Chapter 7 - The Supervised Distance
The court-mandated visitation facility on 5th Street was a clean, utilitarian building with bright yellow walls that tried too hard to look cheerful. It smelled of plastic toys and institutional floor wax.
Every second Saturday, I drove Lily to the front doors, kissed her on the forehead, and watched her walk into the visitation room where a licensed social worker sat in the corner with a clipboard, logging every interaction.
Richard sat at a low plastic table designed for toddlers, wearing a suit that looked slightly too large for him now, his hair unkempt. The corporate success he had used as a shield had fallen away; his board had replaced him within three months of the foreclosure, and he was now working as a middle-manager at a secondary logistics firm, surviving on a salary that didn't leave room for country club memberships or Cabo vacations.
Through the reinforced glass window of the observation door, I watched him try to interact with Lily.
He handed her a doll—something expensive, pink, and completely wrong for her age. Lily took it politely, said thank you, and set it down beside her coloring book. She didn't look at him with hatred; she looked at him with the polite, distant curiosity of a child interacting with a stranger at a library.
He spoke to her, his gestures slightly erratic, his mouth moving fast as he tried to explain why he hadn't been at her school play. The social worker made a small, quick note on her clipboard.
Richard looked up, his eyes catching mine through the double-pane glass.
There was no rage left in his face. There was only a profound, hollow exhaustion. He saw the new SUV parked in the courtyard, saw the confidence in my posture, saw the ringless, clear skin of my hands. He knew that the woman he had told to "go to hell" had instead built her own heaven, and he wasn't invited to the gate.
I didn't smile at him. I didn't scowl. I simply checked my watch, nodded to the security guard at the desk, and walked back out into the bright autumn afternoon.
Julian Brooks was waiting for me near the car, holding two cups of hot cider, his coat collar turned up against the cool wind. He didn't ask how Richard was doing; he didn't try to manage my emotions. He simply handed me the cup, his long fingers brushing mine with a gentle, supportive warmth that had become a regular feature of my weekends.
"Ready?" he asked, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners.
May you like
"Ready," I said, taking a sip of the warm cider. "Lily has forty minutes left. Let’s go look at that park site on 12th Street. I want to see how the drainage handles the seasonal shift."
Julian laughed—a deep, resonant sound that felt like home. "Spoken like a true engineer, Clara. Let’s go check the foundations."
