Page 7 of His Custody

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The bailiff showed her into the courtroom and up to the stand where the chair was turned toward the judge. It was the kind of courtroom that doesn’t make it on film: no high ceilings or stone, just linoleum older than her, brick, fake wood, and pilling burnt orange upholstery. It was a comfort in some ways. They’d never show this on TV. The media fire that had started after the accident had died down some, but it wouldn’t take much to be reignited, and a custody battle over a poor little rich girl would be good kindling.

There were lots of eyes on her—the judge’s sharp but warm brown ones, the O’Connells’ like needles on her back, and Jasper’s grey ones. Flinty and hard, but familiar and safe nonetheless. When she sat down, she twisted her fingers in her lap and looked over her shoulder at all the people sitting there, watching her. Most of them she didn’t recognize. She wanted to sink down behind the half-wall between her and them, and stay there.

“Keyne.” She jerked her head toward the sound of her name; the judge was talking to her. “Do you mind if I call you Keyne?”

“No, Your Honor.”

Jasper had coached her how to talk to the judge. Asked Ada to help her pick out appropriate clothes. Had tried to make her understand how important this was without scaring the shit out of her. He’d tried his best, but her stomach was knotted up anyway. She’d be stupid not to be afraid. It wasn’t even like she knew Sean and Deborah well enough to truly dislike them, but she had no reason to believe they cared for her at all.

“If I’m going to call you Keyne, why don’t you call me Angela?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

Keyne turned her head again like someone behind her had sunk a hook in her cheek and was reeling her in but snapped it back when the judge spoke to her again. “Keyne. Can you look at me? We’re going to talk like no one else is here, okay? Just you and me.”

Easy for her to say. “Okay.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me why?”

She swallowed hard. “It’s nerve-racking. Being here with all these people. Not knowing what’s going to happen to me. And my arm hurts.”

The judge nodded, like she understood. She didn’t understand.

“Could someone get Miss O’Connell some aspirin?”

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Jasper, raising his hand the way he did. Two fingers pointed toward the ceiling, his thumb and ring finger nearly touching but not. The judge acknowledged him with a nod. But when he spoke, it wasn’t to the judge, it was to her. He looked her right in the eyes, like she was the only person in the room. When he looked at her like that, she felt like she was. Just the two of them. He was the only person she could see clearly through the haze of her grief. Everyone else was smudged out, like she was looking through streaky windows, but Jasper and his craggy face were clear as day.

“I’ve got your meds with me, Keyne. You can have more in half an hour. Can you make it that long or do you want me to call Dr. Ettleson?”

“I can make it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” It came out a whisper, but he nodded like he understood. If anyone could understand, it would be Jasper.

“If you change your mind, you let me know.”

“I will.” Her voice had steadied, because what she wanted, what she needed mattered to someone. To Jasper, in particular, and Jasper always got what he wanted. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

“Keyne?”

Right, the judge. She turned away from Jasper and everything went dim and muffled. “Yeah.”

“You’ve been staying with Mr. Andersson?”

“Yes.” Yes. Jasper’s big house with his stout, manly furniture and the vaguely familiar spaces. Of course she’d been there before, many times, but it didn’t feel like home the same way her house did, or Gavin’s did. Which was probably better right now. She couldn’t bear to go to her house. The one time she’d managed it, she could’ve sworn she’d heard her parents’ voices echoing through the empty halls. She’d rushed to the bathroom and puked up her guts before she started crying and Jasper took her back to his house.

“You like it there?”

“As much as I like it anywhere right now.” She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, and Jasper couldn’t be happy with them either. Not with the way he’d made it clear how important this was. When she looked at him though, he didn’t look angry. Sad, really.

She should have said, “Yes, very much. Please let me stay with him.” But her thoughts were slow, like they were swimming through split pea soup and the truth slipped out before she could stop it. She could at least try to clean up some of the mess she’d made. “I like my room. At Jasper’s. He redid it for me.”

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