He Married My Best Friend While I Gave Birth, So I Left novel · Chapter 44 of 48

Chapter 44: The Ninth

They brought Eleanor in through a side door at five to nine.

She wore gray state clothes and a pair of small pearl studs.

I hadn't seen the pearls since the club.

Her lawyer must have fought the guard for them.

The courtroom was half full.

Byron sat on my left with his phone in his breast pocket and his hand around mine.

Tara sat on my right in the one good blouse she owned, with Cal beside her in his jacket.

The silver-haired woman had taken the end of our bench, with her handbag on her knees.

In the last row, by the door, sat a man in a dark suit with his cap in his lap.

He didn't look up.

Poppy was in the hall with the nurse from St. Brigid's.

She had taken the day off, and she refused to be thanked.

"All rise," said the bailiff.

The judge was a heavy man with half glasses and a tired face.

He looked like someone who had heard every kind of grandmother.

He read the motion without a word, and then he looked down at Eleanor.

"Mrs. Angell. You've served six months of an eighteen-month sentence."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"You're asking me to send you home for Christmas."

"I'm asking the court's mercy," said Eleanor, in her low, lovely voice. "I am sixty-one. I have been ashamed of what I did every day since the plea. And there is a boy who needs me."

She did not look at Cal.

She didn't have to.

Her lawyer stood, with his leather folder open on the lectern.

"Your Honor, the defendant has accepted responsibility, she has no prior record, and she has a grandson, sixteen, who has asked this court in writing to bring her home."

He lifted a sheet of notebook paper.

"May I read it?"

"Briefly."

"'Dear Judge. My name is Calvin Hobart, and I am Mrs. Angell's grandson. I only found out I had a grandmother this year. She is the first person who ever told me I belong to a family. I want my grandmother home for Christmas. Please let her come home.'"

He lowered the page.

Behind me, someone drew in a breath.

I looked sideways.

Cal had gone gray around the mouth.

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