. She said Dana loved her boys. But she said putting children in the middle of adult conflict was causing them real harm, and it needed to stop.
The judge ordered all communication between the adults to go through a co parenting app, where every message is saved and a mediator can see it. No more messages through the kids. The judge also ordered Dana and my husband to take a co parenting class together. And the boys got a counselor of their own.
The counselor is a man named Mr. Reyes. The boys call him Mr. R. The first week, our older son came home and told me Mr. R said none of this was his fault. He said it like he was surprised.
The crying in my car stopped about a month later.
Dana did not change overnight. But she took the class. And somewhere in the middle of it, the messages in the app got shorter. Calmer. Just pickup times and dentist appointments.
In the spring, our younger son had his school play again. He was a tree this time. Dana sat on one side of the auditorium. We sat on the other. When he came out on stage, he looked for all of us. He waved at his mom first. Then at his dad. Then at me.
After the show, Dana walked over. She did not smile for anybody. She just said, thank you for bringing his costume. I forgot again.
I said it was no problem. It was not.
We are not friends. But we are something now. We are two women who love the same two boys, and who finally stopped making them carry the difference.