Chapter Four: What They Came Back With
They returned to the courtroom forty-seven minutes after they had left it.
They came through the door not together, exactly, but not with the six feet of charged space between them that had characterized every previous moment in the room. They sat down on the same side of the courtroom. Not adjacent — there was still a seat between them — but the same side.
The gallery noticed.
Tommy, sitting beside his court-appointed advocate, watched them come in. His face, Judge Holloway observed, was easier than it had been all morning. Not happy — this was not a happy story, or not simply one — but something had gone out of it that had been making it very taut and very still. Some held breath, released.
“Ms. Navarro,” the judge said. “Ms. Cole. Do you have anything you’d like to put on record?”
Diana stood. She had the posture of someone who is saying something they mean, which is different from the posture of someone performing conviction.
“Tommy should stay in his home,” she said. “His school is there, his friendships, his life. I’m not — this isn’t about winning something. It’s about not disrupting what works for him, what he has built. Continuity is what he needs most right now.” She paused. “That’s my position. That’s what I’m asking for.”
Judge Holloway looked at Rachel.
Rachel stood. She was steadier than she had been. Not composed — composure was too much to ask of this morning — but present.
“I want to be part of his life,” she said. “In whatever way he allows. I’m not asking for custody. I’m not asking for anything he hasn’t offered.” She glanced at Diana briefly, something that was almost an acknowledgment. “I just — I want the door open. That’s all.”
The judge looked at Tommy.
“Is there anything you want to say?” she asked him. “You don’t have to. You’ve already said quite a lot today.”
He almost smiled. Almost. “I think that’s okay,” he said. “What they said.”
“You’re all right with that arrangement? Staying with Ms. Navarro, with contact with Ms. Cole at your discretion?”
He nodded. Then: “Can I say one more thing?”
“Of course.”
He looked at both women. Not at the space between them, not at the floor, but at them, individually, each in turn.
“I don’t need you to be friends,” he said. “I’m not asking for that. I know that’s — that’s a lot.” A pause. “I just need you to stop making me the rope in a tug of war. I’m a person, not a prize.” He thought for a moment. “And I’m twelve. I need a lot of sleep and someone to sign my permission slips. That’s mostly what I need.”
Somewhere in the gallery, someone laughed — a small, involuntary sound, quickly suppressed. But real.
Rachel sat down. Diana sat down. The seat between them was still empty and might stay empty for a long time, but the distance had changed its character — it was no longer the distance of opposition. It was the distance of two people who have been through something and are still figuring out what they are to each other on the other side of it.
