Chapter 16 - the court asked where we wanted to live next
The next guardianship review happened six months after Tessa bought the red emergency bag.
I was thirteen.
Jonah was eleven.
By then, courtrooms no longer scared me the way they once had.
Waiting rooms did.
Too many decisions happened in rooms where children waited outside while adults discussed what was best for them.
This time the caseworker promised something different.
“You both get a voice.”
Jonah looked at me.
I looked at Tessa.
“What kind of voice?”
The caseworker almost smiled.
“The kind where adults listen before deciding.”
I appreciated the wording.
The review itself was not about whether Tessa had done anything wrong.
She hadn’t.
School stable.
Therapy consistent.
Medical care current.
Jonah and I together.
No safety problems.
The question was whether the arrangement still needed to remain exactly the same.
Corinne had completed almost three years of treatment.
She had stable housing.
Consistent supervised visits had become unsupervised daytime contact.
She wanted expanded time.
Bennett had done similar work.
But because he and Corinne were divorced now, there was no single “parents’ house” waiting for us.
There were three homes.
Tessa’s.
Mom’s.
Bennett’s.
And two children who no longer wanted exactly the same things.
I learned that when Jonah spoke first.
The caseworker interviewed us separately.
Later he told me himself.
“I want to stay with Dad sometimes.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
His face changed immediately.
“Not live there.”
“You just said—”
“Sometimes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“A weekend.”
“Maybe.”
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
Bennett.
Dad.
Jonah still called him Dad.
Of course he did.
Bennett was his biological father.
Had always been his father.
The fire had damaged that relationship.
It had not erased the previous eleven years.
Still—
I hated hearing the word.
“You want to stay with him?”
Jonah looked defensive.
“He’s been different.”
“For three years.”
“That’s a long time.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“To me it is.”
Fair.
At eleven, three years was more than a quarter of his remembered life.
I crossed my arms.
“What about Mom?”
“I want dinners.”
“Dinners?”
“I don’t know, Maren!”
His voice rose.
Tessa appeared in the doorway.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I said.
“No,” Jonah said.
Traitor.
Tessa came in.
Jonah looked toward her.
“I told Maren I might want weekends with Dad.”
Tessa nodded.
“And?”
“She’s mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
Jonah stared at me.
“You’re doing the jaw.”
Apparently I had a jaw.
Tessa sat.
“What are you actually feeling?”
I hated therapy language.
“Nothing.”
She waited.
I looked at Jonah.
Three years earlier, smoke.
Back window.
Bennett’s arms around him.
Corinne following.
Me alone.
The emergency bag between us.
“You want them again.”
Jonah’s face collapsed.
The sentence sounded uglier once it existed.
“That’s not—”
“You do.”
“Maren.”
“They picked you and now you’re picking them.”
Silence.
Jonah stared at me.
Then started crying.
Tessa said my name.
I stood.
“No.”
I did not want her correcting me.
Not yet.
Jonah wiped his face.
“I didn’t choose them in the fire.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes!”
“Then why are you acting like I did?”
That stopped me.
Jonah continued.
“They grabbed me.”
“I didn’t tell Mom to slap you.”
“I told her you were inside.”
“I felt bad for three years because I got the mask.”
His voice cracked.
“And now I finally want one weekend with my dad and you’re making that about you too.”
The words hurt because they were partly true.
I hated him for approximately three seconds.
Then hated myself.
Tessa remained quiet.
She knew this fight could not be solved by an adult saying everyone was right.
Jonah stood.
“I love you.”
His face was wet.
“But I don’t want the fire deciding who I’m allowed to love for the rest of my life.”
Then he went upstairs.
I remained in the kitchen.
Tessa waited.
Eventually I whispered:
“He’ll leave.”
“Maybe sometimes.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“He’ll leave me.”
Tessa understood.
Different sentence.
“What if he likes Bennett’s house?”
“He might.”
“What if he wants to live there?”
“He might someday.”
My eyes filled.
“What happens to me?”
Tessa leaned toward me.
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“If Jonah spends a weekend somewhere else, you remain here.”
“If Jonah loves his father, you remain his sister.”
“If Jonah eventually chooses a different bedroom, he does not choose a different family.”
I shook my head.
“That’s what Mom did.”
Tessa’s voice softened.
“Your mother treated belonging like limited space.”
“That doesn’t mean space is actually limited.”
I cried.
Tessa did not say:
You’re strong.
Thank God.
She said:
“You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t have to pretend you aren’t.”
That night I knocked on Jonah’s door.
He did not answer.
I went in anyway.
He was under the blanket.
“I’m sorry.”
Nothing.
“You can go.”
His face appeared.
“To Dad’s?”
I hated the word.
“Yes.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“I’m trying to.”
That made him sit up.
I climbed onto the bed.
“If you hate it, you can come back.”
He almost smiled.
“And if I like it?”
That was harder.
“Then you can come back too.”
Jonah looked at me.
Then leaned against my shoulder.
The court had not yet decided anything.
But that night I understood the next part of healing would be much harder than counting masks.
The emergency had taught me that being left behind meant I was worth less.
May you like
Now I had to learn that someone leaving for a weekend did not mean they were leaving me.
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