Daniel looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Lauren hesitated, then answered.
“You’ve always made her sound like the one who never got herself together.”
That surprised even me.
Daniel’s face went red.
“I never said that.”
“You said she was always changing direction.
You said your parents worried about her.
You said she had some office job in D.C.
and was difficult about family events.”
The words came quietly, which made them hurt more.
I looked down at my folder.
There were explanations for every one of those things.
Changing direction had meant leaving one legal position for another.
My parents worrying about me had meant they disliked that I moved away.
Being difficult about family events meant I sometimes had court obligations and couldn’t drive several hours with one day’s notice.
But Daniel had taken those fragments and built a smaller version of me.
One that fit comfortably underneath him.
Lauren looked at me.
“I’m sorry.
I thought…”
“You believed what you were told,” I said.
She swallowed.
Her father looked at Daniel for a long moment.
“There’s a lesson in this,” he said.
Daniel stiffened.
The judge did not lecture him.
He did not raise his voice.
“How someone speaks about a family member who is not in the room tells you a great deal about them.”
Lauren looked down at her ring.
That was when Daniel panicked.
“This is insane.
We’re turning one stupid misunderstanding into some kind of character trial because Amelia enjoys making me look bad.”
I laughed once.
Not loudly.
Just enough.
“Daniel, I have barely spoken tonight.”
No one could argue with that.
He stood abruptly.
“Exactly.
That’s what you do.
You sit there judging everyone and waiting for somebody else to make a mistake.”
I looked up at him.
“I was specifically instructed not to speak.”
Lauren covered her mouth for a second.
Her mother looked away.
Even the judge’s expression shifted.
Daniel realized too late what he had done.
He had confirmed everything.
Mom whispered his name.
He sat back down.
The rest of dinner was not dramatic in the way movies make family confrontations dramatic.
Nobody threw a glass.
Nobody stormed into the rain.
Nobody delivered a perfect speech.
