The courthouse smells like floor polish and other people's worst days. Mom ironed her blouse at five AM—I heard the hiss of the iron through the wall while I stared at the ceiling and repeated every word I’m supposed to say in front of the judge.
She's clutching her purse against her ribs with both hands, fingers white around the strap, like she's expecting someone to try to take it. Nina walks between us through the metal detectors, heels striking the marble in a rhythm that sounds like counting.
In the elevator she turns to face us, and the fluorescent light turns her cheekbones into blades. "Lena—you testify to Annie's character and your relationship with Sarah. Speak clearly, don't ramble, and if you don't know the answer, say so."
"I know how to talk, Ms. Torres." Mom's chin lifts a quarter inch, which in Murphy women is the equivalent of drawing a sword.
"Priya speaks to employment and stability." Nina turns to me, and her eyes are the steadiest thing in this building. "Annie—you do not react, no matter how false, however ugly—your face stays neutral."
"And if he lies?" My voice sounds like someone scraped it across gravel and served it back to me on a plate.
"He will lie—that's what we prepared for." Nina straightens her jacket and her gaze doesn't waver. "Your job is to let me handle the lies and not give the judge a reason to doubt you."
The doors open on the third floor and Priya is already there—serious blazer, hair pulled back, a folder of printed employment records tucked under her arm. She grabs my hand and squeezes hard enough that my knuckles grind together.
"You've got this." Her voice is low, fierce, a promise delivered through pressed teeth. "And if you don't, I've got you."
My throat does something complicated, so I squeeze back instead of answering. We turn toward the courtroom doors—four women in a corridor that smells like justice and vending machine coffee—and Jake rounds the corner.
Six attorneys in matching charcoal suits, folders thick enough to prop open doors, and two unfamiliar faces trailing behind. Jake's entourage moves like a military formation, and at the center of it, my husband spots me and breaks away.
He crosses the corridor with the confidence like he owns the building. His face does the thing I know better than my own reflection: every feature softening into warmth and concern, pitched for any observer who might be watching.
"Annie." He stops two feet away, and his voice carries just enough sorrow to fill the hallway. "I hope we can keep this civil—I only want what's best for Sarah."
"This doesn't have to be ugly." He says it the way a man says I love you at a dinner party—loud enough to be overheard, soft enough to sound sincere. His hand reaches for my arm, tender and spousal.
I step back before his fingers make contact, and the air between us turns to glass. Mom goes rigid beside me, her purse-grip tightening until the leather creaks.
Jake leans in, close enough that his cologne reaches me first—sandalwood and money, the one I picked for him, the one that takes me back to the house I’d rather not remember. His mouth stops an inch from my ear. "You should have come home when I asked nicely."
The whisper is warm, intimate, the voice he uses when the lights are off. My stomach folds in half and my fingernails find my own palms behind my back, pressing deep enough to leave marks.
He straightens and turns to Nina, extending his hand with a charity-gala smile. "Ms. Torres—I've heard wonderful things."
Nina shakes it the way you'd handle something from a biohazard bin—efficiently, briefly, with the clear intention of washing after. Jake nods once, gracious and magnanimous, and walks into the courtroom with his army of suits behind him.
The woman in the floral blouse glances at me as she passes, and something about her expression is too smooth—too prepared. My strategist's brain flags it before I can think about why.
Nina's palm presses between my shoulder blades. "Breathe—you're still standing, and that's enough for now."
"I am breathing." I'm not sure that's true—my lungs are doing something closer to rationing than actually processing air.
"Lena?" Nina glances at my mother, who is staring at the courtroom doors with an expression that suggests she's considering arson. "You good?"
"I'm going to watch that man pretend to be a father under oath." Mom's voice is quiet, vibrating through her teeth. "I've been good for five years—I can be good for one more morning."
Priya catches my eye, and something passes between us—not words, just the steady presence of a friend who canceled a client meeting to stand in this hallway. She adjusts the folder under her arm and nods once.
Nina holds the door. The courtroom is smaller than I expected—wood-paneled, fluorescent-lit, functional in the way that spaces designed for human suffering always are.
Jake is already seated at the respondent's table, surrounded by suits, his posture an advertisement for moral authority. He doesn't look at me as I sit down—he doesn't need to.
The performance is for the judge—a gray-haired man with reading glasses perched on his nose and a file open on his desk. Jake has already started performing by existing in that chair with his hands folded, his face arranged into the expression that suggests he prays for his daughter every night.
Nina arranges her papers like a surgeon laying out instruments. I fold my hands on the table because they need to be doing something that isn't shaking.
Behind me, Mom sits in the front row with Priya beside her. I can feel them both—two points of heat at my back, holding me upright through the wood of the bench.
The judge opens Jake's petition, and the words I've memorized swim across the room in legalese and lies. Abandoned the marital home, unable to provide stable environment, father seeks immediate temporary custody—every phrase another brick in the wall between me and my daughter.
"Ms. Torres—is your client prepared to proceed?" The judge peers over his reading glasses, and Nina stands with her spine straight enough to cut the air in two.
"We are, Your Honor." She buttons her jacket—a small gesture, deliberate, the way a boxer squares up.
The judge turns to Jake's lead attorney—a silver-haired man whose hourly rate probably exceeds my monthly salary. "Mr. Calloway, are you prepared?"
"We are, Your Honor." Calloway's voice is silk over steel, and his smile belongs to a man who hasn't lost since the Clinton administration.
The judge removes his glasses and sets them on the bench with a click that carries through the room. "Then let's begin."
Nina's hand brushes my wrist under the table—so brief it could be accidental—and I straighten my spine because my daughter is counting on me to survive the next two hours. Sarah is in that penthouse right now, probably drawing dragon-cats, probably wondering why Mommy hasn't come to get her.