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“Mrs. Calbert, I’m Stevie Sinclair and I’m representing your son for the state of Texas,” I said, walking over and coming a stop in front of her.
“Hello, Miss Sinclair.”
“Ms.”
“Ms.”
“Do you understand why we’re all here today?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why we’re all here today.”
“Objection, your honor. We’ve already covered this,” Zac interjected.
I looked over my shoulder at him standing behind the defense table. Then I turned around and started walking toward him.
“I wanna hear it come from your client’s mouth, Mr. Buchanan. I wanna hear this mother explain to mehowshecould ever speak a cruel word or lay a mean hand on her four-year-old son.”
“She knows what she’s done, Ms. Sinclair.”
“She needs to say it aloud for all to hear.”
Zac walked around from behind the defense table and came up to me. “I think you’re the only one who wants to hear it. You wanna bully my client in this way.”
“I’m holding her accountable, Mr. Buchanan, and this time, I want you to listen closely to what she has to say. And after you do, I want you to tell me if that pitiful-acting client of yours reminds you of your alcoholic and abusive wife. Then I want you to tell me if you’ve thought about your son while working this case.”
“That’s enough, counsel!” Judge Smith yelled as Zac quietly growled “How dare you” at me.
I stepped even closer to him. “No. How dareyou. How dare you make me love you.”
“I didn’t make you do that. You chose to.”
“And you broke my heart.”
“You broke your own damn heart, Stevie, and you broke mine too. You promised me that you’d wait for our forever,” he said through his gritted teeth.
“Well, plans change.”
“And how easily you walked away from them too.” Zac’s eyes were filled with tears now just like mine were.
“Ms. Sinclair? Mr. Buchanan? I’m warning you. Stop what you’re doing. This is a court of law, not a counselor’s office,” Judge Smith continued, but we still paid no attention to him.
“You think it was easy for me?” I asked Zac. “Nothing has been easy for me in my life. Nothing!”
Zac and I were nearly nose-to-nose and our tears were streaming down our cheeks now. When Judge Smith began pounding his gavel, we finally stepped away from each other—both of us hurting so much and fuming. And that was when Zac’s client began throwing up.
He ran over to her and for the next couple of minutes, she emptied whatever was in her stomach into a trash can behind the stand. As I watched her, replaying in my mind what Zac and I had just so unprofessionally done, I knew what Judge Smith was about to do. Then he did it. He continued this case to be heard at another time.
I thought for certain that he was also going to order Zac and me into his chambers to find out what in the hell happened between us, but he didn’t. Before leaving his bench, he just pointed at us, gave us a hard look, and then dismissed court. When I looked over at Zac, he had his eyes on me and he shook his head. Not anobut ayes. An acknowledging yes that I knew meant he’d just accepted that we really were over. There’d never be any turning back.
As I was walking toward the door, I saw Brooke standing by it. She opened it for me and then the two of us walked in silence down the hallway, got on an elevator, rode it down to the first floor and left the courthouse. After making it down the steps, Brooke grabbed my arm and stopped me from walking any further.
“Look at me,” she said.
“What do you want from me, Brooke?”
“The first thing is to take a deep breath.”
