He Let Me Crash on Christmas Eve, So I Took Our Daughter novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Where Were You at 7:58

The hearing was on the seventh, in a courtroom with no windows and a flag in the corner.

Joy was two weeks old.

She was down to a nasal tube now, and the nurses had promised to text me the second anything changed.

My lawyer was a small, tired woman Lorna knew from the hospital.

She sat beside me with one file and no notes.

Across the aisle Nate sat next to a man in a three-hundred-dollar suit who had come from the Pilkington firm.

Nate had shaved.

He wore a plain blue tie and a jacket that hung loose on him, and he did not look at me when I came in.

Kendra sat behind him in the gallery.

She had put on a gray dress and a pearl clip in her hair, and she gave me a small wave.

I did not wave back.

The judge was a heavy woman with half-glasses and a voice that did not rise.

"Let's begin with the petition," she said. "Counsel for Mr. Ardrey."

The man in the suit stood.

"Your Honor, my client came home from a family emergency to find his house stripped. His wife has kept his newborn daughter from him for ten days and shown no cause. We would ask the court to restore equal access and require Mrs. Ardrey to return to the marital residence."

"Show cause," the judge said, and looked at my lawyer.

My lawyer stood.

"Your Honor, my client was in a car accident on Christmas Eve. Her husband was called and declined to come. She gave birth by emergency surgery at 11:14 that night."

"Declined?"

"He chose to remain at a dinner, Your Honor. We have the phone records."

She handed up one page.

I'd been given a copy, and I knew the line by heart.

An incoming call to Nate Ardrey's phone at 7:57 p.m., lasting one minute.

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