Chapter 18: The Hearing

The hearing was set for nine o'clock on the first Friday of January, and snow was coming down past the courthouse windows.

I sat at the left-hand table in a navy dress that no longer closed over my stomach without a belt.

Eileen sat in the second row with her arms folded.

Three reporters sat in the back row, because Celia had made sure the whole city knew what day it was.

Harrison came in last, and his lawyer carried the folder.

He looked at me once across the aisle, and he did not smile or ask for anything.

He had stopped wearing his ring.

I looked at the pale band on his finger longer than I meant to.

The judge was a heavyset woman with reading glasses on a chain.

She read the file in silence.

"Mrs. Rutherford," she said. "I have your petition. You are asking for no support beyond what is in the settlement."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"The apartment and the trust are in your name already."

"Yes."

"And you are eighteen weeks along."

"Nineteen," I said.

"Congratulations." She turned a page.

"Mr. Rutherford, your lawyer filed an addendum this morning. I'd like to hear it in your words, not his."

Harrison stood.

His lawyer touched his sleeve, and he did not look down.

"I withdraw every claim I have on the child's home," he said.

"Where the child lives, where the child goes to school, and what name the child carries. All of it is Thea's to decide."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Composure After Divorce Became His Greatest Torment from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.