Silence Was Not Forgiveness novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Her Own Courtroom

Lena's POV

I had not been asleep.

I thought about that on the courthouse steps at ten past eleven, with my machine case in one hand and my phone in the other.

When Nolan said he wished he had walked through the door the first Thursday, I was awake against his ribs with my eyes shut.

I had not answered him because I wanted to keep the sentence exactly as he said it.

That is the whole of my training.

You do not paraphrase.

The judge's clerk met me at the metal detector.

She is twenty-four and has never once been rude to me.

"He's between motions," she said. "He said to send you straight in."

The judge was eating a peanut butter sandwich over a legal pad.

He is seventy and very tall, and he has asked me for a transcript at midnight more than once.

"Mrs. Dahlberg. Sit. I'll skip the speech."

"Yes, your honor."

"Three weeks I've been asking. Do you want my courtroom or not?"

I had come to say no.

I had rehearsed it in the car, because Thursday mornings were supposed to be mine for a baby and then for a clinic and then for my husband's confession, and I had thought I couldn't commit to a courtroom five days a week.

But the Thursdays were not going to be what they were.

"Yes," I said.

He looked up from his sandwich.

"Yes?"

"I'll take it. Starting the first of the year."

"Good." He wrote something. "I thought you'd say you had a lot going on at home."

"I do," I said. "I'll still take it."

He nodded and went back to his sandwich.

It felt very strange to want something and say so on the first try.

I walked back out through the hall to the elevator with my case against my hip.

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