Poppy was already awake, sitting at the kitchen table with Dolores, eating toast and talking about the day ahead as if it were any other day. She asked me if I had slept well, and I said I had slept well enough, and she nodded and went back to her toast, and I was glad she did not know how much the day mattered, because she did not need to carry that. That was my job. I kissed the top of her head, and I told her I loved her, and I told Dolores I would be home as soon as I could. Then I picked up my keys, and I walked out to the car, where Oliver was waiting, and together we drove toward the courthouse, toward the morning that would decide what came next for my daughter and for me.
Chapter 28
— The Courtroom
The morning of the hearing came up grey and still, the kind of morning in Asheville when the mountains sit low under cloud and the air smells of rain that has not yet decided to fall. I woke before the alarm, before the light had properly found the windows, and for a moment I lay there listening to the house. It was quiet in the way a house is quiet when a child is still asleep and safe, and I held on to that quiet for a little while before I let the day begin. Poppy was asleep in her own bed, her breathing slow and even down the hall, and Dolores was already moving softly in the kitchen, putting the kettle on, keeping her voice low. I had asked Dolores to stay with Poppy through the morning and to come to the courthouse only when Oliver called for her, because I did not want Poppy anywhere near that building, and I did not want Dolores torn between the witness bench and the small girl who trusted her most. Dolores had agreed without argument, the way she agreed to most things that were plainly right, and she had laid out my clean shirt the night before, as if a clean shirt could make any of this ordinary.
I dressed slowly, tying my tie twice before I got the knot right, and I stood for a long time at the bedroom window looking out at the garden. The big tree stood bare-branched and patient in the damp light, and the grass was dark with dew. Two years ago Meredith had planted bulbs along the back fence, and I could not remember now whether they were meant to come up in spring or whether I had already missed them.
Downstairs, Poppy was awake by then, sitting at the kitchen table in her nightdress with a picture book open in front of her, her short hair still soft and uneven where it was growing back. She looked up when I came in, and her face brightened in a way that made my chest ache, because she was not afraid this morning, and I wanted very much to keep it that way. I sat beside her and poured her juice, and she told me about a dream she had had, something about a dog and a garden gate, and I listened as if it were the most important story in the world, because to her it was. I did not tell her where I was going in any detail. I told her only that Oliver and I had some grown-up business to finish, and that Dolores would stay with her, and that I would be home before supper. She nodded, serious for a six-year-old, and then she asked if I would read to her tonight, and I promised that I would. Promises are easy to make and hard to keep, but that one I meant to keep if I had to drive through a storm to do it.
Oliver arrived just after eight, his car pulling quietly into the drive, and he came to the door with his briefcase in one hand and his coat over his arm, looking calm in a way that steadied me. He shook my hand, asked after Poppy, and then I said goodbye to her, hugging her hard, and I followed Oliver out to the car.
The courthouse stood in the centre of town, a solid stone building with wide steps and tall windows, and people were already moving up and down those steps with the brisk, purposeful walk of people who had business inside. Oliver parked a little way off, and we walked the last stretch together, our shoes loud on the pavement. Inside, the air was cool and smelled faintly of old paper and floor polish, and a low murmur of voices filled the lobby.
Oliver led me to a small waiting room off the corridor, and Rosalind was already there, sitting upright in a chair with her hands folded in her lap, wearing a dark coat and looking as if she had not slept any better than I had. Elspeth arrived a few minutes later, her face pale but determined, and she hugged me briefly and then sat beside Rosalind, and the three of us waited together while Oliver went to speak with the court staff. I kept thinking about Poppy at the kitchen table, and about the promise I had made to myself that no one would ever frighten her in her own home again.
When Oliver came back, he told us the hearing would begin shortly, and he went over the order of things one more time, quietly and clearly, so that there would be no surprises. Veronica would be there with her lawyer, and the form would be produced, and we would answer it with the truth. I nodded, and I stood up, and I followed him toward the courtroom door, and as I walked I thought of Meredith, of her steady kindness, of the notebook in her desk and the bracelet and the photograph of two bassinets, and I thought that she would have wanted me to be calm today, and to tell the truth plainly, and to bring our daughter home. I carried Meredith's notebook in my mind, and the bracelet, and the photograph, and I knew they were not just keepsakes now, but proof that the truth had been written down long before anyone tried to hide it.