23. Alison #3
“She knew his cries. When he was a baby, there was one cry for hungry and one for tired, and Ally knew the difference.”
A tear slips down my cheek.
“When he started walking and he fell, he’d reach for whoever he wanted — Jane, or Ally. There was never much of a distinction he seemed interested in at all.”
A small, broken laugh moves through me.
“There were times Jane was closer and he still went to Ally. Sometimes he walked right past his own mother.”
“How did Jane respond?” Arthur asks softly.
“She laughed. She knew how attached he was.” The smile fades.
“As he got older, the problem changed. The person he went to didn’t.
Sick — Ally. Scared — Ally. Needed help — Ally.
” She adds, before Arthur can, “Jane was always involved. She loved and cared for Tobias every day. But Ally was right beside her. Always.”
Arthur nods. “Let’s talk about the last three weeks. How has Tobias changed since Jane’s death?”
Cassandra’s hands knot together. “He’s afraid. He asks where people are. If Walter leaves, he asks when he’s coming back. If Ryan isn’t home when he expects, he asks where Ryan went.” She looks at me. “And if he can’t see Ally—“ She stops.
“What happens?”
“He finds her.” I close my eyes. “He doesn’t like being alone at night anymore.”
“Does he have his own bedroom in your home? Does he sleep there?”
“He starts there.” My breath catches. “But that’s not usually where I find him in the morning.”
“Where do you find him?”
Her mouth trembles. “In Ally and Ryan’s bed.”
Ryan’s hand comes back to my chair.
“Tell the court what you’ve seen.”
Cassandra wipes under one eye. “I go up in the morning, and their door is cracked — Ally doesn’t close it all the way anymore.”
I didn’t even realize I stopped closing it.
“Tobias will be between them. Sometimes sideways. Sometimes curled into Ally. Sometimes Ryan’s got an arm over both of them.
But Tobias almost always has a hand on Ally.
Her sleeve. Her arm. Her hand.” She has to breathe.
“A few mornings ago, he had two fingers hooked into the bottom of her shirt. I think he needs to know she’s still there when he wakes up. ”
Ryan’s hand closes around my shoulder.
“What does Alison do when he comes in?”
“She moves over.”
Three words. They wreck me anyway.
Cassandra is crying now too. “She doesn’t send him back. She doesn’t complain that she’s tired. She doesn’t make him explain. She wakes up and makes room.”
I cover my mouth.
“Because that’s what mothers do.”
The words hit so hard I bend forward. Arthur waits. Nobody rushes me. Eventually, I breathe again.
“What role does Ryan play in Tobias’s care?”
Cassandra looks toward her son. “He loves him. He plays with him, feeds him, takes him places, sits with him. But when it comes to Tobias, Ryan follows Ally’s lead. If Tobias asks him something that matters, half the time Ryan looks at Ally before he answers.”
“Does that concern you?”
“No. Because Ryan understands whose person Tobias is.”
I look back. Ryan meets my eyes.
Arthur gives me a second, then continues gently. “Before Jane died, did Tobias spend time in your home without Alison?”
“Yes. Jane started calling me. She’d ask if I could keep Tobias for a few hours.”
“Did she say why?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes she just said she needed help. And I never asked, because I’d known Jane for years, and I’d known Tobias since the day he was born. If Jane said she needed me to take him, I took him.”
“Did it happen more than once? More often as time went on?”
Cassandra hesitates. “Yes. To both.”
“Did that strike you as unusual?”
“Eventually.” She looks toward Walter. “I thought she trusted us. I wish she’d told me why. I knew Roman was controlling. I knew things weren’t good. I didn’t know everything.” Her voice cracks. “If I’d known…”
Behind me, Walter closes his eyes.
“What did Tobias do when he came to your home?”
“He settled.” Immediate. “He knew us. He knew the house, where his snacks were, which toys were his. He’d follow Walter outside, bring him frogs, ask him a thousand questions.” A faint smile. “He started calling him my Walter.”
Walter’s face crumples.
“I always thought Jane kept calling because she knew he was safe with us. I never understood why she trusted us quite that much.”
Arthur goes very still. Then he closes the folder. “Thank you. No further questions.”
Roman’s attorney rises. “Mrs. Harrington, you testified that you’re a mother. But you’re not Tobias’s mother. Not his legal guardian. Not a child psychologist, not a social worker.”
“No,” she says, to each.
“So when you say Tobias views Alison as a parent, that’s your personal interpretation. Influenced by your affection for her. By your son’s relationship with her. By the fact that she’s carrying your grandchild.”
“Of course.” She doesn’t flinch on any of it.
He steps closer. “You also testified that Tobias regularly sleeps in the same bed as your eighteen-year-old son and his pregnant girlfriend.”
Arthur starts to stand. “Your Honor—“
“I’ll allow it, within reason.”
Arthur sits slowly.
Cassandra’s expression changes. “Yes.”
“And you consider that appropriate.”
“I consider it understandable.”
“You aren’t qualified to determine what’s psychologically appropriate for a grieving child.”
“No.”
“Then on what basis do you make that assessment?”
Cassandra is quiet a moment. “Because I’m a mother.
And because I’ve known Tobias his whole life.
” Her voice stays calm. “When I find a six-year-old who just watched his entire world disappear asleep between the two people he feels safest with, I’m not thinking about whether the sleeping arrangement is ideal. ”
“What are you thinking?”
Her eyes fill. “That he’s making sure Ally didn’t disappear too.”
The room goes dead silent. I can’t breathe.
The attorney glances at his notes and regroups. “You testified Alison is exhausted. Grieving. Pregnant. Still in high school. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude she already has more responsibility than an eighteen-year-old should be expected to manage?”
Cassandra considers him. “Yes.”
My heart drops. Then—
“She has more responsibility than any eighteen-year-old should ever have been forced to manage.” She looks at me. “But that isn’t the same as saying she hasn’t managed it.”
The attorney pauses.
“She shouldn’t have had to raise Tobias alongside Jane. She shouldn’t have grown up in that house. She shouldn’t be grieving her mother at eighteen, or pregnant and terrified someone might take her brother because she accepts help.”
Her eyes come back to him.
“But we’re not here to decide what Ally should have had to do. We’re here to decide whether she did it.”
The attorney takes a breath. “You love her. You want her to receive custody.”
“Yes.”
“No further questions.” Cassandra steps down. She touches my cheek as she passes, and I lean into her hand, just for a second.
Arthur doesn’t call another witness. Instead he walks to the end of our table and picks up a clear protective sleeve I’ve never seen before. “Your Honor, before we conclude, I have one additional exhibit and a brief authentication witness.”
Roman’s attorney is up at once. “What exhibit?”
Arthur turns. “The last will and testament of Jane O’Toole.”
Everything inside me stops.
“What?” I whisper.
Arthur just looks at me. The clerk takes it.
The judge examines it. “This was recently discovered?”
“Yes, Your Honor. It was among the documents Jane concealed before her death. Once discovered, I had it independently authenticated and located the attorney who prepared it.”
“We haven’t stipulated to its validity,” Roman’s attorney says.
“I didn’t ask you to.” Arthur turns toward the door. “I call Margaret Keene.”
A woman I’ve never seen enters — sixties, gray hair, dark suit. No connection to Edgewood. No connection to us.
After she’s sworn in, Arthur approaches. “Please state your name and occupation.”
“Margaret Anne Keene. I’m an attorney, at Keene and Bellamy. Our office is in Bellweather.”
A few towns over. Not Edgewood.
Arthur hands her the document. “Do you recognize this?”
“Yes. It’s the last will and testament of Jane O’Toole.”
“Did you prepare it? When?”
She checks the execution page. “I did. November seventeenth, 2019.”
Six years ago. Tobias was a baby. I was a kid.
“Did you know Jane before she contacted your office? Had your firm ever represented her husband? The Harringtons? The Walshes? Any family involved in this case?”
“No. To all of it. Not to my knowledge.”
“Did she come to your office alone? Was she competent? Did she understand what she was signing? Was she coerced?”
“She came alone. She was completely competent, she understood exactly what she was signing, and she was not coerced in my presence. The will was properly witnessed and executed.”
Arthur pauses. “Did Mrs. O’Toole tell you why she came to an attorney several towns away rather than someone in Edgewood?”
“Objection. Hearsay.”
Arthur looks to the judge. “It goes to the circumstances of the document’s execution and the reason its existence was unknown to the people named in it.”
“Overruled, for that limited purpose.”
Margaret folds her hands. “She said she wanted it prepared somewhere her husband would have no reason to look.” A chill runs the length of my body. “She said he was well connected, that he knew many of the attorneys used by families in their circle. She wanted privacy.”
“Did she ask you to contact Walter or Cassandra Harrington? To tell them they were named? Did she indicate Alison knew the will existed?”
“No. To all of it. As far as I understood, no one named in that document knew it existed.”
“No further questions.”
Roman’s attorney crosses her on the formalities — whether Jane could have changed it later, whether Margaret had any contact after execution, whether she knew a single thing about our family beyond what Mom told her. No. No. No. She doesn’t know us. That’s the point.