Mrs. Carter brought chicken soup that evening. She had made too much deliberately and did not bother pretending otherwise. She sat at the kitchen table while Eleanor described the urgent-care visit. When she heard about the drug allegation, Lillian placed her spoon down with a little too much force.
"He did this to Maria," she said. "Not the exact same things. But notices, inspections, complaints. A man who works that hard to make people leave doesn't suddenly become reasonable when they do. He finds the next person."
"You should speak to the police, Lillian," James said.
"I will. I already called Maria and told her I would help however she needs. She said she still has letters from last year."
Eleanor looked toward the framed photograph of Thomas. For the first time, she found herself wishing he had chosen an ordinary profession that allowed him to stand beside his parents without questions about special influence. If he were a mechanic, she would ask him to inspect the door. If he were an accountant, she would ask him to examine the rent statements. Because he was a judge, the simple act of involving him felt complicated.
Late that night James found her in the home office. She was sitting among the folders, crying silently. The notebook lay open in front of her, and tears had left small uneven marks beside a carefully written timestamp. He had seen his wife hold a dying child's hand and return to work because another child needed her. He had watched her speak gently to angry parents whose fear came out as blame. Yet the series of invasions had reached a part of her endurance that decades of professional crisis had not touched.
"I spent my life trying to make people feel safe," she said. "I told mothers their children would be all right when I had every reason to worry. I sat beside fathers who couldn't bear to look at an operating room. I knew how important it was to have somewhere you could trust. And now I can't sleep because I hear a key turn in the hallway."
James sat beside her. "We're calling Thomas."
"He'll be angry."
"Then he'll be angry. That's a small price for making sure his parents are alive and well."
She wiped her face with a tissue. "I don't want a family favor."
"Neither do I. I want a lawyer who knows what he's doing, a fair hearing, and somebody who can tell us whether we're as safe as we ought to be. Thomas can help us find the right path without being the path."