My daughter’s grip on my hand went from a casual hold to a bone-crushing squeeze in less than a second. We were in the middle of the mall corridor, surrounded by the hum of weekend commerce—the scent of cinnamon pretzels, the distant thrum of pop music, the chatter of families.
“Mom,” she whispered, her voice tight and unfamiliar. “Quickly. To the bathroom.”
I didn’t ask questions. You learn to read your child’s tone, and Abby, my eight-year-old, wasn’t prone to drama. She was a serious child, made more serious by the grief that had blanketed our home for the last two years.
We ducked into the women’s restroom. It was a utilitarian space of beige tiles and fluorescent lights that buzzed like trapped insects. Abby didn’t stop at the sinks. She pulled me into the furthest stall, the handicap-accessible one, and locked the door with a trembling hand.
“Don’t move,” she breathed, her eyes wide and terrified. “Look.”
I bent down, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I froze in horror.
Three hours later, my mother-in-law would go pale because I used to laugh at kids’ fears. Not out loud, not cruelly, just with that quiet, adult kind of amusement. Monsters under the bed, shadows in the hallway, the feeling that someone is watching. Sure, honey. It’s just the wind. It’s just a bad dream.
That category of cute childhood fears died on a sticky bathroom floor in a mall outside Columbus, Ohio.
Through the gap under the stall door, I saw them. Polished black leather shoes. Men’s dress shoes. They stopped right in front of our stall.
The silence in the bathroom was heavy, suffocating. Then, a man’s voice, low and terrifyingly calm, spoke into a phone.
“Yeah, mother and daughter. The girl is about eight. They’ve got shopping bags. She’s wearing a blue dress.”
My blood ran cold. The blue dress. Abby had picked it out ten minutes earlier at a department store. It was currently folded inside the opaque paper bag pressed against my knees. He wasn’t describing what she was wearing; he was describing what we had bought. He had been watching us inside the fitting rooms, or tracking our purchases so closely he knew the inventory.
Abby’s grip on my fingers was so tight it actually hurt, but I didn’t flinch. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t need to. She put a trembling finger to her lips, mimicking a gesture she’d seen in movies. Except in movies, the bathroom floor isn’t tacky with spilled soap, and your heart doesn’t try to claw its way up your throat.
“Don’t move,” she mouthed.
So, I didn’t. I watched the shoes through the gap. They shifted.
“Slow steps, stop. Slow steps, stop.”
It was methodical. He was like a predator pacing a cage. He wasn’t in a rush. He moved to the next stall, paused, and then returned to ours.
Abby’s breath hitched and then disappeared. Mine did too. The shoes lingered. Then, the voice spoke again, sounding like he was giving a mundane weather report.
“They should have come this way if they didn’t leave already. Yeah, I’ll keep looking.”
My brain struggled to catch up with reality. A man in a women’s restroom, looking for us, describing the contents of our shopping bags. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. This wasn’t a pervert looking for a cheap thrill. This was a hunt.
I pulled my phone out with shaking hands. The screen brightness seemed blinding in the dim stall. I hit record. If there is one thing working in healthcare teaches you, it is this: If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.
The shoes circled once more. A stall door creaked open nearby. Then another. He was checking them. Abby’s eyes went huge, filling with tears she was too scared to shed.
That’s when I did the only thing I could do without giving us away. I switched apps and dialed 911. I kept the volume off. I didn’t scream. I whispered, barely audible, my lips brushing the microphone.
“Woman’s restroom. Easton Town Center. Man inside following us. Eight-year-old with me. Please.”
The response was immediate and professional. “Stay where you are. Officers are on the way. Notify mall security if you can safely.”
Mall security. Bless the American tradition of outsourcing panic to a guy in a polo shirt. But at least it was something—a lifeline.
The shoes finally drifted toward the sinks. The sound of water running masked our movement. I grabbed Abby, and we slipped out of the stall like smoke. Fast, quiet, bags clutched tight to our chests to stop the rustling. We didn’t look at the sinks. We ran.
We burst out of the restroom and didn’t stop until we hit the security office near the food court, running like our lives had a loyalty card we needed to cash in.
The guard at the desk looked up, skeptical. Of course he did. Two women bursting in with shopping bags and wild eyes isn’t exactly a credible threat assessment. It screams “Black Friday energy” or a dispute over a declined credit card.
“What’s going on?” he asked, already bracing himself for a complaint about a coupon or a parking spot.
Abby, still trembling, stepped forward. Her voice was small but crystal clear. She described the man perfectly. “The black shoes. The suit. The camera strap around his wrist.”
“He was in the women’s bathroom,” I added, breathless. “He was narrating our movements on the phone.”
I played the audio recording I had managed to capture.
The guard’s face changed in real time. The skepticism evaporated, replaced by a hard, professional edge. “That’s not normal,” he muttered. No kidding.
He pulled up the live camera feeds on the monitors behind him. We watched the footage like it was a horror film with a low budget. And there he was. Mid-40s, dark suit, neat hair, holding a small handheld camera like it was a fashion accessory, not a weapon of surveillance. He walked out of the restroom area with the confidence of someone who believed rules were for other people.
“We have him,” the guard said into his radio. “Sector 4. Subject is tracking toward the exit.”
Security tracked him through the building. Thirty minutes later, they intercepted him near the valet stand. He didn’t run. He didn’t even look surprised. When the guard questioned him, the man calmly reached into his jacket pocket. I flinched, expecting a gun.
Instead, he flashed a plastic card.
“I’m Brian Douglas Hartman,” he said, his voice smooth as oil. “Licensed private investigator. I’m conducting an investigation.”
“What investigation?” the guard asked, blocking his path.
“I can’t disclose that,” Hartman replied, adjusting his cuffs. “Client confidentiality.”
And then he said something that should have been funny, except it made my stomach turn over. “But I’m not doing anything illegal. I’m in a public space.”
A Private Investigator in a women’s restroom searching for a mother and child. Sure.
Security called the police anyway because even in America, a badge you bought online doesn’t magically excuse you from common sense or trespassing laws. A cruiser arrived about twenty minutes later. An officer took one look at Abby, who was pale and shaking, and his expression softened. Then he looked at Hartman and didn’t soften at all.
Hartman was escorted out in handcuffs, citing “disorderly conduct” as a holding charge while they sorted it out. That’s when my phone rang.
It was Mike, my brother-in-law.
“Kate,” he said, breathless. “Are you okay? I heard something happened.”
I blinked, staring at the phone. “Mike, how do you know?”
“I saw it online,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “People were posting about a suspicious guy at the mall on the neighborhood watch group. I thought… I thought it might be you.”
It had been less than an hour. Maybe in the age of neighborhood apps and local Facebook groups, that wasn’t impossible. But it landed wrong. It felt heavy. Mike always seemed to know things before I told him.
“I’m coming,” he said. “Where are you?”
“We’re with the police,” I answered. “They want statements at the station, but I can drive myself.”
“I’m coming anyway.” He hung up before I could argue.
As I stared at the phone, a cold realization began to seep into my bones, colder than the fear in the bathroom. The man in the suit had known about the blue dress. Mike knew we were at the mall.
Was it possible that the danger wasn’t a stranger, but something much closer to home?
To understand why the call from Mike made my skin crawl, you have to understand the last two years of my life.
Two years earlier, my husband David died in a car crash. It’s the kind of tragedy that splits your life into “Before” and “After.” One minute you’re arguing about whether to buy name-brand cereal or the generic store version; the next, you’re signing forms you can’t read through a wall of tears while a hospital chaplain hands you tissues.
After that, everything in my life became a schedule. Shifts, bills, school pickup, survival, with occasional spaghetti. I’m a nurse. I work 12-hour shifts, the kind where you come home and your bones feel borrowed, like you have to give them back to the universe at the end of the day.
Abby and I made a routine out of the wreckage. Homework at the kitchen table. Cartoons after dinner. Spaghetti night on Tuesdays because it was easy and comforting. Whenever we needed comfort, we could chew.
David loved tomato sauce. He used to grow basil in a little planter box on our balcony like it was a sacred ritual.
One evening at the grocery store, about a month before the mall incident, Abby said casually, pushing the cart like she owned the place, “I have a math test tomorrow.”
“Are you ready?” I asked, checking the price of rice. That’s what moms do when they’re trying not to think about the crushing weight of single parenthood—they focus on math tests.
“I’m fine,” she said. Then, quieter. “But Grandma Maggie keeps asking if school is hard. Like… like she wants me to say yes.”
I paused in the rice aisle. My mother-in-law, Margaret Louise Miller—Grandma Maggie to Abby—had been “interested” lately. Not the normal grandma interested, but the measuring kind. Does your mom help you with homework? Is she home much? Does she leave you alone at night?
She always phrased it like concern, but it tasted like lemon juice on a paper cut.
When we got home, Abby helped me with dinner, peeling tomatoes while I tried not to drown in memories. “Dad would like this,” she said softly.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yeah, he would.”
“Let’s buy basil next time,” she added. “The kind Dad grew.”
I nodded because saying no to that would have felt like erasing him.
We were finally sitting down to eat when the doorbell rang. It was around 8:00 PM—late enough that you don’t expect company unless it’s trouble.
I opened the door and found Mike standing there with a small bouquet of flowers, holding them awkwardly like a peace offering.
“Hey,” he said gently. “I just wanted to check on you two.”
Mike was David’s younger brother. Recently divorced, he still carried that lonely look like a coat he couldn’t take off. Abby squealed because she loved people before she learned they could be complicated. Mike lifted her into his arms and handed her a little box. Inside was a plush character from her favorite cartoon.
She lit up. I didn’t.
We hadn’t told Mike her favorite character. Not really. Not enough for him to know exactly which obscure side character to buy.
That night, after Abby fell asleep, I sat alone with my coffee and tried to be fair. He’s lonely, I told myself. He misses his brother. He misses having a family.
But then his visits became a schedule. Every day around 6:00 PM, the doorbell rang. Like Mike had set an alarm. He always brought something. Candy, school supplies, another toy. At first, I was grateful. Then I was tired. By the second week, Abby started sighing when the bell rang.
“He’s here again,” she’d whisper, and her smile would dim just a little.
Mike would sit on the couch and talk about how empty his apartment felt, how we were a bright spot, how David would have wanted him to watch over us. That line—David would have wanted—became his master key. He used it on every locked door in our lives.
One night, he said casually, “Can I come watch Abby rehearse her class presentation next Thursday? It’s at 2:00 PM, right?”
My skin went cold. “How do you know the day and time?” I asked. I hadn’t put it on the calendar yet.
“Abby told me,” he said, smiling.
I looked at Abby. She looked confused. “I didn’t,” she said slowly. “I forgot about it until today.”
Mike laughed awkwardly. “Oh, maybe I heard it another way. Or I guessed.”
Another way? Sure.
He showed up at school anyway. He sat in the auditorium among the parents like he belonged there, like he was filling David’s seat. In the car on the way home, Abby stared out the window and whispered, “Mom, I get tired when Uncle Mike comes.”
“Why, honey?”
She hesitated. “It feels like he’s watching me. Like he knows everything I love, but I don’t remember telling him.”
Kids don’t have a filter. They also don’t have a reason to lie about that feeling in their gut.
So, I started watching Mike. The way his eyes moved around our living room. The way he picked up framed photos and held them a second too long. The way he looked at Abby’s schoolwork like it was evidence.
One afternoon, he mentioned something that hadn’t even been discussed in our house yet. “Oh, Abby must be excited for the zoo field trip next month,” he said with a grin. “Packing lunches will be a challenge, huh?”
I froze. The zoo flyer had been handed out the day before. It was on Abby’s desk, buried under a stack of papers. I hadn’t even read it yet.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked carefully.
“From Abby,” he said quickly.
Abby’s head snapped up from her coloring book. “I didn’t tell him.”
Silence filled the room. Mike laughed, a forced, brittle sound. “I must have mixed it up.”
No, he didn’t.
The next day, I watched from the second-floor window as Mike left. He paused on the sidewalk, turned, and stared up into our living room window. He stood there for a full minute, just watching.
Then came the moment that broke my last attempt at telling myself maybe I’m overreacting.
Mike asked for a spare key. “Just in case,” he said. “If something happens to you, I need access. I’m family.”
“No,” I said immediately.
He frowned. “Your neighbor isn’t family. Valerie has helped us for years,” I snapped. “And she doesn’t demand keys.”
Mike’s voice sharpened. “David would want me to take care of this.”
Something inside me snapped right back. “Don’t use my husband as leverage,” I said.
That’s when Abby, barely audible from the hallway, said, “Uncle… you’re kind of scary.”
For a split second, Mike’s face changed. It went hard, almost hungry. Then it smoothed out again into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Scary uncle just wants to protect you,” he said sweetly.
Abby moved behind me. Her instinct knew something my grief kept trying to deny.
And then, the mall. The man. The shoes.
Sitting in the police station waiting room, the pieces started to click together like a terrifying puzzle. Mike knew our schedule. Mike knew about the blue dress because he had been asking Abby about her favorite colors all week. Mike knew about the zoo.
And Mike was on his way here.
The interrogation room at the station was stark, smelling of stale coffee and anxiety. The fluorescent lights made everything look worse—even my own hands, which were still shaking. Abby sat beside me, quiet, holding my sleeve like it was the only stable thing in the universe.
Hartman, the PI, sat across the hallway in an interview room. Through the glass, I could see he was still calm, still polished. He looked like he was waiting for a business meeting, not facing charges of stalking a minor.
Mike showed up before we were even done giving our statement. His face was pale, sweat beading on his hairline. He rushed to Abby first, crouching to her level.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Abby nodded, but she didn’t move toward him. She pressed closer to my leg. That was new. Usually, she would have hugged him. Mike noticed the distance, and a flicker of pain crossed his face.
A detective, a woman named Detective Reynolds, came out of the interview room. She looked tired but sharp. She motioned for me to follow her, leaving Mike with a uniformed officer and Abby.
“Mr. Hartman didn’t want to talk at first,” Reynolds said, leading me to a desk. “Then I explained calmly what entering a women’s restroom to pursue a child looks like to a jury. Especially with the audio recording you provided.”
“Did he confess?” I asked.
“He cracked,” Reynolds corrected. “He’s a professional, but he’s not willing to lose his license for a client who won’t protect him.”
“Who hired him?” I asked, though a sick feeling in my stomach told me I already knew.
“A woman named Margaret Louise Miller.”
My ears rang. My mother-in-law. My hands went numb.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why would she hire a PI to stalk us?”
The detective opened a manila folder on the desk. “To document Catherine Miller’s daily life. To assess parenting. Specifically, to determine whether the child is being ‘neglected’ because the mother works too much.”
I stood up so fast my chair scraped the floor with a screech that made the whole room look.
“What does that even mean?” I snapped, anger finally burning through the fear. “Neglected? Because I work? Because I’m a nurse? Because I’m tired? Because my husband died and I didn’t fall apart politely enough for her?”
Mike had walked up behind us. He stared at the detective, his mouth open. “No,” he said, his voice trembling. “No, my mom wouldn’t. She just… she just wanted to know you were safe.”
Detective Reynolds turned her sharp gaze on Mike. “Mr. Miller,” she said. “You’ve been at Ms. Miller’s home often. You’ve asked about schedules. School events. Plans.”
Mike opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. He looked like a fish out of water. “I was worried,” he said finally. “About my sister-in-law and my niece.”
“Worried about what?” Reynolds asked.
Mike froze.
Then Abby spoke up from the chair where she was waiting. Her voice was soft but clear in the sudden silence.
“I saw that man at Grandma Maggie’s house,” Abby said.
The room went still. Absolute zero.
Reynolds knelt down gently. “When, Abby?”
“Two weeks ago,” she said. “When I visited. He was sitting at the kitchen table. Talking to her.”
Hartman had been inside Maggie’s house. While Mike was there?
“Mike?” I looked at him.
He looked horrified. “I… I saw a guy there once. Mom said he was a financial planner. Handling her estate.”
“He wasn’t handling her estate,” Reynolds said grimly. She pulled a stack of photos from the folder and spread them on the desk.
My stomach turned.
There were dozens of them. Me and Abby at the park. Me picking her up after school, looking exhausted in my scrubs. Me carrying groceries. Me laughing with her on a bench, oblivious to the lens pointed at me.
There were printouts of my social media posts. Copies of my work schedules—documents that should have been secure within the hospital system.
And then the worst part: a typed plan. A checklist titled “Custody Petition Strategy.”
Subject is frequently absent due to shift work.
Subject displays signs of emotional instability (grief).
Lack of male influence in the home.
Recommendation: Immediate temporary custody to Grandmother.
There was also a neat little section comparing households. Maggie: Stable income, paid-off condo, clean environment, “deep interest in education.” Me: “Overworked,” “Chaotic,” “Financially strained.”
It was a resume contest for ownership of my daughter.
Mike stared at the pages, his hands shaking violently. “My mom… she was really going to do this?” he whispered. “She was building a case?”
“She was using you, Mike,” I said, my voice cold. “Every time you came over. Every time you asked about a schedule. Every time you ‘checked in.’ You were feeding her the intel she needed to take Abby away.”
Mike looked at me, desperate. Tears were streaming down his face. “Kate,” he choked out. “I swear I didn’t know. I thought she was just… I thought she was just an anxious grandma. I thought she wanted to help.”
I wanted to believe him. I also wanted to throw him out of the station like a burning object. Both feelings existed at the same time because grief makes your heart messy.
But the biggest shock was yet to come.
Margaret came to the station the next day. She didn’t come in handcuffs; she came in with a lawyer and a handkerchief.
She cried immediately—the kind of crying that arrives on purpose, designed for an audience.
“My Abby,” she sobbed, reaching toward the waiting area where we sat. “She’s all I have left of David.”
She looked at me like I was a temporary obstacle. Like I was an employee who had overstayed her contract.
“Catherine works so much,” she said to the detective, wiping her face daintily. “It’s too hard for her alone. I could give Abby a better life. More attention. Private tutors. I have the resources.”
Detective Reynolds didn’t blink. “You understand, Mrs. Miller, that you cannot remove a child from a fit parent just because you disagree with her work schedule. And hiring a private investigator to stalk them in a restroom? That is harassment. That is endangerment.”
Margaret’s lips trembled. Her mask slipped, just for a second. “I didn’t have a choice,” she whispered, her voice hardening. “Abby is my blood. She belongs with family who can provide.”
“I am her family,” I said, stepping between her and Abby. “And I provide love. You provide surveillance.”
“You’re never home!” Margaret snapped, the tears vanishing. “You leave her with neighbors! You feed her fast food! David would be ashamed!”
“David,” I said, my voice shaking with rage, “would be horrified that his mother hunted his daughter like an animal in a shopping mall.”
Mike, who had been standing silently in the corner, stepped forward.
“Mom,” he said. His voice was broken. “Stop.”
Margaret turned to him, her eyes flashing. “Michael, tell them. Tell them how tired she is. Tell them how messy the house is.”
Mike looked at his mother. Then he looked at Abby, who was hiding her face in my coat.
“The house is messy because she plays with Abby,” Mike said quietly. “She’s tired because she saves lives for a living. And she’s a good mother.”
Margaret gasped. “Michael! After everything I’ve done for you?”
“You used me,” Mike said. “You made me spy on them. You made me scare my own niece.”
The fallout moved fast after that.
A judge signed a temporary protective order within hours. Margaret wasn’t allowed to contact Abby directly. Any visitation had to be supervised. No pop-ins. No “just checking.” No surprise appearances at school.
Child Protective Services (CPS) came by once, because of course they did—Margaret had filed a report anonymously days before the mall incident. A caseworker looked at my kitchen, Abby’s room, her clean backpack, her homework folder, and my hospital ID badge still clipped to my lanyard.
She asked Abby if she felt safe. Abby said yes.
Then she asked if anyone made her feel unsafe.
Abby said quietly, “Grandma Maggie.”
That was enough. The case was closed as “unfounded.”
Margaret left town soon after. She went to stay with her sister in another state to “recover from the stress,” because even villains need a vacation. Apparently, Hartman faced criminal charges for disorderly conduct and stalking, and suddenly his “confidential investigation” resulted in his license being suspended.
But the silence left behind was heavy.
A week later, Mike came to our door.
This time, he didn’t use the key he didn’t have. He didn’t just walk up. He rang the bell once, then waited on the bottom step, looking ready to leave if I didn’t answer.
When I opened the door, he looked like a man who had aged a year in seven days.
“Kate,” he said quietly. “Can we talk? I won’t come in if you don’t want me to.”
We sat on the porch. Abby stayed inside, watching through the screen door.
“I didn’t know the extent of it,” Mike said again, staring at his hands. “I swear. I thought Mom was just… worried. She asked questions, and I answered. I didn’t think.”
I leaned back against the railing. “So, you fed her information? You told her about the zoo? The blue dress?”
Mike nodded. “Yes. She called me that morning. Asked what you guys were doing. I told her you were going shopping for a dress.” He swallowed hard. “She kept saying I was the only man left in the family. That I should be your support. That David would have wanted it.”
I flinched at David’s name. It still had teeth.
Mike hesitated, then added, barely audible. “And… that wasn’t all.”
I waited.
He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. “I… I always liked you, Kate. Even when David was alive. I admired you. I never acted on it. Never would have. But after he died, I cared too much. And my mom… she used that. She knew I’d show up. She knew I’d try to help. She played on my guilt and my… feelings.”
He laughed once, a bitter sound. “I was stupid. I thought I was stepping up. Instead, I was just opening the door for her.”
Abby pushed open the screen door then.
“Are you talking?” she asked.
Mike dropped to his knees on the concrete. “I’m sorry, Abby,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry you were scared because of me.”
Abby studied him for a long moment. Kids are the harshest judges and the most forgiving saints.
“You’re not bad,” she said simply. “Grandma Maggie tricked you.”
Mike’s face crumpled. “That doesn’t excuse me,” he whispered.
Abby walked over and took his hand. “But if you weren’t around,” she said softly, “maybe it would have been worse. Because then we wouldn’t have noticed something was wrong. You made Mom pay attention.”
I turned away so they wouldn’t see my eyes, because sometimes an eight-year-old says something wise enough to break you.
Mike didn’t become family again overnight. He earned his way back like someone rebuilding a house after a fire. Slow, careful, no sudden movements.
He stopped asking where we were going. He stopped trying to “check” things. He just showed up when asked—fixing a leaky faucet, picking Abby up from school only if I got held late at the hospital and specifically asked him to.
He helped me drive out to the old lake cabin David loved so I could keep the little garden patch alive. We planted basil. It felt wrong to let it die.
He told Abby stories about David as a kid—not to replace him, but to keep him real. Abby listened like those stories were oxygen.
Some nights, Mike and I sat at the kitchen table with tea and silence. Not romantic. Not yet. Just human. I started seeing him as a person. Not just a role, not my husband’s brother, not Margaret’s son. Just Mike.
And that made all the difference.
One year later, spring came with lilacs and the kind of soft air that feels like permission to breathe again. Mike and I got married quietly. No spectacle, no performance. Just us, a Justice of the Peace, and Abby.
Abby wore a white dress and scattered flower petals down the aisle, beaming like she was carrying sunlight.
After the ceremony, she hugged me tight.
“Mom,” she asked, her voice small. “Are you happy?”
I kissed the top of her head, smelling shampoo and sunshine. “I am,” I said. “Because of you.”
She looked up at the sky. “Do you think Dad can see us?”
My throat tightened. It still did, even after time. “Yes,” I said. “I think he can. And I think he’d want us safe.”
Mike lifted Abby into his arms. “I’m not here to erase your dad,” he told her gently. “We’ll remember him always.”
Abby wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love Dad Mike,” she declared, then added just as firmly, “And I love Dad David.”
And somehow, that made room in my chest for peace.
Somewhere else, in another city, behind another window, Margaret probably still stared out and called it heartbreak. Maybe it was. But heartbreak doesn’t give you permission to hunt a child.
We didn’t cut her off entirely. Months later, after court reviews, contact was limited to supervised calls. Brief, structured, and on our terms. She could call Abby—supervised, brief, boundaries she hated until she finally learned them.
And me? I learned something, too. Love that demands control isn’t love. It’s ownership.
I still watch the gap under bathroom stalls sometimes. Old habits die hard. But now, when I walk through the mall, I hold Abby’s hand not out of fear, but out of gratitude.
We made it out.
So, tell me, have you ever had someone claim they were “just worried” while tightening their grip around your life? How do you tell the difference between care and control? If this story hooked you, or if you’d like to share your thoughts about what you would have done in my situation, I’d love to hear from you. Your
