Chapter 19: Guardian

The hearing room was smaller than I expected, with a flag in the corner.

The judge wore reading glasses on a cord.

Regina sat at one table with her lawyer.

The hospital's lawyer and a woman from the hospital's ethics committee sat at the other.

Randall sat behind them in the first row, in a grey suit.

I sat beside him with my coat on my lap.

Dennis had stayed home with the baby.

I had pumped at six, and I could feel it, and I did not care.

The judge read for a while without speaking.

Then she looked up.

"Ms. Pritchard, the court has a letter from the registry dated August. Do you want to tell me about it before your counsel begins?"

Regina's lawyer stood up.

"Your Honor, my client was frightened. A parent's instinct is to keep family close."

"I asked your client."

Regina did not stand.

"I wanted him to have his father," she said.

"The registry says the donor could have been cleared in a matter of days."

"I didn't know that."

"It is in the letter you signed."

Regina looked at her hands.

Her lawyer asked for a recess, and the judge said no, and called me.

I walked to the stand with one hand on the rail.

Her lawyer was a tall man with a patient voice, and he started gently.

"Mrs. Reeve, you attended a charity gala last month."

"I did."

"You took the microphone from the guest of honor."

"She was not offering it."

"You played a private recording and put my client's medical decisions on a screen in front of three hundred people."

"I put a form on a screen."

"Did you intend to humiliate her?"

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