The Case #3
It arrived the night before opening statements.
Kate couldn’t blame her for poor timing, because she had no way of knowing.
She read it once in tears, once in anger, and once in relief.
She read it over and over, Abby’s voice in her ear like winds of the past. Her belief in Kate radiated through, championing her once again, even from afar.
An unconditional love that Kate hadn’t experienced in another.
She pulled down the other letters too, her shoulder twinging as she reached for the top shelf in her closet. The same ligaments she’d strained during college but never severed. The pain had flared over the last months as she crouched over her laptop and the conference room table.
She rubbed out another spasm as she fumbled through the letters.
Her same Abby. Healthy, safe, new. Kate frowned at how badly she wished to know this side of her.
How badly she wanted to respond. But there was the trial, and there was Ryan, and despite the many strides she’d made for the case, she wasn’t quite ready to fight for all she might want.
She’d fight for Marcus and the others instead.
Police held back protesters when they arrived for opening statements.
Kate waded through the middle, rainbow flags on one side, Bibles on the other.
She still didn’t like the cameras, but she answered a few questions, poised, rehearsed, looking at the right places. If she was anything, it was coachable.
Her hand trembled as the proceedings started.
She’d served as co-counsel several times but never taken the floor as lead.
Never had she faced the judge solo, mind going blank as she tried to remember her opening statement.
And while Ryan watched on, it was Abby’s voice, the lines in her letter, reminding her to breathe.
“Your honor, at the heart of this trial is a simple question: Can an institution use its religious beliefs as a shield to deny others their constitutional protections? The defense will claim that the Constitution guarantees their right to freedom of religion. But it also guarantees the right to an education, to free expression, and to love openly. Those are the rights First Foundations Charter violated when it discriminated against the teacher and students behind me, stripping them of their dignity, and most importantly, their sense of belonging…”
She chugged through the rest of her opening statement, and her hand finally steadied during the defense’s rebuttal.
The preparation, years of it, snapped into place.
Even through the stumbles—the objections she lost, the redirect she missed and her co-counsel reminded her of, the cramp in her shoulder that never ceased—she felt stronger, more certain, more like the version of herself she always hoped to be.
“You’re like actually going to be famous,” Mick said over the phone.
They’d barely talked since the wedding. Kate blamed the trial but also hesitated because it felt like a step too close to Abby.
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, if there’s anything Shupe or I can do to help with wedding planning, just let us know. We’re on standby,” Mick said. “Have you guys set a date?”
“Not yet.”
Kate chewed her lip. Ryan had asked her the same question a thousand times, and while she threw out summer or the coming fall, she leaned on the trial’s end as a caveat.
“Listen, I know this isn’t your favorite topic, but have you heard from Cruz?” Mick’s voice cracked.
“No. Why?” Kate hadn’t reached out to Mick or Jill or T.K. about the letter. Not about Abby’s arrest or rehab either. It didn’t feel like her place. She prepared to sound surprised when Mick shared the updates.
“Uh.” Mick huffed into the phone. “We got in a big fight.”
Her mouth fell. “Oh. About what?”
She sniffled. “It doesn’t matter. I just. I don’t know if she’s mad at me still or if I should call her. I just feel bad.”
“You should call her.” Kate’s hand went to her chest, rubbing at her heart. It hurt for Mick, hurt for Abby, and hurt even more that she couldn’t fix it. “I’m sure she’s forgiven you for whatever happened. You two are so close.”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t good.”
“She seemed to have a lot on her mind at the wedding,” Kate said. “Maybe she’s feeling better now.”
“Yeah. What happened between you two, anyway?”
Kate swiped the softball from the clutter and squeezed. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I prefer not to talk about her at all, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course. Of course, Hutch. I’m sorry.” Mick changed back to her jovial, upbeat tone. “You know, I’m planning an alumni game at Insley. You should come. Shupe can’t because of the new baby, but T.K. said she will. Seaborn, Palamino, and Brookheimer too. I invited everyone.”
Kate shook her head, defaulting to her well-worn excuse. “I’m sorry. I can’t with the case and everything else.”
“Right. Well, let me know if you change your mind.”
But as she hung up, she wondered if Abby would be there. She reread her letter, searching for her between commas and lines. She contemplated writing back, pen hovering above a blank sheet on her legal pad before pushing it aside.
Kate hunkered down for the last weeks of the trial. She was getting better at answering the reporters and quipping back at the defense. She held her chin higher, her breathing came steadier, like that sweet spot on the field, certain of the next move.
“And how did it make you feel when the school shut down the LGBTQ alliance club?” Kate asked the student on the stand. She didn’t particularly like having the kids testify, wishing to protect them from every question, aching when their voices shook as they tried to sit tall.
“Like I had to hide who I was. Like I had this secret that I shouldn’t share at school. No one told me I couldn’t, but I just felt it.”
“Objection. Subjective,” the defense said.
“Your honor, testimony goes to show the impact the school’s discrimination had on their psychological and emotional state, as well as their ability to learn.”
The judge nodded at her. “Overruled. You may continue.”
Kate stepped closer to the teen, who sat wide-eyed and mute, and placed a hand on the wood railing. “Go ahead,” she said. “How did it make you feel?”
“That I was less-than. That something about me, something I couldn’t change, was wrong and shouldn’t be shared.”
Kate paused to let the answer sink in for the judge, for the defense, for all those watching in the galley.
But the brief moment she turned away in the quiet, pretending to fiddle with notes on the counsel’s table before she asked the next question, was because of the hole in her chest, widening, deepening, never closed.
A sharp pain shot through her shoulder, but she turned back around, cleared her throat, and carried on.
But it stuck with her. It stuck with her as she hovered over another pre-marriage counseling assignment. A letter to her future children. Another one she couldn’t write. All trial long, she’d stepped into herself, and that night, when Ryan came to pick her up, she didn’t step back out.
“I don’t want to go anymore,” she said. The testimony, the letters she still hadn’t written, to Abby and to her nonexistent children, swirled inside.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he walked into the apartment. “Why? We have to.”
“No, we don’t,” Kate said, steeling herself to tell the truth, at least the part of it she knew for certain. “I can’t raise my kids in a church like that. In a place where they might feel the need to hide who they are.”
“We’ve been going for years now, and suddenly you act like this is new.” He stared at her for a beat. “Why do you go if you don’t agree with it?”
“Because it’s what I’ve always known. Because I thought it was good. But I started working on this case and—”
“No. No, don’t blame it on the case.” Ryan’s jaw hardened. “This is about you.”
Sweat sprang along her back like a warning signal to hit the brakes. “What do you mean?”
He breathed hard through his nose. “Are you still in love with Abby?”
“No.” Kate said it fast but airless, so that she wasn’t sure if it made a safe landing.
Ryan stalked past her. “What are you doing?” She followed him to the kitchen table, where he swiped Abby’s letter from the mess like he’d done it many times before.
Bile soured in her throat. She willed herself to keep her feet planted.
To be the same person who battled in court.
“Why do you have this letter?”
“Because she sent it to me! I didn’t write her back.” Kate’s chest galloped. She wanted to rip it out of his hand. Her last piece of Abby. A lifeline she wasn’t sure she’d accept, but wasn’t willing to lose. “You’ve obviously read it, so you know it’s part of her steps. Why are you snooping?”
“Because I don’t trust you! I feel like I don’t know you or what you want, and that’s terrifying for someone you’re supposed to marry!” Ryan glared as if despising both her and the emotions she made him feel. “I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this with you.”
“Ryan—”
“You know what’s really fucked? The first thing I loved about you was your heart. Your kindness. But this isn’t kind, Kate.” He shook his head. “This is you, stringing me along.”
Kate frowned. She hated hurting him, but her own frustrations bubbled beneath. “Why did you propose to me at the biggest turning point in my career? So that you can be disappointed when I don’t set a date or make a guest list? So that you can still be the center of attention?”
“Oh, that’s rich! You are the center of attention!” Ryan roared, and she flinched. “On the news, in your fancy suits. This case has fucking changed you. That’s for sure. And it’s just another excuse to put a pause on us.”