Emergency request for psychological evaluation of petitioner.
I read the title twice because my brain refused to accept how nakedly ugly it was.
Then I kept reading and realized something even worse.
He wasn’t calling me crazy in a sloppy way.
He was doing it elegantly.
My documentation became obsessive surveillance. My financial preparation became erratic secrecy. My professional precision became evidence of paranoid overreach. Every strength I had used to protect myself had been translated into pathology.
By the time I reached the last page, my hands were shaking.
He had taken the best thing about me—my ability to see clearly—and filed it as proof that I was unstable.
And for the first time since I found the charges, I was no longer angry first.
I was scared.
Part 5
Sandra told me to come to her office immediately, which I did in leggings, a black sweater, and the kind of swollen-eyed face no woman wants to bring into a legal strategy meeting.
She read Gerald’s motion once, slow and expressionless, then set it down and leaned back in her chair.
“This,” she said, “is textbook.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to make you recognize the move.”