He looked at them.
Then at me.
“She really did think of everything,” he said.
“Almost everything,” I said.
“She didn’t plan on how much it would hurt to find out all at once.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Are you all right?”
I thought about it honestly.
The courtroom was smaller than I expected.
I had imagined something grander — high ceilings, long benches, the full weight of institutional authority.
What we got was a civil hearing room on the fourth floor of a building that smelled of recycled air and old carpet.
A judge who looked like she had seen every variety of family dispute and had long since stopped being surprised by any of them.
Douglas sat at the opposing table with his attorney, a man named Pryce who wore his confidence like a second suit.
Douglas himself was composed.
He glanced at me once when I sat down, then looked away.
