Her recommendation was clear: full custody should go to Dorothy Brennan.
When Emmett told Dorothy, she sat down on the hotel bed and laughed once in disbelief.
“Not because I’m exceptional,” she said.
“No,” Emmett replied. “Because you are reliable. Courts like reliable.”
Reliable.
It was such a plain word for the work women did. It covered feeding infants at three in the morning, surviving your child’s funeral, learning legal timelines, and refusing to lose your mind when everyone around you would benefit from it.
The night before the final hearing, Dorothy could not sleep.
She drove to the cemetery instead.
The grass was damp. The air smelled of cold earth and cut stems. Someone had left fresh daffodils at Colleen’s grave. Dorothy touched the granite headstone, traced her daughter’s name, and sat on the bench nearby.
“I don’t know if I can carry all of this forever,” she whispered into the dark.
A breeze moved through the trees.
No answer came, not in any mystical sense. But Dorothy found her eyes resting on the daffodils—bright against the dark ground, impossible and stubborn.
Colleen had loved daffodils because they returned after every winter no matter how ugly it had been.
Dorothy stood.
Then she went back to the hotel, ironed her navy dress, set out three tiny onesies for the babies’ next visit, and prepared to finish what Colleen had started.
Part 5
The final hearing began on a Monday under the same fluorescent lights and stale coffee smell as the first, but the room felt different.
Not calmer.
Sharper.
Truth had a way of changing the temperature of a space.
Grant did not bring Whitfield Bradford this time. Rumor had it the older attorney withdrew after the fraud issue deepened. His replacement was younger, eager, and already defeated in the eyes. Laurel Ashford was absent. She had not answered Grant’s calls in nearly two weeks. Society women forgave affairs. They did not forgive scandal that showed up in newspapers.
Dorothy sat beside Emmett with Colleen’s first letter in her purse and both hands folded neatly in her lap to stop them from trembling.
Fletch and Jolene sat in the row behind her.
Vivian sat alone.
She wore gray. No jewelry. No red lipstick. Dorothy noticed that immediately and hated herself, briefly, for noticing. But grief sharpens strange things.