My Husband Left Me in Labor for My Best Friend and Her Baby novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Hearing

The family courtroom in Port Alden had twelve benches, a flag, and a judge with reading glasses on a chain.

I sat in the second row between Norm and Ward's lawyer's empty chair.

Ward sat at the front table in the suit he had bought at the Kohl's on Monday, still creased from the box.

Across the aisle Summer sat with her lawyer and her mother.

She did not look at Ward.

Her lawyer stood and buttoned his camel jacket.

"Your Honor, this is simple," he said. "The father of this child has spent six years of his marriage on a ship. Twenty-eight days out of thirty-one, he is unreachable."

"Mr. Delaney is a merchant marine engineer," the judge said. "That's a legitimate living."

"It is, Your Honor. And he has been offered a legitimate living on land."

My stomach dropped.

"Fleet Operations offered him a day job at the Muskegon depot last week," the lawyer said. "He has not accepted it. He wrote back the same day and asked them to wait. We have the email."

He held up a sheet of paper.

"He did not choose his son. He kept the ship."

I looked at Ward.

His back was straight, and his face didn't move.

"Mr. Delaney's lawyer," the judge said. "Response?"

"We call Mr. Lawton, Your Honor."

Norm walked to the stand in his good jacket, the one he had worn to my mother's funeral.

He held the Bible a second too long when they swore him in.

"Mr. Lawton, how do you know Mr. Delaney?"

"I met him five weeks ago, in a hospital hallway."

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