“That sounds like fun,” Judge Davis responded. “Can you tell me what you like most about living with Jalen?”
“She plays with us and reads us bedtime stories,” Nathan responded.
“And she helps us with our homework and goes over our words with us and takes care of us when we’re sick. She’s a nurse, so it’s easy for her,” Omari replied.
“She makes us yummy things for breakfast every morning too!” Nathan continued.
“What about when you’re in trouble? Do you get a spanking?” Judge Davis asked, and the girls shook their heads.
“No, Jalen doesn’t spank,” Omari told him.
“We have to sit in timeout after a warning, and then if timeout doesn’t work, we have to give up one toy we play with a lot for a while,” Nathan explained.
“Do you have to give up toys a lot?”
“No,” Omari responded, shaking her head. “And I only go to timeout sometimes.”
“But Mikal and Landon don’t get timeouts. They get warnings and then no comic books for Mikal and no phone for Landon, and she thinks that the world is ending when that happens because she really likes that phone,” Nathan informed with a little nod that caused soft laughter in the courtroom.
“Jalen says it’s because she’s a teenager, and that’s just how they act,” Omari added.
“But maybe just teenagers Landon’s age, because Kodi’s a teenager, but she doesn’t get in trouble much either,” Nathan supplied.
“Kodi’s an adult,” Omari whispered to Nathan, but she wasn’t good at it, and the entire court heard.
“No, she’s seventeen, and teen means teenager, remember?” Nathan returned.
“Oh, yeah!” Omari responded with a smile and a nod.
Jalen listened to Judge Davis laugh as he stood up. He took her sisters’ hands and led them closer to the plaintiff’s side of the room, their backs to her.
“Do the two of you see your mommy in this room?” Judge Davis asked, and Jalen watched as her sisters nodded. “Okay, can you do something for me? When I let go of your hands, can you go to your mommy?”
“Yes, we can do that,” Nathan responded while Omari nodded.
Jalen watched as Judge Davis let their hands go. It wasn’t even a second before they were turning and skipping to Jalen. She pushed her chair back, and both girls hopped into her lap, and Jalen hadn’t realized she’d begun crying.
“What’s the matter?” Omari asked.
“Are you sick? Does your tummy hurt?” Nathan asked as both little girls wiped at the tears.
“I think this decision is self-evident,” Judge Davis said, and Jalen looked at him. “Ms. Hollis, you’re free to take your sisters home. Mrs. Hollis-Edwards, if you’d like to petition for visitation, you have that option, but I wouldn’t recommend the disruption to their routines as they seem to do wonderfully without you.”
Jalen felt as if she’d been holding her breath the entire time they’d been seated in that room because the weight that lifted from her chest was instantaneous. Far off, she was sure she heard Valerie’s voice as she protested. However, she didn’t pay it any mind, and she hugged her sisters tightly. The sound of the gavel and Meila’s hand on her shoulder had her standing.
Omari had wiggled out of her lap and raised her arms to Rohan, who had been sitting behind her, giving her support the entire time, and Jalen turned with Nathan in her arms as her boyfriend picked Omari up.
“This calls for a celebration,” he told her, and she couldn’t agree more.
33
Rohan sat on the bleachers. Jalen to his right, Mikal on his left with a comic book, and Nathan in his lap, coloring on an app he’d downloaded on his phone for her. On Mikal’s left, Vega sat with Omari, reading the words she recognized on the program to him, while Landon sat in front of them to be a little closer so she could take pictures, leaning back against Jalen’s legs.
It was ten in the morning and the weather was still nice. He was glad the school had scheduled graduation earlier in the day, considering it was outside. Kodi’s class had over three hundred graduates, and they were all seated on the turf field. She hadn’t been hard to find since they were seated in alphabetical order by last name, and the program listed them all.
The ceremony began ten minutes ago with opening words, the Pledge of Allegiance, and now the salutatorian was speaking. Jalen had informed Rohan that even though Kodi probably wouldn’t say it, she was a little upset. The current salutatorian had only beaten her grade point average by two-tenths of a score, and the valedictorian by four-tenths.
Nathan held up Rohan’s phone to show him the picture she’d just colored, and before he could respond and tell her it looked good, she backed out of it and chose another one.
