Chapter 21: The Courthouse Steps

Lacey's POV

The county courthouse had wide stone steps, a flag and a metal detector.

I climbed them at ten to nine in a blue dress of Maureen's, taken in at the waist with safety pins.

Crispin walked beside me in a suit I had never seen, with his hand not quite holding mine.

Maureen walked in front of us in her good pearls.

"I have a few opinions," she said, to no one, "and I'd like to share them with the court."

"Ma," Crispin said. "Please don't."

"I will behave if they behave."

Behind us the lobby doors kept opening.

The man in the bathrobe had put on a tie.

The student with the headphones had brought two friends.

An old woman from the first floor was leaning on a cane at the bottom of the steps.

She had never spoken to me except to complain about the radiator.

"I took the day off," she told me. "I haven't done that since my husband."

I couldn't speak.

I just nodded at all of them.

At the top of the steps my parents were waiting.

They stood together, a foot apart, in their best clothes.

A man in a navy suit with a leather folder stood between them.

I had not seen them stand side by side since the divorce.

My mother's face was set.

My father had a bruise of sleeplessness under each eye.

He looked past me and found Crispin.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Fought Over Who Had to Keep Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.