Page 325 of The Lies We Play

“We’ll figure out our future later,” he says. “For now, let’s focus on Hal.”

“Let’s focus on Hal,” Liv agrees. “Then we can talk about being open, meeting Creed’s family, and maybe figuring out our future.”

“Our future,” I repeat, feeling hope again because maybe I can get myself that.

One of those futures where I can love, be happy, and learn how to become myself—whatever version comes out after this coming downfall.

Chapter Forty-Four

Creed

I’m not allowed to sit at the table.

Fitz fought for it.

The judge said no.

The judge said this is a conservatorship matter, and the conservatorship matter has two parties, and Creed Lafontaine, by every legal definition the State of New York can produce, isn’t one of them.

So I sit in the front row of the gallery, alone, with my hands folded in my lap, while six feet in front of me, Halston sits at a wooden table next to Livia and signs a piece of paper that says he understands the nature of the proceeding.

That’s the official version.

The version that matters is this: my husband is at the table, my wife is beside him, and I’m close enough to hear the pen scrape but not close enough to count.

The courtroom is small. Twelve seats. No press. A judge named Reyes who has been on the bench for nineteen years and who has, according to Fitz, never been outmaneuvered by Saint Claire’s money in any of the three previous matters their lawyers have brought before her. She’s in her fifties, with reading glasses on a chain and a coffee mug on the bench beside her that says World’s Okayest Judge.

I don’t know if she chose the mug for today.

I hope she did.

At the other table are Constance, Everett, and Whit Whelan.

Constance hasn’t looked at me once.

She has looked at Halston three times.

She’s wearing a navy suit. Her hair is pulled back. There’s a double strand of pearls at her throat, expensive and old enough to have its own family history. She looks like a woman who dressed this morning for a portrait titled Grief With Legal Counsel.

Everett sits to her right. He’s been studying his cuticles since he sat down and only looks up when Whelan speaks.

Whelan is small and gray, and reading from a legal pad that he hasn’t written anything on. I know because I’ve been watching him. I’ve had nothing else to do except sit where the law put me and notice things. He’s performing the act of reading. A prop in a room where the actual case has already started bleeding through the walls.

Fitz lays it out fast.

He doesn’t give a speech. He hands the judge a binder and says, “Your Honor, the petition before the court is for the dissolution of the existing conservatorship over Halston Saint Claire and the appointment of Livia Crane Saint Claire as next of kin and spouse. The certificate of marriage between the petitioner and the conservatee is in the binder, tab one, dated and signed a year prior to the conservatorship Constance Saint Claire, Everett Saint Claire, and the Saint Claire trustees now claim that it governs his affairs. Tabs two through nine contain the evidentiary record.”

Judge Reyes opens the binder.

She looks at Halston.

“Mr. Saint Claire.”

“Your Honor.” He inclines his head.

His voice is controlled.

Too controlled.