Juniper's breathing had already turned into frightened little gasps when I saw Tabitha snatch the inhaler from her hand.

Orson called me one last time.

It was a Saturday, three weeks after Diane's visit.

I answered because Grace had told me that if he made direct contact again, I should let him speak and record it.

"I'd like to meet," he said.

"Neutral ground.

Just to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about outside of legal channels, Dad.

You know that."

"Callum." His voice shifted.

Not to warmth — to something more careful.

"I want you to think about what you're doing.

To this family.

To your daughter's relationship with her grandfather."

"I've thought about it."

"She'll grow up without us.

Is that what you want for her?"

"I want her to grow up safe."

A pause.

"I made mistakes.

I can see that now.

But what you're doing — involving solicitors, social services — you're turning a family matter into something it doesn't need to be."

"You were preparing a fraudulent legal document to take my daughter from me," I said.

"You instructed Tabitha to withhold her medication.

You called her mother and tried to build a case against me using incidents you distorted.

That stopped being a family matter the moment you decided to use a four-year-old's lungs as leverage."

Silence.

"I'm going to ask you not to contact me again directly," I said.

"If you have something to say, say it through your solicitor."

"I don't have a solicitor anymore."

"I know."

Another silence.

Longer.

"You were always too much like your mother," he said.

It was meant to wound.

It didn't.

"Goodbye, Dad."

I ended the call and sent the recording to Grace.

The formal outcomes came in stages over the following weeks.

The safeguarding referral resulted in a child protection plan for Juniper — not because she was currently at risk, but because the record needed to exist.

Orson and Tabitha were named.

Any future contact with Juniper would require Renata's and my joint agreement, documented in advance.

Grace filed a formal complaint with the Solicitors Regulation Authority regarding the custody document.

The investigation was ongoing, but the law firm that had prepared it had already issued a statement distancing themselves from the instructions they had received.

Orson did not find new legal representation.

Grace believed he had been advised, informally, that his position was not defensible.

Tabitha sent me a message six weeks after the inhaler.

It was long.

It said she was sorry.

It said she hadn't understood how far it would go.

It said she'd been told it was just to make me worried, not to actually hurt Juniper.

It said she knew that wasn't an excuse.

I read it twice.

I didn't reply.

I forwarded it to Grace, who added it to the file.

Maybe one day I'd have something to say to Tabitha.