The hand beside his case folder trembled.
“My God,” he said. “Is that really her?”
Every conversation in the courtroom stopped.
A clerk froze with a folder halfway across the table.
A man in the second row lowered his paper coffee cup without taking a drink.
My father’s smile stayed on his mouth for one second longer than it belonged there, then vanished.
Two days earlier, I had been outside my small house near Norfolk trimming the azaleas when Knox began barking at the mail carrier.
The afternoon was humid enough to make my T-shirt cling between my shoulders, and the electric trimmer had left the sharp green smell of cut leaves hanging over the yard.
The envelope was cream-colored and heavier than ordinary mail.
Portsmouth Family Court, Virginia.
I wiped my hands on my jeans before opening it.
The first page carried a case number.
4238B.
Carter versus Carter.
