“Eight-thirty,” my mother said, finally.
“I’ll be there at eight-thirty. And Michael.”
“Yes?”
“I’m so sorry.”
At 8:50 the next morning, the Tallow County Superior Courtroom smelled of floor wax and wet umbrellas.
The church van from Grace Haven had unloaded twelve women in their best clothes.
They filled the second and third rows, shoulder to shoulder.
In the back sat forty-odd people from Pine Hollow who had heard, somehow, as people in small towns always do.
Judge Evelyn Marsh sat at the high bench with her reading glasses low on her nose.
Pike stood at the left-hand table.
Ashley sat beside him in a pale gray suit, the Birkin at her feet, the young associate on her other side.
Dana Rourke was there too, in the second row, with a purse clutched in her lap.
Denise Okafor, the legal aid lawyer Loretta had pulled out of bed at six, stood at the right.
