Five Years of Marriage to Mr. Bradford novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Leah's POV: The Sentence
Leah's POV
The courtroom in Worcester smelled of radiators and old coats.
Danny's friends filled the left side of the gallery.
The drummer had come, and the girl from Vermont, and my cousin with her hands twisted in her lap.
Behind them sat a hundred strangers who had read the article and come to look.
Leonard sat at the front with his lawyer.
His mother had not come.
I sat on the other side of the aisle, as I had said I would, in the grey dress I had worn to Danny's funeral.
Imogen was brought in by two officers.
She had no cane.
She walked with her bad knee dragging, and she did not look at me, and I found that I could look at her.
She pleaded guilty first.
The charges were failure to render aid in a fatal collision and obstruction.
The judge read a third charge so fast that I did not catch it.
Her lawyer said she had been young, and frightened, and injured herself.
The judge looked down at her over a pair of half-moon glasses.
"I have read the transcript from Galway, Ms. Shaw," she said. "I've heard the recording. You told a man to hang up on a dying boy because you were worried about your hands."
Imogen's lips moved.
"I will hear the family now."
I stood.
I had a page, and I put it on the rail, and did not look down at it.
"My brother's name was Danny," I said. "He was twenty-two, and he'd saved for a year to go and play music in Galway. He worked in a hardware store and delivered pizza at night. He taught himself the fiddle from videos, because we couldn't afford lessons."
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