Chapter 13: Withdrawn

On Friday morning Marcello stood up before the judge could ask him anything.

"Your Honor, I have a statement."

"Sit down, Mr. Ferraro. Your turn comes in its place."

"This is its place."

The judge took off her half-moon glasses and waited.

I sat very still at the petitioner's table. Lucia was in the back row again with her handbag on her knees.

"Last week I told this court my wife arranged her pregnancy to trap me," Marcello said. "I said she wrote it down in advance."

"You did."

"I withdraw it. All of it."

My barrister's head came up.

"The email I relied on was dated before my wife's account existed. It was put in the firm's archive by hand, the week of our wedding. It was forged."

He did not look at me. He looked at the bench.

"Ms. Hargrove did not write it. She never wrote anything like it. I believed a lie for eight years, and I punished her for it in silence."

The judge folded her glasses in one hand.

"Mr. Ferraro, you stood in this room and called your wife a manipulator. You said you hid the marriage because you knew what she was."

"Yes."

"Do you wish to repeat that?"

"No, Your Honor. I wish it struck from the record, and I wish this court to know I was wrong."

The court clerk typed.

The judge turned to me.

"Ms. Hargrove. The petitioner asks that the marriage be dissolved. Do you still ask it?"

I stood up.

I had practiced a clean answer for three days, and every word of it left my head.

"Your Honor, I filed because my husband would not claim his son. That was true when I filed. I don't know yet if it is true now."

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