The courthouse smelled like paper, disinfectant, and the stale air of institutional endings. Marriages and property disputes and bad decisions had been sweating into those walls for decades. I got there early in a simple navy dress, hair smooth, shoes practical enough to walk in but sharp enough to remind me who I was. Miranda met me in the lobby looking immaculate and faintly amused, as she always did, like life kept throwing her increasingly unbelievable stories and she kept billing them accurately.
“You ready?” she asked.
“I’ve been ready since 2:47 a.m. on Tuesday,” I said.
That made one corner of her mouth lift. “Good. Today we finish the paperwork.”
I wasn’t nervous. Weeks of chaos had burned that out of me. What I felt instead was anticipation—the last act of a play whose ending I already knew but still wanted to watch land.
Then Ethan walked in.
He looked worse than I expected.
Not tragic. Not broken. Just diminished. He had lost some weight in the sloppy unpleasant way people do when they are living on adrenaline, takeout, and self-pity. His suit didn’t fit right anymore. Rebecca trailed behind him looking pale and pinched, her cardigan hanging loosely from her shoulders. Margaret and Lily came last, both dressed as if fury itself had a formal dress code.
Ethan tried to meet my eyes.
I looked straight through him.
The judge entered—a tired man with silver hair and the long-suffering expression of someone who had seen every possible version of human stupidity and no longer felt inclined to decorate his reactions.
We stood. Sat. Began.
Ethan’s lawyer went first, and from his posture alone I could tell he hated this case. He had the look of a man who had been handed a leaking bag and told to present it as a briefcase.
“Your Honor,” he began, “my client contests the validity of the Las Vegas marriage. He was under emotional duress and manipulated into signing papers while intoxicated.”
The judge raised one eyebrow. “Duress? Intoxication? That’s a stretch.”
Miranda stood smoothly.
“Your Honor, I have seventy-three pages of Facebook messages, text records, security footage, and financial statements proving Mr. Jensen planned this affair for over a year, funded it with stolen money from my client, and knowingly entered into a second marriage while still legally married to her.”
She set a thick folder down with a thud that seemed to vibrate through the whole courtroom.