Chapter 14 - DOMINIC’S VISITS
Supervised contact lasted six months.
Dominic hated it.
Leo sometimes liked it.
That confused people who wanted clean sides.
At one visit, Dominic brought LEGO.
They built for twenty minutes.
Leo laughed.
Afterward he cried in car.
“Why?”
“Daddy nice.”
“Yes.”
“Daddy bad?”
I stopped.
“Daddy did things that hurt you.”
“He make pancakes.”
“Yes.”
“Bad people pancake?”
I almost smiled.
“People are not only one thing.”
He frowned.
“Too hard.”
“Agreed.”
Then Dr. Sloan helped.
“Daddy can love you and still make unsafe choices.”
Leo:
“Daddy fix?”
“Daddy has work to do.”
That was enough.
Dominic entered parenting therapy because court required for step-up.
At first he treated it like test.
Completed modules.
Used correct words.
Sensory needs.
Autistic acceptance.
Child-led regulation.
The therapist wrote:
“Intellectual understanding emerging; emotional acceptance limited.”
Then one session changed him.
He watched video of Leo under table while he walked away.
Not for court.
Therapeutic review.
He cried.
“What were you thinking?”
The therapist asked.
Dominic:
“If I contradicted my mother, she’d make everything bigger.”
“So?”
“I chose quiet.”
There.
Family peace again.
Then:
“Who paid for it?”
“Leo.”
Good.
Then Liam.
“Why compare?”
Dominic cried harder.
“Because Liam was easy.”
There.
Not better.
Easy.
“And what did that let you avoid?”
“That I was angry at my own son for needing more from me.”
That was the first real admission.
Did it restore custody?
No.
May you like
Insight is not access.
But it mattered later.
