Not a gasp, not a cry. A full-throated scream of fury that made several people in the gallery flinch backward. She shot to her feet, knocking over her chair, her face contorted into something barely human.
"This is insane! This is his fault!" She pointed at me, her finger shaking with rage. "He did this! He turned everyone against me! He poisoned that child against me from the beginning!"
"Mrs. Sterling, sit down—" Judge Harrison began.
"No! I won't sit down! I won't be quiet!" She was screaming now, spittle flying, her carefully constructed facade crumbling into dust. "I gave him everything! I gave up my life for his family, and this is what I get? Prison? For an accident?"
Bailiffs were moving toward her.
"You." She whirled toward me, her eyes wild. "You think you've won? You think this is over? I will make you pay for this. I will make sure you never have a moment's peace?—"
"Ma'am, you need to come with us." A bailiff took her arm.
She wrenched away. "Don't touch me! Do you know who I am? Do you know who my family is?"
"Victoria." Her lawyer's voice was exhausted. "Please. Stop."
But Victoria was beyond stopping. Beyond reason. Beyond the calculated manipulation that had served her so well for so long.
"And you!" She turned toward the gallery, her gaze finding Claire. "You pathetic, desperate little nobody! You think he cares about you? You think you matter? You're nothing! You're the help! And when he's done using you, he'll throw you away just like he's throwing me away!"
Claire didn't flinch. Didn't look away. Just sat there, steady and still, letting Victoria's venom wash over her without effect.
"I hate you," Victoria spat. "I hate all of you! Every single one of you will pay for this!"
The bailiffs finally got hold of her, one on each arm, and began dragging her toward the side door. She fought them the whole way, her white dress twisting, her hair coming loose from its elegant arrangement.
"This isn't over!" she screamed as they pulled her through the doorway. "Do you hear me, Nathaniel? This isn't over!"
The door slammed shut behind her.
Silence.
Judge Harrison cleared his throat. "Court is adjourned."
People began to move, to murmur, to filter toward the exits. I sat frozen in my seat, staring at the door through which Victoria had disappeared. That was the woman I'd married. That was the monster I'd invited into my daughter's life.
"Nathaniel?"
Claire's voice, soft and uncertain, came from behind me.
I turned.
She was standing in the aisle, clutching her purse strap like a lifeline. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks damp. She'd been crying. Watching my nightmare finally end, and crying.
I stood slowly, my legs unsteady beneath me.
"You came," I said. The same words I'd used a week ago in Millie's hospital room. The only words that seemed to matter.
She gave me a weary smile, fragile and trembling at the edges. "Yeah. I did."
We stood there, three feet apart, the wreckage of the courtroom emptying around us. I wanted to reach for her. Wanted to pull her close and apologize for everything: the hearing, the humiliation, the cowardly severance text that had been my attempt to set her free.
"I watched the footage from the hospital," I said instead. "Victoria's... performance."
"I didn't plan to confront her. It just happened."
"You didn't back down."
