Chapter 8: Two O'Clock
The courthouse clerk stamped the amended petition at 2:03 in the afternoon.
Paul took the copies.
I stood at the counter and watched the clerk move on to the next file as if nothing had happened.
As if the last fourteen months of my life had not just been formally entered into a legal record.
Outside on the steps, Paul handed me my copy.
"It's done," he said.
"Renee will be served within the hour.
Her attorney — whoever she's retained — will have the amended petition by end of day."
"And the brother-in-law?"
"The bar complaint was submitted this morning.
He'll receive formal notice within the week." He paused.
"He cannot advise Renee on this case anymore.
Conflict of interest, and now an active ethics investigation."
I looked at the papers in my hand.
"She's going to call me," I said.
"Yes.
Don't answer.
Let her go to voicemail.
Send everything to me."
My phone rang as I was walking to my car.
Renee.
I let it ring.
It went to voicemail.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again.
I got in the car and drove back to my mother's house.
The voicemail notification appeared while I was at a red light.
I didn't listen to it.
I forwarded it to Paul without playing it.
My mother had made dinner by the time I arrived.
The children were at the table — all three of them, including Marcus, who had taken the seat closest to the window.
He had a full plate in front of him and he was eating without watching the door.
I stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment before anyone noticed me.
My mother saw me first.
She tilted her head toward the empty chair at the head of the table.
I sat down.
"Dad," Marcus said, without looking up from his plate, "Grandma made the chicken thing."
"I can see that."
"It's good."
"It looks good."
He glanced up then.
Just for a second.
Long enough to check something in my face.
Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him, because he went back to his food.
Lily reached over and put a bread roll on my plate.
"You have to eat," she said seriously.
"Thank you, Lily."
"You're welcome."
Noah said nothing.
He was watching me the way he always watched things — quietly, from a slight distance, storing information.
He was seven years old and already the most careful person in the room.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
"It's going to be," I said.
He considered this.
Nodded once.
Went back to his food.
After dinner, after the children were settled, my mother and I sat on the back porch.
The evening was cool.
She had a blanket over her knees.
"David called," she said.
"When?"
"An hour ago.
He's angry."
"What did he say?"
"He said you were making a mistake.
He said Renee had only been trying to protect the family." She paused.
"I told him that a family where a ten-year-old goes hungry is not a family being protected."
"What did he say to that?"
"He hung up."
I looked out at the garden.
The last light was going out of the sky.
"I'll talk to him," I said.
"When this is over."
"Will it help?"
"I don't know." I paused.
"I don't know who he is right now."
My mother was quiet for a moment.
"He's someone who made a bad choice," she said.
"That's different from being a bad person.
But he'll have to decide which one he wants to be."
My phone buzzed.
Paul.
I answered.
"She retained counsel," he said.
"A firm out of Hartford.
Good firm.
They'll push back hard."
"Expected."
"They've already requested a delay on the service.
Procedural.
We'll oppose it." He paused.
"There's something else.
Renee's attorney contacted me directly, forty minutes after the filing."
"Already."
"They want to talk.
Off the record.
Tomorrow morning."
I stood up from the porch chair.
"What do they want to talk about?" I asked.
"They didn't say.
But Daniel — when opposing counsel calls forty minutes after a filing and asks for an off-the-record conversation, it means something in what we filed scared them."
"Good."
"Yes." A pause.
"Get some sleep.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
I went inside.
Checked on the children.
Marcus was asleep on his back, one arm thrown over his face the way he had slept since he was a toddler.
I sat on the edge of his bed for a moment.
He didn't wake up.
I turned off the light and went to the hallway.
My phone buzzed again.
A text.
David.
*She told me you recorded her without consent.
That's illegal in this state.
You know that, right?*
I looked at the message for a long time.
Then I typed back two words.
*Call Paul.*
I turned off the hallway light and went to bed.
At 9:15 the next morning, I walked into Paul Garrett's office for the second time in two days.
Renee's attorney was already there.
She was not.
May you like
But someone else was — someone sitting in the corner chair who stood up when I walked in, and whose presence in that room told me that the off-the-record conversation was not going to be about settlement terms at all.
It was going to be about what Renee's attorney had found out about Renee.
