Chapter 34
Hold It Together
Gavin
Victor's office felt smaller the night before the hearing.
It had the same leather chairs, same floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the same view of the Financial District going dark outside the windows.
But with the hearing twelve hours away, the room had a weight to it that hadn't been there before.
Andi sat beside me, close enough that her shoulder pressed against mine. She'd come straight from The Grind. She even had a faint trace of coffee in her hair, which I'd noticed when I'd kissed her temple in the lobby. She was holding it together better than I was. She usually did.
Victor settled into his chair across from us and opened the folder without preamble. That was Victor. No small talk when there was work to do.
"You're in good shape," he said. "I want to start there because I know what tonight feels like and I want you to hear that first."
I nodded. Didn't trust my voice entirely.
"Rebecca's case is built on two things. The first is financial motivation, and the second is just the use of emotional language.
Judges see through both, usually faster than the attorneys presenting them.
" He tapped the folder. "Mitchell Brennan is competent.
He'll be professional tomorrow, but he's working with weak material, and I'm going to guess he knows it. "
"She missed visits," Andi said quietly. "While she was with David. She was fine with the arrangement then."
"Exactly. And I'll make sure Judge Weston understands that." Victor leaned back. "A parent who raised no concerns about custody for years, then files for modification six months after her own relationship ends? The timing tells its own story."
"What about Charisse?" I asked. "Is there any chance the judge wants to talk to her directly?"
Victor nodded. "It's possible. An in-camera interview. It would just be the judge and a recorder. No parents or attorneys would be there. If it’s needed, the judge would just ask general questions about her routine, how she feels, whether she's happy, and what would make her unhappy.
" He paused. "The goal wouldn't be to put her on the spot.
It would be to hear her voice directly."
The thought of Charisse sitting alone in a room answering questions about her own life because Rebecca had forced this—my jaw tightened.
"She's happy," I said. "She'll tell them that."
"I believe you," Victor closed the folder. "Go home. Get some sleep if you can. Don't rehearse—it'll make you sound scripted. Just be honest tomorrow. That's always been your strongest argument."
He stood. We stood. And then he did something I hadn't expected. He came around the desk and shook my hand, holding it a beat longer than necessary.
"You've been a good father through all of this, Gavin. The record shows it. Trust that."
I turned away, blinking hard against the sudden pressure behind my eyes.
In the elevator down, Andi slipped her hand into mine and didn't say anything. She didn't need to. We stood in the lobby afterward, neither of us quite ready to separate for the night.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Thinking about Charisse."
"I know." She turned to face me. "But we don’t even know if the judge will talk to her. Regardless, Charisse is a kid who is loved and thriving. Everyone knows it." She put her hand flat on my chest. "Rebecca can't manufacture a different version of Charisse in front of a judge."
I covered her hand with mine. "I'm sorry for what she put in that filing. Your name in there, all those allegations—"
"Stop," she said it quietly but firmly. "We knew what she was doing. We prepared for it. And tomorrow it gets answered." She looked up at me. "Don't apologize for Rebecca. You've never been responsible for her."
I pulled her close and held on for a minute in the marble lobby of Victor's building, people moving around us, the city loud outside the glass doors.
"I love you," I said into her hair.
"I love you too." She pulled back. "Now go home. Be with Charisse tonight. That's where you need to be."
She was right. She was always right about the things that actually mattered.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror at seven the next morning, adjusting my tie for the third time. My hands were shaking.
I heard the front door open and close. Andi had let herself in after I’d texted her that the door was unlocked. I heard her voice in the hallway, low and warm, talking to Charisse. Then her footsteps on the stairs.
She appeared in the doorway. Navy dress. Hair up. The kind of composed that I knew had cost her a sleepless night to achieve.
"Stop fidgeting with your tie," she said.
"I feel like I'm going to throw up."
"You're not going to throw up." She crossed to me and straightened my collar with steady hands.
Hands that had been shaking yesterday and weren't now, which told me everything about how much effort that composure was costing her.
"You're going to walk in there, tell the truth, and let Victor do his job. "
"What if we lose?"
"We won't."
"You don't know—"
"Gavin." Her hands rested on my chest, and she looked up at me until I met her eyes. "You are an amazing father. Charisse is happy and thriving, and loved. Any judge who looks at her for five minutes will see it." A beat. "It's enough. It's more than enough."
I covered her hands with mine. Breathed.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay." She straightened my tie one final time. "If we go now, we can grab a bagel for Charisse before we drop her off with Mrs. Murphy."
I nodded. "Perfect." I called for Charisse, who bounded down the stairs in her favorite blue sweater. The three of us walked out together, my smile fixed in place while acid churned beneath my ribs.
The courthouse was all marble and echoing footsteps and the particular smell of old wood and high stakes. We met Victor in the lobby. He walked us through security, down a long hallway lined with heavy wooden doors, and stopped outside Courtroom 4B.
"Rebecca and Mitchell are already inside," he said. "Judge Vivian Weston. Fair, thorough, and she doesn't tolerate nonsense dressed up as legal argument." He looked at us both. "Ready?"
I reached for Andi's hand. She gave it without hesitation.
"Ready," I said.
Victor pushed open the doors.
The courtroom was smaller than I'd expected. There were no dramatic vaulted ceilings, no gallery packed with spectators. Just a functional room with rows of benches, attorney tables, and a judge's bench at the front.
Rebecca sat at the left table with Mitchell, composed in an expensive cream suit she'd clearly had since before her divorce from David.
She glanced back when we entered. Her lips tightened when she saw Andi, a momentary crack in her composure—not just surprise, but a flash of something harder, like a match struck behind her eyes before being quickly extinguished.
Victor led us to the right table. I sat. Andi behind me in the gallery.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
The bailiff rose. "All rise. The Honorable Judge Vivian Weston presiding."
The door at the front of the courtroom opened. Judge Weston was a strong-faced woman in her sixties, with silver hair pulled back, with warm brown skin. Her eyes took in the room the way someone does when they've seen every version of this situation and aren't impressed by any of it.
"Please be seated."
She settled into her chair, opened her folder, and looked up.
"This is a hearing for modification of custody in the matter of Walsh versus Byrne. Are both parties present?"
"Yes, Your Honor," Victor said.
"Yes, Your Honor," Mitchell echoed.
"Good." She looked out over the room with the quiet authority of someone who'd decided harder things than this before lunch. "Let's begin."