He stood beside her as the evening cooled. Neither spoke for a while. The house behind them was full of boxes of documents, and the barn was full of animals whose lives had become entangled with a corporate dispute neither had expected. The next morning, Kora would put on the one good jacket she still owned, carry her binders into a hearing room, and ask strangers to believe what her records showed.
She was not sure she could make them believe her. She was sure she had done the work that gave them a reason to listen.
On the morning of the hearing, Kora woke before the alarm. The farmhouse was still dark, and the first sound she heard was the heater ticking beneath the window. She walked into the kitchen and found Caleb already sitting at the table in his work boots, two pieces of toast untouched in front of him. He had decided not to go to class that day, and his instructor had agreed to count the visit as an approved family emergency rather than a disciplinary absence.
"You didn't need to come," she said.
"I know. I wanted to."
Kora made coffee and went out to check the birds one last time before leaving. The pasture was damp with morning mist, and hundreds of young turkeys moved through the grass with the slow, curious confidence of animals that had never known they were supposed to be dead. She stood there longer than necessary, listening to the faint rustle of feet and feathers. When she returned, Caleb had put the three evidence binders in the truck beside Walter's notebook.
The hearing was held in a state agricultural administrative building outside Jefferson City. Farmers filled the gallery alongside reporters, university representatives, and several Harrington employees who had come on their own time. Genevieve sat with a legal team at a polished table near the front, her expression composed, her cream coat folded neatly over the back of her chair. Kora saw the difference between their two tables immediately: Harrington had a row of laptops and expensive leather folders; she had paper binders, the faded copy of a transfer receipt, and years of experience with birds that no machine had managed to make irrelevant.
The presiding officer explained that the panel would review the licensing and program-rights questions arising from the Copper Crest dispute, as well as the factual status of the company's disposal and health-related claims. The proceeding would not decide every possible civil claim or criminal allegation. It could, however, determine whether the agricultural agency had any remaining basis to restrict Kora's participation in the program, and whether Harrington's asserted exclusive rights matched the publicly funded research agreement on record. The parties had also agreed that any statements about the ownership of the physical flock would be recorded as binding stipulations if reached.
Genevieve's lead attorney began with a story about a distressed farmer who had taken valuable research material from a waste facility and then attempted to profit when she realized its origins. He described the signed transfer as administratively irregular and the company's responses as legitimate efforts to protect research integrity and disease control. He asked the panel to preserve the restrictions while Harrington pursued its rights through the courts. Kora listened while he used the word opportunism as if the four weeks she spent keeping eggs alive were an accidental form of theft.