Chapter 6 - THE FATHER WHO WAS ALWAYS AT WORK
Eric asked Megan to meet without Janice.
They chose Rebecca’s office.
Eric arrived carrying a legal pad filled with dates.
He looked terrible.
“I think this is partly my fault.”
Megan did not rush to absolve him.
“Explain.”
He swallowed.
Janice had been increasingly resentful of Eric’s Indianapolis assignment. He was gone three nights most weeks and often missed dinners during his own custody time.
Janice said she could manage.
Eric let her.
He knew Alison sometimes asked why he was always working.
Janice reassured him:
“She’s fine when you leave.”
What he did not know was how Janice explained his absence to Alison.
Sometimes:
“Daddy has to work because grown-ups need money.”
Normal.
Sometimes:
“Daddy doesn’t like coming home when there’s arguing.”
Then:
“Daddy would be around more if everyone made things easier.”
Everyone.
A five-year-old does not hear abstractions.
She hears herself.
Eric rubbed both hands over his face.
“I should have been there.”
Megan looked at him.
“Yes.”
He flinched.
She continued.
“You’re not responsible for Janice cutting her hair. You are responsible for repeatedly leaving Alison in someone’s care after she started showing you that she felt uncomfortable.”
Eric nodded slowly.
He did not fight.
That mattered.
He had dismissed smaller things.
Alison once told him Janice made her sit still for salon photos when she wanted to play.
Another time she said Janice called her curls “wasted” because Megan refused chemical treatments.
Eric thought those were harmless stylist comments.
He told Alison:
“Janice knows hair.”
Authority.
There it was.
He had inadvertently taught his daughter that Janice’s professional expertise outranked Alison’s feelings about her own body.
Eric started crying again.
This time Megan let the silence stand.
Then she said:
“What matters is what you do next.”
He looked up.
“I’m filing for separation.”
Megan had not expected that.
“So quickly?”
“I asked Janice one question last night.”
“What?”
“Did Alison tell you to stop?”
Megan went still.
Eric’s voice broke.
“She said, ‘Children say stop about everything.’”
There it was.
Not panic.
Not an accidental boundary crossing.
Belief.
Janice believed adult judgment outranked a child’s refusal whenever the adult considered the issue trivial.
Eric could not unhear it.
Neither could Megan.
He moved out that afternoon.
Janice stayed in the house temporarily because Eric’s attorney advised against creating property-conflict chaos before separation arrangements were documented.
Alison stayed with Megan full-time by voluntary agreement pending court review.
Eric saw her at Megan’s house and neutral locations.
No Janice.
No salon.
No discussion of hair unless Alison initiated it.
Then something else happened.
Courtney Wells called.
The mother of Sophie.
She had heard through Amber that another child was involved.
And she had kept one thing from six months earlier.
A voice message from Sophie recorded after the salon incident.
In it, Sophie cried and said:
“Miss Janice said sick kids needed my hair more than I did.”
Megan listened once.
Then stopped.
Different lie.
Same mechanism.
Make the child responsible for an adult-defined moral emergency.
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“We may have a pattern.”
May you like
But Courtney said:
“There’s one more child.”
