Chapter 4 - Cameron’s War on Me
Cameron struck first, 24 hours later.
I was packing my bag to leave the hospital—Lila, my best friend since residency, was picking me up, I was going to stay at her apartment until I could find a place of my own—when my phone blew up. First, an email from the hospital board: Effective immediately, you are suspended from your position as Chief of Emergency Medicine, pending an investigation into allegations of workplace violence, patient endangerment, and mental instability.
Then, a text from my bank: Your joint checking and savings accounts have been frozen at the request of account holder Cameron Bennett.
Then, a knock on the door. A process server stood there, holding a thick envelope. “Amelia Grant? You’ve been served. Emergency custody petition. Dr. Cameron Bennett is requesting full temporary custody of your son, Leonardo Bennett, on the grounds that you are mentally unfit to parent.”
I stood there in the middle of my hospital room, holding the envelope, my legs giving out so I had to sit on the edge of the bed. He’d done it. He’d actually done it. He’d taken my job, my money, and now he was trying to take my son.
Lila showed up five minutes later, holding two iced coffees, and when she saw my face, she dropped the drinks on the tray table. “Amelia? What’s wrong? What happened?”
I handed her the custody papers, and she read them fast, her face getting redder and redder with every line. “That son of a bitch,” she said, throwing the papers on the floor. “He says you have ‘uncontrolled rage issues’ because you snapped the bed rail? He says your ‘history of high-stress ER work’ makes you a danger to Leo? He has a psychiatrist he’s never even met you with testifying that you have severe PTSD and postpartum psychosis? I was there, Amelia! I saw how calm you were, even when he was torturing you! This is all bullshit!”
“I know,” I said, my voice hollow. “But he’s right about one thing. I have no money. I have no job. I have a lawyer working pro bono, but Cameron has the best family law firm in the city on his side, paid for by Richard Hale. The judge is going to look at him: respected surgeon, stable job, big house. And look at me: suspended, broke, living on a friend’s couch, fresh off a hysterectomy. Who do you think she’s going to believe?”
Lila grabbed my hands, squeezing hard. “Hey. No. We are not doing this. You are not going to lose your son. I have $12,000 in savings—we can use that for whatever we need. My cousin is a private investigator, he’ll dig up every dirty thing Cameron has ever done. And I will testify. Maggie will testify. Every nurse who was in that delivery room will testify. You are the best person I know, Amelia. The best doctor, the best mom. No judge is going to take Leo from you.”
She was right. I couldn’t give up. Not when Leo needed me.
For the next three days, we worked nonstop. Elena filed a counter-petition for custody, attached the recording of Sophie’s confession, got statements from six nurses who’d been in the delivery room, got a letter from my own psychiatrist—who I’d been seeing for work-related stress for two years—saying I was perfectly mentally fit to parent. Lila’s cousin found out Cameron had been staying at Sophie’s penthouse apartment since I’d been in the hospital, that he’d already moved half his things out of our house, that he’d been bragging to his friends that he’d be rid of me and married to Sophie by the end of the year.
The emergency custody hearing was on a Friday, in a small courtroom downtown. I was so nervous I could barely breathe, wearing a borrowed dress of Lila’s, my hands shaking so bad I could barely hold my water bottle. Cameron sat at the other table, in an expensive suit, his arm around Sophie, who was wearing a modest gray dress, dabbing at fake tears with a tissue. They looked like the perfect, grieving couple. I looked like what I was: a broken woman fighting for her life.
The judge, a no-nonsense woman in her fifties with gray hair pulled into a tight bun, called the hearing to order. Cameron’s lawyer went first, painting me as a violent, unstable monster. He played the security camera footage from the delivery room: me, screaming in pain, snapping the steel bed rail in half. He called his paid psychiatrist, who testified that I was “a ticking time bomb” who could hurt Leo at any moment. He called Sophie, who cried on the stand, saying I’d attacked her unprovoked, that I’d threatened to kill her and the baby, that I was “clearly out of my mind”.
When it was our turn, Elena didn’t waste any time. She called Cameron to the stand first.
“Dr. Bennett,” she said, standing in front of him, holding a copy of my original medical chart—Maggie’s copy, the one that hadn’t been altered. “Is it true that your wife requested an emergency C-section at 7:12 PM on the night of delivery?”
Cameron shifted in his seat. “She was hysterical—”
“Answer the question, Dr. Bennett. Yes or no.”
“…Yes.”
“Is it true that you denied that request, over the explicit objections of your attending nurse, who warned you the baby was too large for vaginal delivery?”
“…Yes.”
“Is it true that you ordered the anesthesiologist to turn off your wife’s epidural, as punishment for what you believed was an attack on your intern?”
Cameron’s face turned bright red. “Objection! That’s a lie—”
“Then explain this.” Elena held up her phone, pressed play, and the sound of Sophie’s voice filled the entire courtroom: “Cameron has been covering for my mistakes for six months. I’ve killed two patients, Amelia. Two. And Cameron fixed the charts… He saw his chance to punish you. He wanted you to suffer. He hoped something would go wrong so he could blame you.”
The courtroom went dead silent. Sophie froze on the bench, her mouth open. Cameron stared at the phone like it was a snake. The judge leaned forward, her eyes wide.
Elena kept going, for another hour. She called Maggie, who testified about every second of the delivery. She called my psychiatrist, who testified I was fit. She called the NICU doctor, who testified Leo’s injury was a direct result of the forced vaginal delivery. She showed photos of my bruises, of the altered chart, of the texts Cameron had sent Sophie that Lila’s cousin had found: “I’ll take care of her, baby. She’ll be gone soon.”
When the judge made her ruling an hour later, her voice was sharp, angry. “This court does not tolerate fraud, or lies, or the use of medical power to punish a spouse. Temporary full custody of Leonardo Bennett is awarded to his mother, Amelia Grant. Dr. Bennett is ordered to pay $10,000 a month in child support, to cover all of Leo’s medical expenses, and to have no unsupervised contact with his son until a full trial can be held. If I hear one more lie from either you or Ms. Hale, you will both be held in contempt of court. Do I make myself clear?”
Cameron stood up, knocking his chair over, his face purple with rage. “This is a travesty! She’s manipulating you! She’s crazy—”
“Enough!” the judge yelled. “One more outburst, and you’ll be in a cell. Get out of my courtroom.”
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As we walked out, Cameron grabbed my arm in the hallway, his grip so tight it hurt. “This isn’t over, Amelia. I swear to God, I will ruin you. You’ll never work again. You’ll never be happy. I’ll make sure of it.”
I pulled my arm away, staring him dead in the eye. “Try me, Cameron. You’ve already tried to kill me once. What else do you have?”
