“No.” I pulled on the dress shirt and started working on the buttons. “But I will be.”
He crossed the room and took over the buttons for me, his fingers steady where mine were shaking. When he finished, he straightened my collar and kissed me once, soft and grounding.
“You're going to get through this,” he said. “And I'm going to be right there the whole time.”
“I know.”
The drive into Toronto felt surreal. Morning traffic, coffee shops opening, people going about their normal Thursday like the entire foundation of my life wasn't about to be judged by strangers in a courtroom. Rook drove with one hand on the wheel and the other laced through mine, and I focused on breathing and not throwing up.
My siblings were already at the courthouse when we arrived, standing near the entrance with Sarah and looking various degrees of terrified. Talia had her arms crossed and her spine straight, the way she always held herself when she was trying not to fall apart. Micah kept fidgeting with his tie, and Poppy looked like she wanted to set the building on fire and walk away from it.
“Hey,” I said, pulling all three of them into a hug. “We're ready for this. We've done everything right. Now we just have to get through today.”
“Easy for you to say,” Poppy said, her voice muffled against my shoulder.
“It's not, actually.” I pulled back and looked at each of them. “But we do it anyway. That's what we've always done.”
Sarah appeared next to us, dressed in a navy suit and carrying a briefcase that probably cost more than my rent. “Everyone ready?”
None of us were ready. But we nodded anyway.
She walked us through the plan one more time — what to expect, how to answer questions, the importance of staying calm and letting the facts speak for themselves. I'd heard this briefing twice already, but hearing it again helped settle some of the panic clawing at my ribs.
“Remember,” Sarah said, looking at each of us in turn. “You're not on trial here. They are. All you have to do is tell the truth.”
We headed inside and went through security. People moved through the hallways with briefcases and serious expressions, and everything felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
The courtroom was on the third floor. We took the elevator in tense silence, and when the doors opened I saw them immediately.
My parents.
They were standing near the courtroom entrance with Morrison, and the sight of all three of them made my stomach drop.
My mother saw me first.
“Soren,” she said, and her voice had that wounded quality that used to make me feel like I'd kicked a puppy. “Please. Can we just talk before?—”
“No.” Talia stepped between us, her voice hard as granite. “You don't get to do this right now.”
Morrison put a hand on my mother's arm. “Mrs. Vale, we discussed this.”
My father met my eyes briefly across the space between us, and I thought of the coffee shop, of the careful way he'd sat across from me and not quite backed her play. He looked away first.
Sarah guided us past them and into the courtroom, and I made myself not look back.
The room was smaller than I'd expected. Wood paneling, a judge's bench that looked appropriately imposing, tables for both sides, and a handful of seats for observers. Rook and his parents settled into the back row, giving us space but making sure we could see them if we needed the reminder that we weren't alone.
The judge entered and everyone stood. She was in her sixties with gray hair pulled back in a bun and the kind of face that suggested she'd presided over too many cases like this and had stopped being impressed by anyone's bullshit decades ago.
“Please be seated,” she said, and we sat.
The hearing began with procedural formalities that I barely registered. My brain kept circling back to the fact that my mother was sitting twenty feet away, wearing her concerned-parent mask, about to try to convince a stranger that she deserved access to the daughter she'd abandoned.
Morrison went first, and I hated how good he was.
He painted a picture of a family torn apart by addiction and mental illness, of parents who'd made mistakes but were now working hard to heal, of children who'd been forced to grow up too fast and deserved the chance to reunite with their reformed mother and father. He talked about rehabilitation programs and therapy and the fundamental bond between parent and child. His voice was measured and warm and had probably worked on a hundred judges before this one.
Then my mother took the stand, and I watched her perform.
