Paul takes my arm, as if to stop me from saying something I will regret.
“They’re my children.”
I sigh, heavy.
“Let me take care of this. For once. Leave it to me.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you.”
Pain crosses his eyes and stings my chest at the same time.
I have said it. I cannot take it back or erase it.
And the worst part is that I truly believe I mean it.
“In that case, I don’t know if you can be my lawyer anymore.”
I don’t know if his words or mine hurt more, I just know that I now understand what it’s like to have your heart broken a second time.
I slept in my apartment last night. Or at least I tried to. Being away from him and his house, from the kids, after what we said to each other and the way we left each other, was an agony with no rest and no end, which caused me to arrive at the courthouse a good two hours early this morning.
Paul also arrived early. And Vanessa with him. I’d say my friends know me well. None of them seemed at all surprised to find me sitting here, ready, or almost ready, to listen to Seth’s words.
I didn’t want him to speak, but I had no choice. I could not allow him to remain without a lawyer. I couldn’t allow anyone else to take my place.
No one has this family’s best interests at heart more than I do.
Seth and the kids arrived at the court on time. I asked Seth if the boys should hear his story, but he told me that he didn’t want to keep secrets from his family and that he wanted to learn not to be ashamed of what he had been.
I could not object.
He was determined. And terribly serious. And a thousand breaths away from me.
That hurt even more than his words. I think I deserved it.
When Seth sits down at the bench, next to the judge, I feel so sick to my stomach that I am almost afraid to throw up on my table. I have never been so nervous about a case as I am now, not even during my first trials.
And I have never been so afraid of losing as I am right now.
“I know you asked to address this court,” the judge said.
“Yes, Your Honour. I would like to explain.”
“Are you referring to the facts presented here yesterday by Mr McCormack?”
“Just those.”
“You may continue.”
“Thank you very much.” Seth takes a deep breath, turns his eyes to me. “I’m not proud of what I did.”
The opposing lawyers chuckle, and I want to silence them with a straight punch through their teeth.
“I was a person with many problems at that time in my life. As you have said many times in this courtroom.” Now he looks straight at them. “I am a former drug addict,” he emphasises the word ‘former’. “And as I think this court knows better than I do, when you’re an addict, it’s like you’re a different person, especially when you need something to make you feel good. It was a dark time for me, really dark. I hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, but I was very close, and yet Mark and Jillian wanted me at their wedding. They always wanted me, you know,” he says to everyone. “Unlike our parents, who cut me out of their lives as soon as they found out about my problem, Mark always believed in me and that one day I would be able to take my life back. But that was not the day. I was down, I was broke, I didn’t even have a place to stay at the time. Mark had helped me find a place in rehab, again,” he wipes away a single tear and continues. “And he was so proud of my progress that he wanted me to be his best man at his wedding. I knew inside that I was not ready for the world, or to live with myself, but I had let him down so many times in the past. I didn’t want to do it again. Not that day. It’s true what they said about me, Your Honour. Mr McCormack and I stole our respective sister and brother’s wedding presents and sold them to get high. We got a room in a hotel and got high for days, not remembering how or when we got there. We spent our time having… S-sex—though I remember very little of it—and getting high, until we were so sick that…” He pauses for a moment. “To be honest, Your Honour, I don’t know how we got out alive and…” Another pause, he almost seems to stop breathing. “I’m sorry,” he says to the judge, who nods.
I’m the one who’s sorry, Seth. For yelling at you. For not listening to you. And for not believing in you.
“I trusted him. I thought Mr McCormack was really interested in me… Well, I was as naïve as ever. I’m not trying to shift blame, I’m responsible for what I did. I wasn’t forced to do it, I was manipulated… Perhaps. You see, it was Mr McCormack who brought the drugs to the reception. Who made moves on me all night, made me think he wanted to be with me, when he was just looking for an accomplice. It was his idea. I went along with it, but I would never have thought of such a thing if I hadn’t been on drugs.”
