I wore charcoal gray because black felt too theatrical for court and I had already done theatrical at the funeral. Blackwood wore one of his razor-sharp dark suits and carried his legal pad like a priest carrying last rites. Aunt Helen came too, in pearls and an expression that promised blood.
Grant sat across the aisle with his attorney, who looked as though he had aged five years between the filing and the hearing. That made sense. He had, after all, chosen to represent a man trying to argue that James Crawford was too confused to know exactly how much he despised him.
When the judge came in, everyone stood. Papers rustled. Chairs scraped. The room smelled like old air-conditioning and stale coffee and the cold paper smell of legal records.
Grant avoided my eyes.
That changed after the video played.
The judge watched it once all the way through. Then she asked to replay the section where my father identified the date, his condition, his reasons for the amendment, and his intent to protect me from “any spouse who confuses proximity to wealth with entitlement to it.”
The second time through, Grant stared at the table.