Chapter 15 — THE HEARING

The custody hearing was April 14 in courtroom 4C, which is a room with fluorescent lights and a carpet the color of oatmeal and a bailiff who has heard everything.

I wore the suit I got married in.

It still fit, which I did not enjoy noticing.

Alma had told me what would happen and it happened almost exactly in that order.

The video went in.

Not all of it. Eleven minutes, three clips, and I watched a district court judge in her sixties watch my daughter get handed a baby at 4:12 in the afternoon.

I watched the judge's face while Judith said make a sandwich.

I watched her face while Corinne said don't embarrass me by calling your father.

When the second clip ended the judge said, "Is there audio for the third?"

"There is, Your Honor."

"Play it."

They played it.

By the time Daniel figures it out, the accounts will be empty.

The courtroom was very quiet.

Corinne's attorney — a competent, unhappy-looking man named Prewitt who had clearly explained the odds to his client and been overruled — did what he could.

He established that Corinne had never been arrested.

He established that she had attended every supervised visit and that the supervisor's notes said appropriate and attentive, and he read them into the record, and that was the strongest thing he had and he was right to use it.

He established that I had, in fact, been away from home for one hundred and eleven nights in the previous three years for work.

That one hurt because it was true.

Then he called Judith Vance.

I did not expect that.

Alma did not expect it either — I saw her write three words on her pad and underline them.

Judith took the stand in the cream cardigan.

Prewitt walked her through the version. That she had been at the house that afternoon. That she had believed Corinne was upstairs. That she had left believing an adult was in the home.

That was the whole defense: I thought her mother was upstairs.

It is not a terrible defense. It requires you to believe that a woman put an infant into a seven-year-old's arms and walked out without checking, and never once said Corinne's name on the recording, and texted me at 6:40 that Corinne's asleep.

Then Alma stood up.

Alma Ruiz cross-examines the way a dentist works. There is no drama in it. She just goes to the spot.

"Mrs. Vance, at 4:12 p.m., when you handed the infant to Josie, did you go upstairs to confirm your daughter was home?"

"I assumed—"

"Did you go upstairs."

"No."

"Did you call up the stairs?"

"No."

"Did you say her name at any point in the thirty-seven seconds you were in that kitchen?"

"I don't recall."

"Would it help to hear the audio again?"

"No."

"At 6:40 that evening you texted Mr. Whitaker, and I'm quoting, 'All fine here. Kids fed, Corinne's asleep.' Do you recall sending that?"

"Yes."

"Where were you at 6:40 p.m.?"

Pause.

"I was at my home."

"So when you wrote 'all fine here,' the word 'here' referred to a house you had left two and a half hours earlier."

"I meant—"

"And 'Corinne's asleep.' How did you know your daughter was asleep at 6:40 p.m.?"

Judith did not answer.

"Mrs. Vance, your daughter left that house at 6:06 p.m. in a red dress with a man named Grant Mercer. Did you know that when you wrote that text?"

Prewitt objected. The judge overruled him, which told everyone in the room how the afternoon was going to end.

"I did not know that," Judith said.

"You did not know your daughter had left."

"No."

"Then how did you know she was asleep?"

The bailiff shifted his weight.

Judith Vance sat in a witness box in Wake County District Court and did not answer the question for eleven seconds, and eleven seconds in a courtroom is a very long time.

"I was reassuring him," she finally said.

"You were reassuring him."

"He worries."

Alma let that sit.

"No further questions."

The judge granted me primary physical and sole legal custody, with supervised visitation for Corinne, to be reviewed in six months contingent on completion of a parenting program and a substance evaluation.

She said one thing from the bench that Alma told me afterward she had never heard a judge say in twenty-three years.

The judge looked at the exhibit list and said: "The court notes that Exhibit 4 is a crayon."

I had entered the crayon.

Alma had told me it was sentimental and would not help.

I had entered it anyway.

The judge held up the evidence bag with a green Crayola in it and said, "This was on the floor at 4:12 p.m. and it was still on the floor at 12:17 a.m. That is nine hours during which nobody in that house was tall enough to be responsible for picking it up."

Outside in the hall, Judith came up to me.

Corinne had already gone down the stairs with Prewitt.

Judith stopped about four feet away and did not try to touch me.

"You wanted to know what position I was in," she said.

"Not in a hallway, Judith."

"There isn't going to be another place."

She was right about that.

"Ask the state about my first commission," she said.

"Your what?"

"My notary commission. Ask them how many I've had."

And she walked to the elevator.