Next to her sat her husband, Jamal Price.
Senior investment broker.
Gold watch.
Perfect teeth.
A smile so polished it should have come with a warning label.
He leaned back in his seat and winked at me.
That wink told me everything.
This was not about my health.
This was not about family.
This was about my paid-off downtown condo overlooking the Chicago River, the one Brittany had asked for six months earlier because, in her words, “a baby deserves better than our apartment.”
I had laughed then.
They were not laughing now.
“Your Honor,” their attorney, Mr. Caldwell, said, placing both palms on the podium, “this family is here because they are terrified. Cassidy Vale has become unstable, paranoid, and financially reckless. Her parents have tried everything.”
He turned slightly, letting the courtroom see my mother trembling into her tissue.
“They are asking for an emergency conservatorship before their daughter destroys herself.”
