No name on it.
Just a number, and a tiny silver crest I had seen once before, on his grandmother’s stationery.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from the tablet I had given Eli for his birthday.
Mom. Don’t tell Dad you have it. Don’t let him get it no matter what he says. I’ll explain when I can. I love you.
I stood in the middle of the departures hall with people flowing around me and read it until the words stopped making sense.
And that was the moment I understood that my son had not chosen his father.
He had chosen me.
He was just the only one in that courtroom who knew it.
PART 2
I did not sleep that night.
I sat at the kitchen table with the black card in front of me and the funeral check beside it, and at 6:00 in the morning, when the sky went gray, I called the only number I had for Celia Langford’s attorney.
