Semua Bab The wife I swore I’d never be : Bab 151 - Bab 160

Manny had gone to bed an hour ago, worn out from a full day at the small primary school Anita had finally enrolled him in, his first week of something that resembled an ordinary childhood in longer than any of us wanted to count.I found Anita in the studio’s small kitchen, a cup of tea going cold in front of her, a sketchbook open to a page she wasn’t actually looking at.“You’re not drawing,” I said, settling into the chair across from her.“I’m thinking about drawing. That counts for something.”“Does it.”“It counts for something.” She smiled, small and tired in the good way, the kind of tired that came from a genuinely full day rather than the exhaustion we’d both been carrying for months. “He asked his teacher today if rabbits could come to school for show and tell. Apparently Sir Hops has a lot to offer the class.”I laughed, and reached across the table for her hand.“How was the rest of it. Actually.”“Good. Genuinely good.” She turned her hand over in mine, tracing the lines

Whitfield called on Monday morning, while I was still unpacking the small bag from ourweekend away, sand somehow still finding its way out of every pocket.“Sentencing’s been scheduled,” he said, no greeting, straight to the point as always. “Threeweeks from today. Given the confession, given the sheer scope of the charges, I don’texpect a lengthy trial, if there’s a trial at all in the traditional sense. His lawyer’s alreadysignaled he’ll enter a formal guilty plea.”“How long,” I asked. “If you had to guess.”“I don’t like guessing on sentencing, in case I’m wrong and you build your expectationsaround a number that doesn’t hold.” Whitfield’s voice had gone careful. “What I can tell youis that between the orchestrated accident, the ordered killing, the sustained poisoning of hisown mother, and the attempted abduction of a minor, the prosecution is asking for asentence that would keep him incarcerated for the remainder of his natural life.”I sat down slowly on the edge of the

AnitaThree weeks passed faster than I expected them to, ordinary days stacking quietly on top of each other until the morning of sentencing arrived almost without warning, a date on a calendar suddenly, unavoidably, today.Kelvin drove us to the courthouse, Marcus and my father meeting us in the parking lot, all of us dressed carefully, the whole day carrying a weight none of us had quite prepared for despite three weeks of knowing it was coming.“You don’t have to go in,” my father said quietly, as we walked toward the entrance. “I know you said you wanted to. I just want you to know, one final time, that changing your mind right now would be completely understandable.”“I want to be there,” I said. “I need to see it end, the same way I watched it begin.”He nodded, and took my hand, and we walked in together.The courtroom was larger than the small family court room, formal in a way that made the whole morning feel heavier, rows of benches filling slowly with people I didn’t recogn

KelvinThe call sheet had me on set by six, which meant I was up at four, running lines in the quiet kitchen while the rest of the house still slept.Anita found me there, wrapped in Manny’s small blanket she’d apparently stolen off his bed on her way past, watching me mutter the same three sentences over and over.“You’re going to be fine,” she said, settling into the chair across from me. “You’ve done this before. Dozens of times.”“Not after a year off. Not with everyone watching to see if I remember how.”“Nobody’s watching for that. They’re watching because you’re good at this, and everyone on that set knows it.” She reached across and took the script from my hands, closing it gently. “You know these lines. You’ve known them for a week. Running them for the fortieth time isn’t going to make them any more known.”I let her take it, mostly because she was right, and mostly because having her sitting across from me at four in the morning was doing more to settle my nerves than anoth

Ruth had insisted on lending us the small back garden for the evening, string lights already strung between the fence posts, a long table borrowed from somewhere I hadn’t thought to ask about, set with mismatched chairs that somehow, together, looked exactly right.“You didn’t have to do all this,” I told her, watching her adjust a centerpiece for the third time.“I wanted to. This studio’s seen enough hard nights. It’s earned a good one.”Kelvin was already grilling something at the small setup he’d assembled in the corner, Manny stationed nearby with strict instructions to guard the plate of vegetables from any wandering seagulls, taking the responsibility with characteristic seriousness.Marcus and Priya arrived together, Marcus carrying a bottle of wine and wearing an expression of careful nervousness that softened the moment Manny spotted him and ran across the garden.“You’re the one who tracked the bad guys,” Manny announced, by way of greeting. “Anita told me. You’re really go