33. Jenna
JENNA
Priya Anand's office smells like cedar and printer toner, a narrow room above the pharmacy with diplomas hung a little crooked and a window unit rattling against the cold, and she reads Derek's petition twice through before she says a single word to either of us, one finger tapping a slow, unhurried rhythm against the desk.
"Okay." She sets the pages down, squares them, folds her hands on top like she's closing a book she's already decided how she feels about. "Here's where we actually stand. Not the version that scares you. The real one."
"We're listening," Rafe says, sitting close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him under the desk, steady in the way he gets right before something matters.
"You're in a strong position, Jenna. Primary caregiver, documented history, twins thriving in school, no red flags in your file that I can find no matter how hard I go looking, and believe me, I go looking.
" Priya taps the petition once. "This is winnable.
That's the headline. Hold onto it, because the next part of this conversation is going to try to talk you out of believing it. "
"But." I hear it coming a full second before she actually says it, the same way you brace for cold water before you've even touched the pool.
"But it's not automatic. Nothing with a judge ever is.
" She leans back, chair creaking under her.
"Derek's attorney is going to argue changed circumstances.
He'll claim he's completed the program, clean record since, the whole redemption narrative.
Judges like a good comeback story. It plays well, whether or not it's earned. "
"It's not earned." My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to, and I don't apologize for it.
"I believe you. That's not the same as what a judge who's never met either of you is required to believe on day one.
" Priya's tone stays even, kind but not soft, the tone of a woman who's clearly walked a hundred other frightened parents through this exact fear and knows precisely where the hard parts sit.
"Here's the other thing I need you both to understand before we go any further.
Courts in a case like this will look hard at what they call outside influences in the household.
Anyone new in the children's lives, anyone new in yours. "
The room goes very still. I feel it happen before I understand why, feel Rafe go rigid beside me, his knee pulling back from mine like he's bracing for impact somewhere I can't see coming yet.
"Meaning what, exactly?" Rafe says, careful and flat, every word measured out like he's counting rounds left in a magazine.
"It means opposing counsel will look for anything that lets them paint this household as unstable rather than safe.
New partner, especially one who's moved fast, gets scrutinized hardest of anyone.
They'll ask about your background. Financial stability, criminal record, that kind of thing, standard stuff.
If there's anything else on paper, they'll find it and they'll try to make it sound scarier than it is.
" Priya doesn't look away from him, doesn't soften it, just lays it down plain the way she's laid down everything else this morning.
I understand what she's circling before Rafe even opens his mouth, and from the way his jaw sets, so does he.
He's thinking about a mandatory counseling record from six years ago, ancient history that has nothing to do with the man sitting beside me now, and how an opposing attorney could still twist it if they wanted to badly enough.
Neither of us says it out loud. We don't have to.
It just sits there with us, heavier than anything Priya's actually said.
"I served. I got help when I needed it and I got out clean." Rafe's voice is level, controlled in the way I've learned means he's working hard to keep it that way. "That's not a liability."
"It's not, not to me and not to any reasonable person on the planet.
But I'm not the one you need to worry about.
" Priya's voice softens fractionally, the first real give I've seen in her all morning.
"I'm telling you this so you're prepared, not so you panic.
We manage the optics carefully, we don't hand them ammunition, and we let the actual facts of your character speak for themselves.
You have an entire town that would stand up in that courtroom for you if it came to it. That's worth more than people think."
"So what do I do?" Rafe leans forward, hands flat on his knees, and I recognize the exact posture from a hundred moments watching him think through a problem like it's a maintenance checklist instead of his own life. "Because my first instinct is to drive over there and end this before it starts."
"Your first instinct is the single fastest way to lose this case.
" Priya doesn't blink. "One documented confrontation, one witness who says you showed up angry at his house, one text message that reads wrong out of context, and suddenly you're the unstable outside influence instead of him.
He wins that version of the story every single time, because he's the one with a certificate saying he's changed and you'd be the one who just proved he wasn't the only volatile man in this equation. "
"I wouldn't be volatile. I'd be right."
"Doesn't matter. Being right loses to being documented every single time in family court.
" Priya's voice sharpens, just slightly, enough to land.
"You want to protect them. I understand that completely.
The way you protect them is by staying invisible to this process until it's your turn to speak, and then you speak exactly as much as I tell you to and not one word more. "
Rafe doesn't answer right away. I can see him fighting it, six years of training telling him the only acceptable response to a threat is direct action, running straight into a wall of paperwork and procedure that doesn't care he could handle worse than Derek Walsh with his hands tied behind his back.
"Okay," he says finally, the word costing him something. "We let the process run."
"Good." Priya slides a folder across the desk toward me, businesslike again now that the hardest part's over.
"I'll file our response by the end of the week.
In the meantime, both of you keep living exactly the life you were already living.
Nothing performative, nothing defensive.
Just be who you actually are and let that speak for itself. "
We leave twenty minutes later with a folder full of instructions and a silence between us that doesn't lift until we're both back in the truck, engine running, heat starting to push the cold out of the cab.
"I hate this," Rafe says, staring straight ahead at the pharmacy's window display. "I hate sitting still while somebody threatens my family and being told the correct move is patience."
"I know." I reach over and take his hand off the gearshift, lace my fingers through his. "I hate it too. But she's right. And you know she's right, or you wouldn't have agreed so fast."
"Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"No. It doesn't."
He drops me at the brewery on the way back to check on Gunny, and the second I walk through the taproom door I understand exactly why Rafe's phone has been buzzing with updates all morning.
Gunny's got a clipboard, an honest to goodness clipboard, and he's moving between the fermentation tanks with the brisk, unsmiling efficiency of a man conducting a full inventory audit rather than just running a normal shift.
"Status," he says, not even looking up when I walk in.
"I'm not one of your kegs, Gunny."
"Everybody's a keg today." He finally glances up, and something in his face softens the second he actually sees me. "How'd it go with the lawyer?"
"About as well as it could, I think. She seems good at her job."
"She'd better be. I called half the town this morning making sure people know to keep their stories straight if anybody comes around asking questions." He says it as plainly as reporting the weather, and it takes a beat before the actual meaning of it catches up to me.
"You did what?"
"Dot's already got a list going. Half the diner, both churches, every regular who's ever pulled up a stool and watched him run this place honest. People who'll stand up and say exactly what kind of man he is if it ever comes to that.
" Gunny sets the clipboard down, and for a second the brisk, businesslike mask slips just enough to show what's actually underneath it.
He loves this town, and he shows it the only way he knows how.
"This town's not going to let some guy from three states over decide what kind of family you two are building.
Not on my watch, and definitely not on Dot's. "
Words fail me for a second, my throat closing up tighter than I expect it to, standing in the middle of a taproom that smells like hops and cold steel and, apparently, loyalty. "Thank you. Really."
"Don't thank me. Go pick up your kids." He's already turning back to the tanks, back to whatever imaginary threat level he's decided the brewery's operating under today. "And Jenna. We've got this. All of us."
I don't make it three steps down the sidewalk before Dot Higgins intercepts me outside the salon, still holding a pair of shears like she forgot she was carrying them, silver hair perfectly set despite the wind trying its best to undo her.
"I heard," she says, no preamble at all, the way she says most things.
"Heard what, Dot?"
"Don't do that with me, honey. Don't play innocent.
" She points the shears at me for emphasis, then seems to remember what's in her hand and lowers it, a little sheepish.
"Half this town already knows that man is trying to weasel his way back into those babies' lives with a piece of paper and some lawyer's fancy language. The other half will know by supper."
"It's not exactly a secret I was hoping to keep from you specifically."
"Good, because you couldn't have anyway.
I've already got Pastor Mills and both the ladies from the library ready to write letters the second anybody asks.
Maggie's putting together something too, and half the soccer parents.
" She softens, just slightly, the brisk efficiency cracking to show something warmer underneath it, the same thing I keep finding today in every corner of this town.
"You've got people, Jenna. More than you probably know.
Don't you forget that when it gets ugly, because it might. "
"Thank you." It's the second time in twenty minutes I've said those exact two words and meant them with everything I've got.
"Save the thanks. Just win." She pats my arm once, brisk and sure, and bustles back toward the salon before I can say anything else, leaving me standing on the sidewalk with something warm lodged behind my ribs where the fear's been sitting all morning.
I believe her, and I believe Gunny, almost all the way to the Busy Bean, right up until I push through the door and the bell overhead jingles and Josie waves at me from her usual spot by the window, marker in hand, mid-argument with Eli over whose drawing of a dragon looks more realistic.
"Mom, tell him dragons don't have five legs."
"Dragons can have however many legs they want, they're magic," Eli says, with the flat certainty of a boy who's lost this exact argument more than once today and has no intention of learning from it.
"That's not how logic works."
"It's a dragon, Josie. There is no logic."
I'm laughing before I've even set my bag down, some of the morning's tension finally loosening in my chest at the familiar, ridiculous rhythm of them, and I'm halfway to their table when it happens, before I've even fully registered why.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts, slow and certain, some old instinct in me sounding an alarm before my mind catches up, the exact feeling I used to get walking into a house that looked calm from the driveway and wasn't.
I turn around.
Derek is sitting at the corner table, coffee cup in front of him, watching the three of us like he's been there a while.