He Gave Me Fifty Dollars to Live, I Left Him with Nothing novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Family Court

The Newport family courtroom was full by a quarter to nine.

Half of it was reporters.

The other half was people who had watched the ballroom clip four million times and wanted to see my face.

Philip sat at the left table in a charcoal suit, calm as a church.

Whitney sat behind him in cream, with her hair done and her phone gone.

The bailiff had made her leave it in a tray at the door.

In the row behind her sat six of Philip's friends.

I recognized the man in the red tie.

He was the one who had lost the bet on the terrace.

Tobias sat behind me.

Beside me was his Providence lawyer, a small woman with a gray braid and a stack of tabs.

The judge came in, a woman in her sixties with short silver hair and no patience in her face.

"Be seated," she said. "I have read the emergency motion. Mr. Carraway's counsel, begin."

Philip's lawyer stood.

"Your Honor, this is a distressed woman who removed a nine-year-old child from a stable home in a storm, after a public episode, on the advice of a man she has known for years."

"Known professionally," I said.

"Mrs. Carraway," the judge said. "Your lawyer speaks for you."

I closed my mouth.

Philip's lawyer called Whitney.

She walked to the stand with her chin up and swore on the book.

"My stepmother has been confused for a long time," she said, in her softest voice. "She screams. She threw a glass of champagne at me at my own engagement party."

My lawyer rose.

"Ms. Carraway, who threw the glass?"

"She did."

"Do you recall the guests' phones?"

"They were filming her."

"They were. We have their footage." My lawyer held up a drive. "Your Honor, I'd like to play a short clip of it."

The screen on the wall lit.

It showed Whitney in white, a glass in her fist, hurling champagne across the ballroom at a woman in a black dress.

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