He Forced Me To Abort Now He Begs Me Back Chapter 17
The next morning, I read Evan’s petition in my lawyer’s office.
Twenty-seven pages.
In it, he claimed that I had deliberately hidden Aurora’s birth from him, deprived him of his rights as a father, and “denied him access to the child” in the park.
The last page was a sworn statement from Diane.
She claimed I had become emotionally unstable during my pregnancy, used litigation to exact revenge on the Cole family, and was now trying to alienate her “only granddaughter” from the family.
“Only granddaughter.”
I looked up from the page.
“She remembers this is her granddaughter now?”
My lawyer leaned back in her chair and gave a cold laugh.
“She certainly didn’t seem to remember when she was trying to convince you to abort her.”
I turned back to the first page.
Evan was asking the court for immediate unsupervised visitation on the grounds that I might flee Colorado with the child. He had even attached the date and location of our “chance encounter” in the park as evidence.
So that moment on the far side of the lake hadn’t been about him not daring to approach.
He had been gathering evidence for his next lawsuit.
“Will the emergency motion go through?” I asked.
“He has no evidence that Aurora is in danger and no proof you’re a flight risk. The court is highly unlikely to hand a one-month-old infant over to him for unsupervised visits out of the blue.”
She paused.
“But the paternity and parental responsibilities case will proceed. The divorce judgment only dealt with your marriage and property. Since Aurora wasn’t born yet, he legally has the right to knock on this door now.”
I looked at the paperwork on the desk.
“Having the right to knock doesn’t mean I have to let him kick the door in.”
She nodded and pulled over an empty file box.
I opened my laptop.
The first thing I put in was the screenshot of the text exchange between Evan and Natalie.
The second was the full video from the fundraising dinner, where he announced the termination of my pregnancy on my behalf.
Then came the bank-freeze notice, the threatening texts, the recording of his middle-of-the-night phone call, and the OurFamilyWizard messages that went from accusations to pleas.
Last, I added Diane’s text:
“If you dare to divorce Evan and take his child, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life.”
My lawyer numbered each piece of evidence.
The index on the screen grew longer and longer.
Evan had used twenty-seven pages to describe how badly he wanted to be a father.
All I had to do was show the court what he had actually done, in chronological order.
That afternoon, as we were still organizing our response, my lawyer forwarded me a new email.
Evan was objecting to having his visitation supervised by a professional agency.
He proposed that the first meeting take place at Diane’s house, with Diane present as supervisor.
I looked at that line and slowly closed my laptop.
They hadn’t even met Aurora yet, and they were already trying to make my decisions for me again.