Chapter 2 - The Green Folder and the Court Docket
The next morning, juggling five children, a mountain of school bags, and my professional painting gear felt like orchestrating a military evacuation. While Tessa expertly helped me tape edges at a Baptist church job in Youngsville, my mind kept drifting back to the words little Rowan had muttered the night before: That’s not what the judge wrote.
By afternoon, I took the younger kids to enroll them temporarily and sort out their records. The school secretary, Ms. Sims, slid open a green filing cabinet, pulled out a thick manila folder, and stared at me over her glasses.
"Ms. Virture, we already have a valid custody judgment for these children," Ms. Sims said calmly. "Reed Sunier is on the active pickup list. He has been for two years."
My breath caught in my throat. I stood frozen in the linoleum-floored office as Ms. Sims revealed page after page of a legally binding court order. Reed hadn't abandoned his children. He hadn't fled to Texas. He had joint custody. He was legally entitled to parenting time on the first and third weekends of every month—visitations that Celeste had systematically sabotaged, blocked, and lied about, weaponizing our entire family to paint Reed as a monster.
That afternoon, I drove straight to the courthouse downtown. I sat in my van with seven pages of certified court records spread across the passenger seat, reading through the emergency motions Reed had filed after being locked out of his children’s lives. Attached were affidavits documenting how Celeste had hidden the kids at our grandfather’s house every time his scheduled weekend arrived.
I called Vance Romero, a local family-law attorney whose office sign I had painted two years earlier. Vance listened to my frantic explanation without interrupting once.
When I finished, his voice was chillingly steady. "Naomi, that temporary mandate Celeste forced you to sign does not override a standing family court custody judgment. Furthermore, next Friday is Reed’s scheduled weekend. If you keep those children from him at six o'clock, you become legally liable for violating a court order."
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked, my hands trembling against the steering wheel.
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"Be at the exchange location at six o'clock," Vance instructed firmly. "Bring the judgment. Let the father pick up his children. And find out who has been lying to you."
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. For two years, my father, my extended family, and I had repeated Celeste’s toxic fiction. We had treated Reed like a ghost, all because Celeste wanted total control and a guilt-free passport to Europe with Sterling.
