The hospital reports confirmed the injuries and neglect.
Reena’s excuses did not survive contact with paper.
That was what Peter kept thinking.
People can perform grief in a black dress.
They can smile at neighbors.
They can say “stability” in a funeral home and sound almost holy.
But paper remembers what people try to bury.
In the first hearing, Peter sat behind the children’s advocate while Reena avoided looking at him.
She looked smaller than he expected.
Not sorry.
Smaller.
Like someone whose power had depended entirely on closed doors.
When the judge reviewed the emergency placement, Drew sat beside Peter in a hoodie that swallowed his shoulders.
Lily leaned against Peter’s other side with a stuffed rabbit from the hospital gift cart tucked under her chin.
The judge did not ask Drew to speak that day.
No one needed to make a six-year-old prove pain that adults had already documented.
The emergency order stayed in place.
Reena was not allowed contact.
Criminal proceedings moved separately.
Peter did not celebrate.
There are victories that still smell like hospital soap.
There are wins that come with nightmares.
There are days when safety arrives, and it still has to sit quietly beside trauma until the children believe it.
Drew healed slowly.
