Chapter 7: What the Assessor Found
The welfare assessor was a woman named Dr.
Sandra Osei.
She had a quiet office near the family court, two chairs positioned at an angle rather than across from each other, and a low table with paper and coloured pencils that she left out without comment.
She met with Naomi first.
"Tell me about a typical week with Maisie," Dr.
Osei said.
Naomi told her.
The school run.
Breakfast.
The way Maisie liked her toast cut into triangles, not squares, and would push it away if it was wrong.
The books they read at night — currently a series about a small bear who kept losing his hat.
The Saturday mornings at the park near the flat, where Maisie had decided a particular bench belonged to them and would not sit anywhere else.
Dr.
Osei listened and made occasional notes.
"Does Maisie talk about her father's home?"
"Sometimes.
She talks about the house — it's larger than my flat.
She mentions the garden."
"Does she talk about Vanessa?"
A pause.
"She calls her Nessa.
She used to.
Recently she's started calling her something else."
"What does she call her?"
Naomi looked at her hands.
"My other mummy."
Dr.
Osei wrote something down.
"How do you respond when she says that?"
"I tell her that Nessa is her stepmother and that she's allowed to care about her.
And that I am her mummy and that will never change."
"Does Maisie seem reassured by that?"
"She nods.
But she watches my face when I say it.
Like she's checking whether I mean it."
Dr.
Osei met with Graham the following day and Vanessa the day after that.
She met with Maisie twice.
The first session was play-based — paper, pencils, a small dollhouse with moveable furniture.
The second session involved a series of gentle questions while Maisie arranged and rearranged the dollhouse rooms.
Dr.
Osei's report took three weeks.
Naomi received her copy on a Thursday morning.
She sat at the kitchen table and read it twice before calling Patricia.
"She found it," Naomi said.
"Tell me."
"Page seven.
During the second session, Maisie placed one doll outside the house and told Dr.
Osei that doll had to wait outside because she had been naughty.
When Dr.
Osei asked who told her the doll was naughty, Maisie said — " Naomi stopped.
Steadied herself.
"She said: Nessa told me.
Nessa said the outside doll was naughty a long time ago and that's why she doesn't live in the house anymore."
Silence on the line.
"She used Maisie," Patricia said.
"She used a four-year-old as the delivery system for her own narrative."
"It's in the report.
In Dr.
Osei's words."
"Naomi, this is significant.
This is very significant."
"There's more." Naomi turned the page.
"Dr.
Osei noted that Maisie showed no signs of distress during her custody weeks with me.
She showed elevated anxiety before transitions to her father's home.
Not after.
Before."
"Before going to Graham's house."
"Yes."
Another silence.
"The hearing is in two weeks," Patricia said.
"I want you to do nothing between now and then.
No calls to Graham.
No contact with Vanessa.
Nothing that can be reframed."
"What about Eleanor?"
"Eleanor has already submitted her statement.
She doesn't need to do anything more." A pause.
"How are you holding up?"
Naomi looked at the report on the table.
At Maisie's words, transcribed in Dr.
Osei's careful handwriting.
*Nessa told me.
Nessa said the outside doll was naughty a long time ago.*
"I'm all right," she said.
But that night she sat on the edge of Maisie's empty bed — it was Graham's week — and pressed her hand flat against the pillow.
May you like
The room was very quiet.
She didn't let herself cry until she was back in the hallway with the door pulled shut.
