"That's your decision," I told him.
"Yes," he said. "It is. And if the reports are right, we'll know. If they aren't, the men who signed them will have questions to answer."
I went home to prepare for court, but the image stayed with me: a tower that looked magnificent from a distance and failed a simple count when examined from the right place. Julian had built his reputation on the assumption that people would believe the banner before checking the concrete. Samuel would have hated the waste of it, even if the mistake turned out to be clerical rather than deliberate. Money could repair an error, but no amount of money could make an unpoured floor hold a building.
I slept three hours before the hearing. My mother's tea sat untouched beside the divorce documents, and the old tan notebook lay open to the page from the storm. The roof repair had been a small decision made in bad weather to protect a building and the people who depended on it. Four years later, it had become the fact on which my family's future seemed to balance, and I wondered whether any of us ever really know which moments will matter until someone forces us to explain them.
The courthouse hearing took place in a small room on the fourth floor, where the carpet had faded around the chairs and the air-conditioning never seemed strong enough. I arrived with Constance half an hour early. She arranged the exhibits in a neat stack, checked the court's instructions for handling protected financial information, and asked whether I had eaten breakfast. I said I had, which was true if half a piece of toast counted.
Vanessa entered ten minutes before the scheduled start. She wore a pastel pink jacket I remembered helping her choose from two almost identical designs, and her blond hair was pinned into the tight bun she favored on workdays. Beside her walked Lyall Kesler, carrying a polished briefcase and greeting the courtroom staff with the familiarity of a man who had spent much of his adult life in rooms like this. Vanessa did not look at me when she sat down.
I wanted to hate her for that. Instead I remembered sitting beside her in a doctor's waiting room years earlier, holding her hand while we waited for the results of a test that frightened us both. I remembered how hard she had squeezed my fingers and how she had whispered that whatever happened, we would face it together. The memory arrived without permission and made it harder to concentrate on the papers in front of me.
The judge began by explaining the limited purpose of the hearing. He was not deciding the ultimate ownership of every trust asset, the divorce, or whether either spouse had behaved honorably. He was considering whether the emergency restrictions should remain in place while the parties pursued their claims and what evidence justified their continuation. I was grateful for the distinction because the newspapers had already tried to decide all three questions in a single headline.