CHAPTER 1
April 1st, 2012
The day began like any other routine day, with daily chores and a drive to Montclair for special organic puppy food and a few small bones for Emily, Sophia's Hanukkah present from her mother. Her other dog Shadow had to be given away due to uncontrollable behavioral issues.
Shadow thought he was Alpha dog and kept viciously biting and attacking Ali and any strangers who came in contact. Emily is a much sweeter toy poodle who doesn't feel the need to purposely spray on Sophia's toys to mark her territory. Shadow would deliberately and spitefully pee on Sophia's toys. It appeared he was jealous of her. Male dogs can be so disturbing, especially when they haven't been neutered, but Ali didn't feel right cutting his masculinity out of him.
After having him in their lives for nearly four years, Shadow was finally given away to a hard-working, blue-collar man who takes him to work every day. The two males bonded very well and found happiness together.
Good riddance!
As they were leaving the pet supply store, Sophia asked her mother if they could take a walk to the local frozen yogurt shop residing on the renowned Church Street. On such a beautiful sunny day, it was fitting for an afternoon stroll.
Sophia asked her mother if she remembered going there once, with her and Noah (Sophia's father). Ali assured her of the memory, but it wasn't a completely pleasant one for her.
She recalled how Noah had nonchalantly disappeared with Sophia that evening while Ali stood beside them on a sidewalk, engrossed in a local street artist playing his music. When she finally noticed they had vanished, she frantically called out to them with no reply.
She first thought he had taken Sophia to the frozen yogurt shop, but when she peered inside, they were nowhere to be found. Her instincts led her to believe that Noah had just kidnapped Sophia to take to his folks' home out of state. A sudden panic flooded her mind. Her breathing labored as she began to hyperventilate. Trying desperately to remain calm, she kept reassuring herself that it was all in her mind. That realistically it couldn't have happened.
In an attempt to maintain control, she focused on her breathing, taking deep breaths and holding it in. She wanted to scream to the top of her lungs in hopes that someone might help her, but she knew she had to remain calm if she didn't want to be thought of as a mentally ill, out of control, paranoid, crazed maniac to anyone around her.
In a distressed search that seemed an eternity, she ran back to the parking garage where they had parked his car only to find it sitting empty and void of any signs the two had gone back there.
Confused as to how they could have vanished without his vehicle, she continued to scurry through the streets stopping to search inside shops that were still opened to the public.
At one point she stopped to alert the parking garage attendants of her little girls' disappearance, making them aware of her child vanishing with her father. She left her cell phone number to call if they were to return, thinking that perhaps she'd be able to intercept him before he actually got away, if he hadn't already.
After what seemed like a hopeless reality, she suddenly spotted them sitting inside the fairly crowded frozen yogurt shop not far from where they had left her. They were calmly unaware of her deranged plight, peacefully enjoying the moment eating their frozen treats.
Not wanting to give Noah any devious ideas, or ruin her daughter's good time with him by expressing her insanely uncomfortable mistrust of her father, she quietly and calmly went inside the shop to join them. She ordered a cup of granola, layered with fruit and frozen yogurt and sat down beside them as if nothing had happened.
Realizing deep down inside the core of her being how paranoid he made her feel being alone with their daughter, she pondered why she had become that way, thinking the worse of a guy who appeared to be a good father to his daughter at that moment.
For what would seem like no apparent reason at all to others, she almost felt guilty for nearly turning a positively beautiful evening, to be enjoyed as a family outing, into a negative personal nightmare.
She was so relieved to know that her little girl was safe and unharmed and attempted to forget her over reaction to their disappearance by burying her secret intuitive struggle into her subconscious.
But how could she not think the worst about him given his undependable, volatile history with her? Their battles had exacerbated her post-traumatic stress disorder. The only way she would ever feel any peace of mind again was to either keep a closer eye on Sophia or get him out of the equation.
It might have been considerate of him to let her know where he was taking their child instead of suddenly disappearing so abruptly into the night.
She brought that to his attention at some point later in the evening after Sophia was sound asleep, but he absolutely refused to take any responsibility for her paranoid insecurities involving him.
That little misunderstanding caused Ali the realization of how much she distrusted him and how she would never have any harmony in her life as long as he were anywhere near their child. It was the beginning of their end.
After recalling that horrible traumatic memory, Ali chose to take Sophia to a different frozen yogurt place much closer to home where they could create a more pleasurable experience for her, one without so much drama or resentment, closer to home where she felt safe.
As they were driving, Sophia must have been pondering the times she spent with her father, because ... out of the blue ... she said to her mother, "Mommy? Do you want to know what daddy used to do to me when he lived with his parents in Pequannock?"
Ali's first response was "Hold that thought!"
She immediately reached inside her purse for her cell-phone, quickly fumbling with it at a red light, set it to video record mode, turning it to face Sophia as she continued driving and said, "Ok ... go on ... you can tell me now whatever it is you want to tell me."
Ali knew that whatever Sophia would share with her that day in confidence was not going to be repeated that easily to any other person in the entire world no matter whom it was. Sophia didn't like to talk to anyone other than a select few close friends and her mother, but she did allow her mother to video record her.
It was the way Sophia said it that made Ali realize whatever it was she wanted to share with her was not going to be something pleasant.
She had no idea what her child would say, but she wasn't expecting or even surprised to hear what Sophia divulged next.
Three years after dealing with Noah and his asshole parents fighting her in court for custody and being accused of everything from physical and emotional abuse, isolation, drug use, molestation, whatever they could conjure up in their warped imaginations to accuse her of, and finally, now that it's all over and they've moved far enough away to hopefully never get to see her again and out of the blue, a repressed memory surfaced and Ali now had it recorded on video as evidence.
"What a sick, disturbed, perverted, son of a bitch!!!!" she thought to herself.
Finally, some peace and quiet with Sophia safely away from her drug addicted father and his lying, enabling parents. Finally they could begin to...
