“Go ahead, Nolan,” she said. “But stay right there next to your mom. And if you want to stop, you can stop anytime. Okay?”
“Okay,” Nolan said.
He looked up at the poster board. At the photograph of himself walking out of school.
“That picture is from Monday,” he said. “After I came back from Dad’s house.”
The courtroom was so quiet I could hear the radiator hissing by the window.
“These stains,” Nolan said, and he pointed to the front of his shirt. “They’re not from Mom’s house. They’re from Dad’s house.”
I stopped breathing.
Across the aisle, Grant’s smile slipped.
“I wore it to Dad’s on Friday,” Nolan said. “Because it’s my lucky shirt. On Saturday night, his girlfriend Tessa made spaghetti. I spilled sauce on it. And chocolate milk. I asked if we could wash it.”
He looked at his father.
“Dad said no,” he said. “He said, Leave it. Don’t wash it. Send him back like that on Monday.”
The air in the room changed.
I turned and looked at Grant. His face had gone completely still. His hand had stopped halfway to his water glass.
