39. Jenna
JENNA
The courthouse parking lot fills up faster than I expect for a weekday morning, rows of sedans and pickups angled in like everyone already knows exactly how much is riding on being on time.
I sit in my car two minutes longer than I need to, both hands wrapped around the wheel, running through everything Priya told me to remember and watching half of it slip straight through my fingers anyway.
Maggie has the twins for the day, no explanation beyond a fierce hug at the door and a whispered order to go get my life back, and I hold onto that instead of the alternative, the version of today where I walk out of this building with less than I walked in with.
Priya meets me on the courthouse steps in a gray suit I haven't seen before, sharper somehow than her usual calm, like she dressed this morning for a fight she's already decided how to win.
"You ready?"
"No."
"Good. Ready people get sloppy." She falls into step beside me, heels sharp against the concrete. "Tell the truth today. That's the whole job. I'll handle the rest."
Derek's already inside when we walk in, seated at the far table beside an attorney I recognize from the photo Priya sent weeks ago, a tall man with a haircut too careful for a county courtroom and a leather folder so thick it could anchor a boat.
Derek doesn't look at me. He looks past me, toward the door, checking whether anyone else is walking in behind me.
I know exactly who he's hoping to see, and precisely why he won't, and the empty space at my side where Rafe should be is the entire cost of the last five weeks laid out plain.
The bailiff calls the room to order before I've fully found my seat, and Judge Marsh takes the bench with the unhurried economy of someone who's heard every version of this story imaginable and still bothers to listen closely to each new one anyway.
She has kind eyes and a mouth that gives away nothing, and I decide within the first thirty seconds that I like her, which doesn't mean anything about how this goes, but it helps to have somewhere to put my hope.
Derek's attorney stands first. His name is Bennett, and he has the kind of voice that fills a room without ever seeming to raise itself, smooth enough that my skin prickles before he's said a single word I can actually object to.
"Your Honor, this case isn't really about Mrs. Walsh's fitness as a mother.
Nobody disputes that." He says it like a concession, generous, reasonable, and I feel Priya go very still beside me.
"It's about who else has moved into that household, unvetted and unaccounted for, since her divorce was finalized.
A man with a documented history of combat trauma, no formal role in these children's lives, and no obligation to answer for how that history might resurface under stress. "
The words land exactly where he means them to, and I watch Judge Marsh's face for the flicker I'm afraid to see, the one that means this is working.
Bennett walks through it methodically, deployment records I didn't know Derek's side even had access to, a counseling referral pulled from some file I never saw, the word unstable used twice in four sentences like repetition might make it truer.
He doesn't call Rafe dangerous outright.
The word never actually leaves his mouth.
He just keeps setting the pieces down where the judge can arrange them herself.
"Mrs. Walsh, isn't it true this man was present overnight with your children as recently as five weeks ago?"
"Yes."
"And you'd agree a judge weighing the safety of two eight-year-olds should know exactly who's spending nights under the same roof as them?"
"I'd agree a judge should know the whole truth, not just the parts that sound worst out loud."
It's not the answer Priya coached me on, but it's the true one, and for a second Bennett's smooth expression flickers, just slightly, like he wasn't expecting me to have anything left after that particular hit.
It isn't enough, not yet. I can feel the room tilting slightly in the wrong direction, feel Derek's satisfaction radiating off him three feet away without even needing to look at his face to confirm it.
Priya doesn't rush. She lets the silence sit a beat longer than feels comfortable before she rises, buttoning her jacket like she's got all the time in the world instead of a losing position to fix in the next ten minutes.
"Your Honor, the defense would like to call witnesses who know Rafe Montgomery personally, and who are, unlike opposing counsel, actually qualified to speak to his character."
Dot goes first, seventy years old if she's a day, silver hair pinned up, the same steady hands she's spent forty years running a comb through half this town's hair, and she settles into the witness chair like she's pulling up to her own kitchen table.
"Mrs. Higgins, how long have you known Rafe Montgomery?"
"Since he came back and bought that broke-down brewery nobody else in town would touch. Came in for a haircut every six weeks like clockwork for the better part of a year before he ever said more than three words to me in that chair."
"And in that time, have you ever witnessed him behave in a way that concerned you?"
"Concerned me? The only thing that man's ever done to concern me is quietly cover Old Pete's tab at my shop for two years running without ever once mentioning it to a soul.
I only found out because Pete's granddaughter let it slip at Christmas.
" She looks past Priya, straight at the judge.
"You want to know the kind of man he really is, that's the kind of man he really is.
The sort that does the right thing when he thinks nobody's watching. "
The room shifts a little at that, something in the air loosening, and I let myself breathe for what feels like the first time since Bennett opened his mouth.
Maggie's next, still in her work apron because she came straight from a shift, and she doesn't wait for a question before she starts talking, which earns her a small, tired smile from Judge Marsh.
"I've watched Jenna Walsh come into my diner looking like a ghost of herself more mornings than I can count, back before Rafe Montgomery was anything more than her boss.
I've also watched her come in since looking like an actual person again, laughing, present, not flinching every time a man's voice gets loud two booths over.
" Maggie's voice doesn't shake once. "You want to talk about who's dangerous to that woman and her kids, I'd start by looking at who used to make her flinch in the first place, and it wasn't the man sitting behind me. "
Bennett objects, something about relevance, and Judge Marsh overrules him without much interest in pretending to consider it.
Sheriff Cole testifies last, uniform pressed, hat under his arm, carrying the sort of steady, unhurried presence that makes a room settle just by existing in it.
"I've known Rafe Montgomery since he moved back to Pinewood Ridge.
No arrests, no complaints, no incidents of any kind on file.
" He addresses the judge directly, like he's reporting rather than testifying.
"During the flooding last spring, he was the first man on the ground helping coordinate sandbagging on Route Nine, working alongside my deputies for eleven straight hours without being asked twice.
I've worked emergencies with a lot of men who claim to keep their heads under pressure.
Montgomery's one of maybe three I'd actually trust to. "
"In your professional opinion, Sheriff, does anything in Mr. Montgomery's service history give you pause about his presence around children?"
"In my professional opinion, counselor, what should give this court pause is a man trying to weaponize somebody's service against them for scoring points in a custody case.
" He doesn't look at Bennett when he says it, doesn't need to.
"That's not instability. That's a man who went through something hard and came home and built something good anyway. Around here, we tend to respect that."
I watch something in Judge Marsh's face settle, decided, and something in my chest finally loosens enough to let me believe this might actually go the way we need it to.
Priya calls me back to the stand near the end, and I go up with steadier legs than I expect, like something in the room's shifted enough to hold my weight too.
"Mrs. Walsh, can you describe for the court the pattern of control you experienced during your marriage?"
I've rehearsed this answer a dozen times in my kitchen at midnight, and every version came out either too small or too dramatic, like I couldn't find the register that made it sound like what it actually was.
Standing here now, I don't reach for any of those versions.
I just tell the truth, plain, the way Priya asked me to.
"He controlled the money first. Every purchase, every receipt, accounted for and questioned if it didn't add up exactly right.
Then it was who I spent time with, one friend at a time, until there wasn't anybody left who'd notice if something was wrong.
He never raised a hand to me. He didn't need to.
He just made himself the only safe option in every room I was ever in, until I stopped remembering there used to be other rooms."
The courtroom stays quiet enough that I can hear my own voice more clearly than I want to, and I keep going anyway, because stopping now feels more dangerous than finishing.
"Nine years of that teaches your body things your mind never agrees to.
I still flinch sometimes at things that don't deserve it.
That's not about Rafe Montgomery. That's about what Derek built, one small decision at a time, until I didn't recognize the walls closing in until I was already living inside them. "
I don't look at Derek when I say it. I don't need to see his face to know exactly what it's doing.
Closing arguments come and go faster than I expect, Bennett's voice smaller now, like the morning already spent whatever conviction he'd walked in with, and Priya steady and unhurried in a way that makes every word land twice as hard for how little effort it seems to cost her.
Judge Marsh calls a short recess before her ruling, and the twenty minutes I spend in the hallway outside feel longer than the last five weeks combined.
I don't see Rafe until I turn toward the water fountain and find him sitting three rows back in the gallery, alone, elbows on his knees, watching me with an expression that doesn't ask for anything at all.
He came anyway, quiet and careful, exactly as invisible as Priya needed him to be, and still here, the whole time, close enough to matter.
He doesn't come over. He just holds my eyes a moment, gives me the smallest nod, the kind that means whatever happens next, I'm not doing it alone, and it's enough to get me back through those doors when the bailiff calls us in.
Judge Marsh doesn't make us wait once she's back on the bench.
"This court finds that the mother, Jenna Walsh, shall retain full physical and legal custody of the minor children, effective immediately.
" She lets that settle before continuing.
"Mr. Walsh is granted limited, supervised visitation, contingent on continued compliance with the terms outlined in this order, including completion of the counseling program previously mandated by this court.
Any violation of these terms will be grounds for immediate review. "
The words take a second to land, longer than they should, like my whole body needs an extra beat to believe something this large is actually true. Then Priya's hand closes over mine under the table, warm and certain, and I understand I'm not imagining it. I won.
It isn't the clean ending some part of me wanted, Derek erased entirely and gone from our lives the way a bad dream fades once you're fully awake.
He's still there, on the edges, leashed instead of removed, a limited and supervised presence I'll have to keep making room for regardless of how much I'd rather not.
But it's real. It's more than I let myself hope for on the drive in this morning, and after nine years of learning to expect less, that difference matters more than I know how to explain to anyone who hasn't lived it.
I turn to find Rafe already looking at me from the gallery, and for just a second the whole courtroom disappears down to the two of us and the five weeks of careful distance finally allowed to close.
Then I look across the room at Derek, and whatever relief I'm holding onto goes cold in my chest.
He isn't angry. That's what scares me. He's perfectly composed, jaw set, eyes steady on mine with something patient and unbothered underneath, like a man who thinks the game isn't actually over.
It's the same look he used to give me across our kitchen table right before he decided to let something go, except I know now he never actually let anything go.
He just waited for a better time to pick it back up.
He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. Whatever this ruling says on paper, his face already says this isn't over.