Page 107 of Never Alone
The screen door creaked.
"Tessa?"
Cole's voice from the back patio.
"Coming," I said.
It came out almost normal.
CHAPTER 20
Cole
Tessa said it in the truck on the way to the courthouse.
We'd been driving for ten minutes. Noah was at Sam's and Jamie's. Tessa was in the passenger seat with her hands flat on her thighs, looking out the windshield. She hadn't said anything since we'd left the apartment, which I hadn't noticed because she'd been quiet for two weeks.
Then, at a red light, without looking at me: "I bet you're happy we'll finally be out of your hair after today."
I looked at her.
She didn't look back.
The light turned green. I drove. I wasn't ready for it. I was running on whatever had carried me through the morning, and it hadn't been thinking, and now, Tessa was sitting eighteen inches away from me, saying a thing I didn't know what to do with.
I should have said something.
I didn't.
I parked. I got her door the way I'd been getting it for six weeks. She got out without looking at me. We walked into the courthouse together. Miranda was already in the lobby waiting,and there was no time and no place to say a thing back, and that was, I'd think later, exactly why Tessa had said it then.
Miranda walked Tessa through the courthouse the way she did everything—clean, no wasted motion, one hand at Tessa's elbow at the metal detector. I sat in the row behind Tessa because the lawyer had told me to. I watched the back of her head and tried not to.
The judge took the bench at ten. He called the case number, confirmed appearances, and asked if there were preliminary matters. There weren't.
He had the GAL report in front of him. He had the forensic audit findings. He confirmed both parties had received copies. Both lawyers said they had.
Suzanne Delacroix took the stand briefly. The same navy cardigan. The clipboard she hadn't picked up at the apartment was on her lap. The judge asked if her recommendations stood. She said they did. Miranda had no questions. Nicholas's lawyer had two—careful, testing—about whether the boy appeared coached, whether she had observed any indicators of parental alienation. Suzanne said no to both, evenly, the way she'd saidSuzanne, pleasein our living room, and stepped down.
The audit was the thing I'd been watching for.
The findings were inconclusive on what mattered most. Miranda had told us this would happen. Nicholas had been thorough. The earlier reports Tessa had filed had been buried by people with the resources to bury them, and the audit had found the shadows of where the documents used to be without finding the documents themselves. Miranda had told us the shadowswould be enough. Watching the judge read the page in front of him, I believed her.
Closings were brief. Miranda spoke first. The GAL's findings. The audit. The stability of the home over the supervised visitation period. The petitioner's lack of engagement during the same period. She asked the court to grant full custody and to revoke the supervised visitation order. She sat down.
Nicholas's lawyer stood. He didn't have much. He said the audit had been inconclusive. He said his client maintained his position. He said his client had a constitutional right to a relationship with his child. He asked that supervised visitation continue, in modified form, pending further review.
He wasn't arguing to win. He was making a record for appeal.
He sat down.
The judge took a minute. He wrote.
Then he ruled from the bench.
Based on the report of the Guardian ad Litem, the findings of the forensic audit, and the totality of the evidence, the court found in favor of the petitioner. Full physical and legal custody to Tessa Marin. Supervised visitation revoked. No contact with the minor child except as approved by the court. The protective order remained in effect. The respondent could petition for modification after a year of demonstrated change.
Gavel.
