Chapter 3
They didn't let us follow. The chambers door had a frosted glass panel and a brass handle, and when it shut I could see Lexi's small shadow cross behind it and then disappear. Patel touched my elbow and guided me to the counsel table, pulled out the chair so I could sit before my knees did it for me.
Daniel stayed standing for a long three seconds after the door closed. Then his attorney pulled him down by the blazer.
"What is that," he hissed, not quite a whisper, toward Patel. "What photographs?"
Patel didn't answer. She opened her legal pad and wrote a single line and turned it so only I could see: Let the judge work. I nodded, but my throat was dry. Through the wall I could hear the low murmur of Judge Whitaker's voice, then Lexi's smaller one, not crying, just talking. I couldn't make out words. Daniel could hear it too, and his head cocked toward the wall like an animal listening.
Kelsey leaned in, her blouse shifting, her necklace swinging. "Daniel, you said she had nothing. You said—"
"Not now," he said through his teeth, and his hand flattened on the table hard enough the settlement papers shivered.
The court reporter kept typing even though no one on record was speaking, filling silence with soft clicks. The bailiff stood by the locked doors with his arms crossed, impassive. I stared at the brown folder on the bench, the white pages now sealed under Whitaker's palm, the tan envelope with its county seal sitting beside them like a weight.
Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. My lower back started to ache in that deep pregnancy way that made me want to stand and rock. I pressed my fists into the small of my back and breathed the way the nurse at the clinic taught me, slow in through the nose, out through the mouth. Daniel watched me do it and something in his face flickered — worry, or calculation, I couldn't tell anymore.
The chambers door opened. Judge Whitaker came out first, holding the sealed envelope against her chest, then Lexi, who ran straight to me and buried her face in my cardigan. She smelled like the hot chocolate and the little mint the advocate kept in her pocket. I held her and felt her ponytail against my cheek.
Whitaker addressed both tables. "I have heard enough to appoint a guardian ad litem and to order home evaluations," she said. "Temporary custody remains with Ms. Carter. Mr. Carter will have supervised parenting time only, to be arranged through the guardian. We will reconvene Thursday at nine for further hearing. Do not discuss the exhibit. Do not approach the child at school."
Daniel shot to his feet. "Your Honor, supervised? On what—"
"On the record I have just made, Mr. Carter," Whitaker said, adjusting her glasses. Her tone didn't rise, but it cut. "You may speak through counsel."
His attorney put a hand on his arm again, harder this time. Kelsey had gone pale and was gathering her purse like she wanted to be anywhere else. Lexi tightened her grip around my waist.
Patel exhaled beside me, almost silent. On her pad she wrote one more line: We kept her safe today.
May you like
Judge Whitaker lifted the gavel, not to bang it, but to set it down gently, a small wooden sound. "We're adjourned."
The bailiff unlocked the doors. Hallway noise rushed back in, but Daniel didn't move toward them. He stared at Lexi and then at me, and the question from earlier hung in the air without sound this time — what did she tell them — and for the first time that morning I didn't need to answer it.
