Am I wrong for letting a group of bikers walk my seven-year-old into the courthouse when my ex-husband’s lawyer is now saying I “coached” my son and used “intimidation tactics” to influence the case?
My son Wyatt hasn’t slept through the night in nine months. He’s seven. He still wets the bed. He flinches when men raise their voices. I have been fighting since last October to get full custody and a restraining order against my ex-husband, Derek (34M), and the court date where Wyatt was supposed to give his statement to the judge was set for this past Tuesday.
Two weeks before the hearing, Wyatt started having panic attacks. Full body shaking, couldn’t breathe, crying so hard he’d gag. Every time I mentioned the courthouse he’d go stiff and say he didn’t want to see his dad. His therapist, Dr. Kessler, documented everything. She told me Wyatt’s biggest fear was walking into the building and seeing Derek in the hallway before he got to the judge’s chambers.
I didn’t know what to do. I talked to a woman in my support group, Pam, and she told me about this organization – bikers who volunteer to escort kids to court. They’re vetted, background-checked, trained. They don’t say a word inside the building. They just walk with the kid so the kid feels safe. I called them. A man named Gary explained the whole process. No weapons, no patches inside the courthouse, nothing aggressive. They literally just WALK with the child from the parking lot to the door.
Tuesday morning, six of them showed up. Jeans, plain black t-shirts, boots. They introduced themselves to Wyatt in the parking lot. One woman, Denise, kneeled down and asked him what his favorite dinosaur was. Wyatt said triceratops. She told him triceratops were the toughest dinosaurs because they protected their herd.
Wyatt held my hand on one side and Denise’s hand on the other. We walked through the front entrance. The six of them formed a loose group around us. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked at Derek’s family.
But Derek’s mother, Connie (58F), was standing right inside the doors. She saw us and her face went white. She pulled out her phone and started recording. Derek’s attorney filed an emergency motion within the HOUR claiming I had staged an “intimidation display” and that Wyatt had been “coached by outside actors” to appear fearful.
My own lawyer says the motion is garbage and won’t go anywhere. But my mom called me that night and said I should have just “handled it quietly” and that I gave Derek’s side ammunition. My sister agrees. My friends are split – half say I did what any mother would do, half say I should have kept it simple and not given them anything to use.
Derek’s attorney is now requesting that Wyatt’s statement be thrown out entirely. The hearing is in four days. And this morning, Dr. Kessler called me and said she’d been subpoenaed by Derek’s lawyer. Then she told me something about what Wyatt said in his last session – something he’d never told ME – and when I heard it, my whole body went cold. She said, “You need to tell your attorney today, because when this comes out in court – “
Nine Months of This
I want you to understand what nine months looks like.
It looks like sleeping with your door cracked so you can hear him. It looks like a plastic mattress cover you wash twice a week without making a big deal about it, because he already feels bad enough. It looks like learning to watch a kid’s face instead of listening to his words, because sometimes the words say “I’m fine” and the face says something else entirely.
Wyatt was a normal kid before this. I don’t mean perfect. He was loud, obsessed with dinosaurs, afraid of the drain in the bathtub, ate exactly four foods. Normal. He’d climb into Derek’s lap during football games and fall asleep there. I have pictures of that. I used to think those pictures were sweet.
I filed in October after the third time I called my sister from a bathroom floor. That’s all I’m going to say about why I filed. My attorney told me to keep specifics off the internet and I’m going to listen to her about that, at least.
Derek hired a lawyer named Phillip Watts, and Phillip Watts is the kind of attorney who files motions the way some people send passive-aggressive texts. Constantly. Preemptively. Just to make noise and run up your bill. My attorney, Renata Fischer, has been doing family law for nineteen years and she told me in our second meeting: “His strategy is exhaustion. We don’t get exhausted.”
I have tried very hard not to get exhausted.
What Wyatt Actually Said
The morning before the courthouse, Wyatt didn’t eat breakfast. He sat at the table with a bowl of cereal and just moved the spoon around. I didn’t push it. I got dressed, got his bag, and when I came back he was still sitting there.
He said, “Mom, what if I say the wrong thing?”
I sat down next to him. I told him there was no wrong thing. I told him he just had to tell the truth, whatever he remembered, whatever felt true to him. I did not tell him what to say. I did not show him what to say. I have been so careful about this that I sometimes don’t ask him anything at all, even when I want to, because I don’t want there to be any question.
He nodded and put his spoon down and said, “Okay.”
That was it. That was the coaching.
When I called Gary from the biker organization – it’s called something like Guardians of the Children, there are chapters all over the country – he asked me a few questions about Wyatt. His age. What he was afraid of specifically. Whether he’d had any contact with the other party recently. Gary had a voice like a guy who’s been doing this a long time and stopped being surprised by anything. He said, “We’ll be there at eight-fifteen. Just look for us.”
I didn’t tell Wyatt about them until that morning. I said some people were going to walk with us to make sure he felt safe. He asked if they were police. I said no, they were just people who help kids. He thought about that for a second and said, “Like a bodyguard?”
I said yeah. Like a bodyguard.
He stood up a little straighter.
Six People in Black T-Shirts
The parking lot of the county courthouse is not a nice place. Fluorescent lights even in the daytime somehow, or maybe that’s just how I remember it. Concrete. That particular smell of government building and old coffee and something underneath both.
They were already there when we pulled in. Six of them, standing in a loose cluster near the entrance ramp. Gary was the one who walked over first. Big guy. Gray beard, reading glasses pushed up on his forehead. He shook my hand and then crouched down to Wyatt’s level and said, “Hey, buddy. I’m Gary. We’re just here to walk in with you, okay? You don’t have to talk to us or anything.”
Wyatt looked at him for a long moment.
Then he looked at the group. He took them in one at a time. There was a guy with a shaved head and a tattoo of a cardinal on his forearm. A younger woman, maybe late twenties, who smiled at Wyatt and gave him a small wave. Denise was at the end, and she had the kind of face that’s just inherently reassuring, I don’t know how else to describe it. Calm. Like she’d seen worse and was still standing.
When Denise asked about the dinosaur, Wyatt’s whole body changed. His shoulders dropped. He stopped doing the thing where he was holding his breath without knowing it.
He talked about triceratops for probably ninety seconds straight. The horns. The frill. The fact that new research suggests they may have been more social than previously thought. He gets very specific about dinosaurs.
Denise listened to every word like it was important information she needed.
We walked in.
Connie and the Phone
I saw Connie before she saw us. She was standing near the security line in a green blazer, talking to a woman I didn’t recognize. Then she turned and we were right there, all eight of us, and her face did the thing my mom’s face does when something doesn’t go according to plan.
She had her phone up in maybe four seconds.
I kept walking. I didn’t look at her. I kept Wyatt’s hand in mine and I kept moving, and the six of them kept moving with us, and we went through security and down the hall and that was that.
Wyatt gave his statement. I wasn’t in the room. Renata was, and the guardian ad litem, and the judge. It took twenty-two minutes. When Wyatt came out he looked tired but okay. He asked if we could get Dairy Queen and I said yes.
We were in the drive-through when Renata called to tell me about Phillip Watts’s emergency motion.
I read it that night after Wyatt was asleep. The language is something. “Orchestrated psychological theater.” “Deliberate manipulation of a minor’s emotional state.” “Coordinated intimidation of opposing counsel’s client and family members.” Connie is listed as a witness. Her video is an exhibit.
My mom called at nine-thirty. I let it go to voicemail. She called again at nine-forty-five and I picked up, and she said, “I’m just worried you made this harder on yourself,” and I said, “Okay, Mom,” and got off the phone.
What Dr. Kessler Said
Dr. Kessler has been seeing Wyatt since November. She’s not warm exactly, more precise, the kind of therapist who chooses words carefully and doesn’t fill silences just to fill them. I’ve always trusted her because she doesn’t tell me what I want to hear.
She called at eight-forty this morning. Said she’d been served the subpoena yesterday afternoon. Said Phillip Watts was going to try to use her session notes to argue that Wyatt’s fear responses were “cultivated” rather than genuine. She was not happy about being in the middle of this. I could hear it.
And then she said, “There’s something else. Something Wyatt disclosed in our last session that he hasn’t told you.”
My hand went tight on the phone.
She said she’d been deciding how to handle it, whether it was something to bring up before the hearing or after, but now that she’d been subpoenaed she needed me to know because Phillip Watts was going to see the notes and she didn’t want me blindsided in court.
She told me what it was.
I’m not going to write it here. Not yet. Not until after Thursday.
What I will say is that it changes the shape of certain things I thought I understood. It explains some of Wyatt’s specific behaviors, the ones that didn’t quite fit the pattern, the ones I’d been filing away as just Wyatt being Wyatt. It’s not new information exactly. It’s more like the last piece of a picture you’ve been staring at for months, and suddenly you can see what it actually is.
Renata now has it. She called it “significant.” Renata doesn’t use words like that lightly.
Four Days
I’m not asking if I was wrong about the bikers. I know I wasn’t. I would do it again tomorrow. I would do it ten more times. Wyatt walked into that building with his head up and his hand in Denise’s hand and he said his piece to a judge, and nothing Phillip Watts files is going to undo that.
What I’m actually sitting with is this: every time I do something right for my kid, someone finds a way to make it look wrong. The panic attacks are “coached fear.” The therapist is a “coached witness.” Six volunteers in plain clothes are an “intimidation display.” It’s like there’s no version of protecting him that can’t be reframed into something sinister.
My mom wants me to be smaller. Quieter. Less visible. She thinks that’s how you win. Maybe she learned that somewhere. I don’t know. I’m not angry at her.
But Wyatt said triceratops were his favorite and Denise told him they protected their herd, and he walked through those doors.
Thursday is four days away.
Dr. Kessler is going to testify.
And what Wyatt told her in that last session is going to be in those notes.
Phillip Watts doesn’t know what’s in them yet. But he will.
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If this is hitting close to home for someone you know, pass it along. Sometimes people just need to see they’re not alone in the fight.
If you’re looking for more wild stories, you won’t want to miss when the detective told me to send the bikers home or when my sergeant tried to run off the only people protecting a seven-year-old witness. And for another dose of drama, read about the fair manager who told me my 7-year-old needed thicker skin.
