“You don’t even have the money to hire a lawyer.”
My father’s voice carried across the courtroom sharp and amused, like he had just delivered a line everyone else was too polite not to appreciate. A few people did laugh. Not loudly.
Not enough to be called cruel in retrospect. Just enough. I stood at the respondent’s table with both hands resting lightly on the wood, fingers still in a way that had nothing to do with calm and everything to do with training.
I did not look at him. I did not give him the satisfaction of watching me absorb the blow. Across the aisle, he leaned back in his chair as if he owned the room, one arm draped over the side, ankle crossed over knee, that same easy posture he had used my entire life when he wanted everyone around him to understand that he was the one who knew how things worked.
“She thinks she can walk in here by herself,” he added, shaking his head. “No counsel, no case. Just a uniform and attitude.”
There was a murmur behind me.
Curious, low, almost embarrassed on behalf of the room. Then the judge spoke. “Mr.
Carter,” he said, his voice even and unhurried, “that will be enough.”
My father smirked, but he sat back. The judge turned his attention to me. “Ms.
Carter,” he said, pausing just long enough for the room to resettle around the sound of my name, “you understand you have the right to representation.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And you are choosing to proceed on your own.”
“Yes, sir.”
He studied me for a moment longer than most people ever did. Not in judgment. In recognition.
That was the unsettling part. He had already read something in the file, or in me, or in the arrangement of the morning, that the rest of the room had not caught up to yet. Then he nodded once.
“Very well,” he said. “For the record, she won’t be needing one.”
That was when everything changed. I didn’t react.
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