Chapter 32 · Ten Feet

"Ten feet, Ms. Cole. That's the line we agreed on." The mediator's voice cut flat across the visitation room, and I felt my stomach drop before Maya even moved.

She moved anyway. Straight off the blue tape square they'd stuck to the carpet, straight across the ten feet of no-man's-land between us and him, and straight into Cade's arms like the rule didn't exist.

"Maya." My voice cracked on it. "Baby, we talked about this."

"I wanted to show Daddy my picture." She held up a crumpled drawing, three stick figures, one house, no roof because she never remembers roofs. Cade went down on one knee to take it and I watched his hand shake when he touched the paper.

The mediator, a woman named Halston with reading glasses on a chain, was already writing. "That's a boundary violation. I have to note it."

"She's four." My throat burned. "She doesn't know what a boundary is."

"The order doesn't care how old she is." Halston didn't even look up. "It cares whether the line holds."

Cade stood, Maya still hooked on his hip like she'd never left it, and looked at me over her head.