Then the door at the back of the courtroom opens again. Charlie stops cold. Our palms are sweaty against each other’s, but I couldn’t care less.
“It’s fine,” she whispers. “It’s fine.”
Despite myself, I glance over at Crystal.
She looks bored. Court resumes. Formalities are said, and finally, Judge Hughes takes his glasses off and leans forward.
I swallow, waiting, Charlie’s ring digging into me.
“After serious consideration, I’ve decided to amend the custody agreement between Mr. Loveless and Mrs. Thornhill,” he states, and I hear Charlie gasp. She squeezes harder.
His words push the breath from my body, like I’m in a vise.
I lost. The last six years don’t matter, because I lost my daughter to a woman I can’t stand, to a woman who doesn’t love her—
“In light of Mrs. Thornhill’s new life circumstances, I’m awarding you partial custody,” he goes on.
I might throw up. Charlie might break my hand. I think, desperately, of everything I might be about to miss: watching her run through the sprinkler and reading her bedtime stories and teaching her to make scrambled eggs, all the simple, day-to-day things that seems like nothing until they’re gone.
Please, don’t let them be gone.
“That custody will consist of four weeks per year at your new home in Colorado, to be divided as you see fit,” he says.
I was so set for bad news that it takes me a moment.
The information reaches my brain like snow melting through cracks in the asphalt, and I don’t understand it right away because I’m still thinking of singalongs in the car and games of Candyland.
“Mr. Loveless will retain custody for the other forty-eight weeks…” he goes on.
I finally get it.
She’s staying with me, and she’ll be gone once in a while, but day to day, morning and night, it’ll still be me.
Just as I realize it, Charlie gasps. I look over, and she’s crying, tears streaming down her face, and she grins at me, and the next thing I know our arms are around each other and her face is in my neck and she’s sniffling and I’m burying my face in her hair.
A month is nothing. It’s nothing. That’s fall break, spring break, and two weeks over the summer. It’s less than she theoretically has in visitation right now.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says into my neck, whisper-laughing as she sniffles. “I’m sorry. Shit.”
I just laugh, my face still buried in her hair. For the first time in years and years, my own eyes are wet, and I blink against tears because Rusty is staying with me and I’m so happy and grateful that I don’t know what to do.
There’s more court. Lucinda handles it, I assume, because I sure don’t. I don’t hear anything that anyone else says, I just know that Rusty’s staying with me and Charlie showed up and while life is never perfect, it feels damn close right now.
Court adjourns. We all stand, and after the judge leaves, I finally give Charlie a proper hug, holding her against me, her breathing ragged and deep to match mine. Crystal, her husband, and her lawyer leave, dry-eyed, looking annoyed.
Charlie pulls back, wiping her cheeks, her face bright red and her eyes highlighter pink.
“I think that went quite well,” Lucinda says, snapping the latches on her briefcase shut, the hint of a smile on her face. “A month a year isn’t too bad.”
I just laugh.
“A month a year is fine,” I say. “I never wanted her not to get to see Rusty, I just… didn’t want her to take her away.”
Lucinda reaches out, takes my arm.
“I know, Daniel,” she says. “Pleasure working with you. Call me next time she gets up to her tricks again.”
She offers her hand. We shake. She leaves, and I pack up all my papers that are scattered over the table, shove them back into a folder, put them back into my bag. Pete Bresley watches the whole thing, and though part of me wonders whether he’s taking notes so he can tell his mother Mavis the most accurate version of what happened, I don’t care.
Let him tell everyone that Charlie sprinted in and that we held hands the whole time and that I cried tears of relief when I found out I got to keep Rusty. Fuck it, I don’t care.
We walk out of the courtroom holding hands.Chapter Thirty-NineCharlieI let Daniel lead me, since he knows where we’re going and I don’t. We head down the hall, around a corner, through a passageway and at the end, there’s a staircase. This building was built at least a hundred years ago so the staircases are beautiful, made of stone and brick, wrought iron balustrades, big windows on every landing.
I wobble, wearing the only pair of heels I own. I’m out of practice, and that makes me slow, uncertain, and I’m hanging onto Daniel for dear life.