Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Hallie
“ H allie!” I hear the squeal and look up from where I’m juggling my bag, phone, and coffee cup as I walk down the hall of the courthouse. I grin when I see Maya standing in front of Eric and Jen, one of their hands on each of her shoulders, no doubt keeping her from launching herself down the hall towards me. She is bouncing on her toes, a ball of barely restrained energy.
I reach them and put my coffee and bag on the bench before bending down to her level and giving her a hug. “Hey, kiddo. I’m so happy to see you today.”
She squeezes me tight and then lets go and waves a hand down her neon pink and yellow sundress and gold sandals. “Do you like my outfit? Mom said I could pick out whatever I wanted when we went shopping yesterday.”
I hear Jen inhale sharply and when I look up, she is clearly barely holding it together. Eric slides an arm around her waist and pulls her close. Maya’s case was complicated, and it took a long time for her birth mother to relinquish custody even though she had no intention of caring for Maya and no ability to do it even if she wanted to. It was painful for Eric and Jen, who fell in love with Maya the second they laid eyes on her as foster parents. And it was tough on Maya, who craved the stability a finalized adoption would provide. Even though Eric and Jen tried to shield Maya from as much of the process as possible, she obviously picked up on the vibes because she kept calling them Eric and Jen even after years of living with them. It was only once we scheduled the final hearing that she asked if she could finally start calling them mom and dad. And to all three of them, it meant everything.
My own eyes start watering, but I blink it back so I can focus on Maya. “You look beautiful, Maya. And I have something for you.” I dig into my bag and hand her a small jewelry box. She opens it and gasps. Inside the box is a delicate silver chain with three pink stones threaded onto it.
“Hallie, it’s so pretty!”
“There are three stones—one for you, one for your mom, and one for your dad. You guys have been a family for a long time, but now you are going to be a legal family, too. You can wear this necklace as a reminder that you have a forever family now.”
“Can you put it on me?” Her voice wavers a little.
“Of course, baby. Turn around.” I clasp the chain and then turn her back around to face me.
I give her another hug and with her arms around my neck, she whispers, “Thank you for giving me my family.”
My emotions have been close to the surface for the past couple of days, and that tiny whisper does me in. My tears spill over as I give her one last squeeze and let her go. “Honey, giving you your family has been the best thing I have ever done in my time as a lawyer.”
She smiles and I stand up to face Eric and Jen, who are both a mess. They fold me into a three-way hug and whisper their thanks before we break apart and laugh at the scene we are making—three grown adults crying in a courthouse hallway and a seven-year-old trying to get her arms around all three of us at once.
We have just pulled ourselves together when the court clerk announces that the judge is ready for us. We make our way into the courtroom, but before the clerk closes the door, I hear a familiar voice call, “Wait!” and a parade of footsteps rushing down the hallway. Before I can go out and see what all the commotion is, Ben, Jeremy, Jordan, Jordan’s fiancé Allie, Emma, and Molly come barreling through the courtroom doorway.
I grin at them, every part of me lighting up at seeing all my favorite people here. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We would never miss seeing Miss Maya get her family,” says Jordan as he and Jeremy hug Eric and then Maya. Allie, Emma, and Molly make a beeline for Jen and throw their arms around her. But Ben comes straight to me.
“Proud of you, Hallie girl,” he says quietly, folding me into a hug. I swear this man has hugged me more in the last twenty-four hours than he has in the entirety of our friendship, but I’m not mad about it. He is so warm and solid and familiar. When he puts his arms around me, everything inside me quiets down.
“Where’s Jules?” I ask as we break apart, realizing for the first time that everyone is here but her.
An irritated look crosses Ben’s face. “She stayed back at the office. Said she wished she could have come, but there’s so much to do, and she’ll catch up with Eric and Jen later.”
I’m disappointed but not surprised. I know she’s happy for me that I am getting this done, and she's happy for the Caseys. But I sometimes think her happiness has limits, and those limits are anything that takes her away from work, even if it means supporting me in something important to me and supporting our friends who are fulfilling a lifelong dream. But that’s Jules. She has been my friend for my entire life, and I can’t expect her to change who she is now.
I just shrug at Ben. “Jules gotta Jules.”
“I know you’re disappointed she’s not here. I can see it in your face. It’s okay to tell her that.”
“What’s the point? This is just how she is.”
“The point is telling someone you love who loves you that she did something that disappointed you.”
“It won’t change anything though, so why poke the bear?”
“Because it’s how you feel, Hallie. How you feel matters.”
I know Ben is right, and I also know that I will never say anything. Just the latest in a long string of irritations and annoyances that I bury. I hate confrontation. The idea of people being mad at me makes my skin crawl.
How can I expect anyone to change if I never say anything? But I have been living this way for so long. And as uncomfortable as I sometimes am, it’s also just easier to live in the status quo. I would rather people be happy, even if it means that sometimes I’m not.
Before I can get too deep in my feelings, the clerk asks everyone to be seated. My friends take the first gallery row, and I sit at one of the tables with Eric, Jen, and Maya.
“All rise,” the clerk calls.
We stand, and the judge tells us to be seated. She scans the room and then looks down at Maya and the Caseys with a huge smile.
“It is my absolute honor to be here today,” she begins. “Out of all the things I do as a judge in this court, my favorite thing to do is this—to make a family. To make sure that kids like you, Maya, get to find their forever families. And I am thrilled to see so many of Eric and Jen’s friends in the courtroom today too. It takes a village, and it is so special that you have so many people who have come here to support you today. You are a very, very lucky family.”
I sneak a glance back at my friends, sitting behind us. They are all looking at the judge and beaming, but Ben is looking right at me. He gives me a grin and a wink, and I feel a rush of warmth.
“Now, first, mom and dad, I need your signatures on this document,” says the judge. The clerk takes a clipboard from the judge and hands it to Eric and Jen. They sign, and the clerk hands the clipboard back to the judge.
She looks at it and then sets it aside. I have sat through enough of these adoption proceedings to know what’s coming next, and my stomach jitters with excitement.
“And that’s it,” she says with a grin. “Maya, starting now, you are officially Maya Casey. Eric, Jen, Maya, I know that you have been a family in your hearts for a long time. So, it is my absolute honor right now to declare that you are also now a family legally—officially and forever. Congratulations.”
At that, Maya bursts into tears and throws herself at Eric and Jen. The three of them hug tightly, rocking back and forth. Tears flow from all of them, from me, and, judging by the sniffles coming from the row behind me, from my friends.
As I watch Eric, Jen, and Maya cling to each other in their first moments as an official family, it is suddenly all so clear to me. This is it. It’s so obvious I almost laugh. This is what I want to do. It’s not the firm I don’t want—it’s the kind of work I’m going to be doing at the firm. As I think back on my years in practice so far, I suddenly realize that it has all just been very deeply fine. Nothing particularly satisfying about it at all.
But this? This is what fills my cup. Making families. Helping people navigate the system and giving kids their forever home. This is what I am meant to do. I don’t want to do it on the side whenever Callahan has a case that they are too busy to handle. I want this to be my career—what I do for as long as I am still practicing law.
But that rush of clarity and satisfaction also comes with a deep uncertainty because how the hell am I supposed to do that? I have clients waiting to come over to our new firm and Julie counting on me to pull my weight in our shared practice. Emma and Molly have their own niche areas, with their ultra-complex planning and philanthropic practices, but the plan was always for Julie and me to share a practice. We planned our whole firm around it. Telling her that I want to do something else would be a disaster. Could I even do it within the structure of our firm? Would I want to? I shove those thoughts away, happy for now to at least have figured out part of what has been eating at me for the better part of the last year. I can figure out the rest another time.
Before I even have a chance to turn around and look for my friends, I’m attacked by a cloud of bright colors and long brown hair. “I’m such a weepy mess, and I am never a weepy mess,” Molly declares as she hugs me tightly. “I need brunch and a mimosa, stat. I told Julie, the spoilsport workaholic, not to expect us back at the office.”
I chuckle. “Never change, Mol.” I give her a grin and turn to see where everyone else is. While Allie is deep in conversation with Jen, Emma is admiring Maya’s new necklace, and from what I can overhear from the guys’ circle, they are ribbing each other about their workout schedule.
Everyone breaks apart at Jen’s declaration that we are going to brunch. Our whole crowd starts moving towards the doorway. Ben falls into step beside me and takes my hand, pressing two mini-Reese’s cups into it. I open the candy as we walk down the hall. As I pop them both into my mouth, Ben tosses his arm around me and says, “Bet the brunch eggs won’t be as good as my eggs, Hallie girl.”
“You know it, Benji. No one makes eggs like you do.”
“And don’t you ever forget it.” He grins at me and drops a kiss on the top of my head. The ghost of his kiss and the weight of his arm warm me to my core as we follow the crowd out of the courthouse.