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I grinned at her. “Right.”
She hustled back to her car, then stashed her ‘purse gun,’ as she’d coined it, under the seat.
She beeped the locks, then caught my hand and said, “Let’s go.”
We met my lawyer inside, and I jerked my chin toward Forest’s lawyer.
She waved, and we all went into the court room.
Emory arrived almost late, and took a seat, whispering fiercely to her lawyer. Her lawyer looked stunned at the news, and was shaking her head, gesturing toward the court room at large.
I wished I was a fly on the wall near them so I could hear what it was they were talking about.
A text came, and I looked at the phone in my lap to see Hollis texting me.
Hollis:
She just came in here and demanded the lawyer ask for a recess. She forgot to get coffee and needs it.
I looked up to find Hollis, Ellodie, and Shayne behind Emory and her lawyer.
I shook my head and looked back up to the front just as the judge came in.
I stood as did most of the others—Emory did, but only after her lawyer whisper-hissed at her—and waited until the judge asked everyone to be seated.
The look the judge shot Emory was comical—at least for my side. Emory’s lawyer looked fit to be tied.
“Ms. Cline,” the judge said. “Is there some reason you’re already this close to contempt of court?”
Her lawyer’s head drooped to her chest.
“Uh, no, sir.” Emory looked worried now that she had everyone’s attention. “Sorry, sir.”
So the court was in session.
It started out with my son’s lawyer explaining the allegations against Emory.
A few witness testimonies were read from the people who were kind enough to watch out for my son at the restaurant that day.
The final testimony, though, came from a neighbor of Emory’s.
“…multiple times a night I hear her screaming at the little boy to shut up and go away. One particularly bad night, I realized that the little boy was sick, and the mom hated that she had to take care of her son. She threatened him multiple times. At one point, I called the cops, and they came, but she lied that it wasn’t her son, that he was asleep. (By that point he was asleep, because it’d been over an hour since the police were called.) There were multiple times after that point that she yelled but was much quieter about it. I’ve also complained about the mother multiple times to the apartment complex because she let the boy outside by himself. We live really close to a major road. That’s terrifying.”
I closed my eyes as the horror of that washed through me.
Letting him play outside by himself at that age?
What the fuck had she been thinking?
The sheer panic I felt at the thought of that happening now was making me squirm in my seat.
“Overall,” the lawyer finished up a long time later. “It’s my opinion that the child should not return to the mother. It’s also my professional opinion that the father is very adequately equipped to take care of his son. All impromptu visits have gone very well.”
I closed my eyes and felt my hands release some of their tension.
Emory looked flabbergasted by that.
“That is not acceptable!” She proved me right seconds later. “You can’t do that!”
