Chapter 13: The Arraignment and the Record text
Marcus was arraigned on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. I did not attend. Chloe was still under concussion protocol and did not need the visual of her husband in an orange jumpsuit to understand the gravity of the charges. The assigned ADA called afterward with the essential facts: Marcus entered a not-guilty plea, bail was set higher than his attorney had requested because of the calculated nature of the abandonment and the risk of witness contact, and the protective order was reaffirmed. Sylvia’s separate hearing produced the same order against her. Neither of them was permitted near Chloe, near my house, or near the Oakmont address until further court action.
I recorded the dates, the case numbers, and the ADA’s direct line in the same notebook I had used at the hospital. The notebook had become the clean external record of a morning that Marcus and Sylvia had expected to remain private. Every entry—call time stamps, medical findings, evidence logs, charging decisions—moved the events further from their preferred narrative of a hysterical wife and a reasonable husband who simply needed her gone before the CEO arrived. The file now belonged to the state. My role was to remain a precise witness and a stable parent, not a public combatant.
