I looked down at my canvas bag, tracing the pale circle where my wedding ring used to rest on my finger. The zipper was halfway open, the metal teeth glinting under the glare of the fluorescent courtroom lights.
Ellis sat three feet to my right at the defense table, his posture as straight as a steel beam. He checked his gold wrist watch, the metal catching the light with a sharp, expensive flash.
“The judge is late,” he said, his voice rapid and clipped, sounding exactly as he did when he was presiding over a boardroom meeting. “He has three other hearings scheduled before lunch, and I have a flight to Atlanta at four.”
I did not answer him. I reached into my bag to pull out the custody agreement drafts, but my fingers met empty space where the thick plastic pocket should have been.
The green school folder was gone. It had held Noah’s mid-term progress reports, his immunization cards, and his enrollment confirmation for the local public school on Broad Street.
“Ellis, did you take the school file from my kitchen table last night?” I asked, my voice soft and deliberate, pausing before I spoke the last words.
He did not look at me, his eyes fixed on the empty mahogany judge’s bench. “I have no interest in your kitchen table, Sabrina.”
“It was there when we packed Noah’s overnight bag,” I said, rubbing my bare ring finger as the first wave of anxiety crept up my neck. “The green plastic tab was sticking out of my canvas tote.”
“You probably left it in that damp rental of yours,” Ellis said, his voice flat and dismissive. He checked his watch again, the gold links clicking against the polished wood of the table. “You can’t keep track of a water bill, let alone a legal file.”
The heavy wooden door behind us clicked open, and a bailiff in a gray uniform stepped into the room, holding the door with one hand.
Noah followed him. He was twelve, but he wore a dark blue blazer that was slightly too large in the shoulders, making him look small and stiff.
