“No,” Dad said calmly. “It was the one thing you knew you couldn’t replace.”
Brian looked at him.
He opened his mouth.
Ezoic
Then he closed it again.
Ezoic
He had nothing to say.
I turned away first.
I walked down that long gray hallway with my father on one side and Claire on the other, and I didn’t look back. Not once. I heard Pruitt saying something to Brian behind us in a low, angry voice. I didn’t listen.
Outside, the sun was out. It had been raining when we went in that morning. Now everything was wet and shining.
Claire hugged me on the courthouse steps.
“You did good,” she said. “Both of you.”
Then she looked at my father.
“Next time,” she said, “you tell your lawyer about the voicemail before the hearing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dad said.
She shook her head and laughed and walked to her car.
