Chapter 26: Second Parent

Shelby walked to the witness stand in a cream dress, with her chin up and her hands empty.

She swore the oath and sat.

She did not look at Bernadette.

My lawyer asked her one question first. "Ms. Roark, did you know your baby died?"

"No."

"When did you learn it?"

"Eleven days ago, on a hospital bench, from the woman sitting there." She nodded at me.

"Lena Dolan told me what Bernadette Dolan did not tell me for five years."

The gray coat was up before she finished. "Your Honor, she has every reason to lie. She is the other woman."

"I was the other woman," Shelby said. "I was twenty-five, and he told me he was single."

She turned to the judge.

"I'd like to answer that, if you'll let me."

"Go ahead," the judge said.

"I slept with a married man. I'm not proud of it, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise in front of her."

She pointed at me, without heat.

"I thought she'd be glad to see the back of me. Instead she gave me her seat at the end of this."

The benches were silent.

"Mr. Dolan wrote a text," Shelby said. "I heard it read. It's an ugly text.

"It was sent by a scared man in a bar, to the one person he believed would never hurt a child."

She looked at Ty then.

"I'm not forgiving that. But he didn't write 'swap the babies.' He asked her to stop the affair and she did something else with it."

The gray coat tried again. "Isn't it true that Mrs. Dolan has been supporting you financially for four years?"

"Yes."

"Twenty-five hundred dollars every month. A generous gift."

"It was a leash," Shelby said.

She opened her purse and took out a folded sheet of paper.

"These are my bank statements. Forty-eight deposits.

"Every one came the day after I called her to say Eli had a fever, or a school form, or a bad week.

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