Chapter 6 - Why the children were alone
This became one of the questions used against me.
Why were a seven-year-old and a three-year-old left alone upstairs?
Because I expected to be gone one minute.
Bad decision.
I owned it.
The apartment door was locked.
Lily knew not to open it.
Mrs. Turner lived upstairs.
I believed I was checking a breaker.
Still, I left.
Family court later asked about it.
Derek’s attorney emphasized:
Rachel knowingly left two young children unattended while entering a basement she believed might contain her estranged husband.
That framing was harsh.
Also partly accurate.
My attorney answered:
She left briefly to restore power after a deliberate outage, with the children in a locked apartment.
Both facts mattered.
My mistake did not justify Derek’s confinement.
His wrongdoing did not make my decision wise.
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That became the first principle of the next year:
Each action keeps its own owner.
