HOLT

“Where the hell is she?” I whisper to my lawyer, Gil, with another glance at the empty side of the table.

Calling him my lawyer is an understatement. Today, it’s more like he is the head of a fleet of lawyers, all six of whom I am paying a small fortune to make sure I walk out of this room with full custody of the boy who has been kept from me for the last ten years.

Ten years… That number won’t stop looping over and over in my head.

But neither will the melody from “Jahraymecofasola,” the first song on the playlist Sylvie sent me.

“How long do we have until failure to appear?” Gil asks the retired judge seated at the end of the long conference table.

“I’ll give her another fifteen minutes,” the judge decides after glancing at her watch.

Gil nods agreeably, but then presents the judge with a petition for full custody for her to review while we wait.

“This may be over with in less than twenty minutes,” I hear one of the dark-suited lawyers sitting on my other side whisper to another.

But I’m not so sure. As the clock ticks down and there’s still no sign of Sylvie, a new fear sets in.

I’d gone out of my way to make sure she couldn’t buy so much as an international plane ticket before this hearing. And her one lawyer versus my fleet of lawyers…well, I’m not worried about that, even if her lawyer is Luca’s ex-wife.

But what if knowing she wouldn’t win, Sylvie decided to take Ender somewhere like Canada where they could blend into the immigrant population. Somewhere I couldn’t easily hunt them down—

“No, no, boys, get back here!”

My paranoid thoughts are cut off by the sound of Yahto’s raised voice outside the conference room. But despite his angry command, the door to the conference room flies open, hitting the back wall with a bang. And my eyes widen when I see who has run into the room followed by my exasperated guard.

“Wes? Ender?” I call out. “Why aren’t you two in school?”

Ender ignores my question and instead addresses the judge at the other end of the table, “Ms. Judge, we’ve drafted up an alternate custody agreement and would like to speak before the proceeding,” he says, raising what looks like a few sheets of handwritten papers in the air.

My lawyers burst into agitated chatter before Gil comes back with, “This is a custodial matter to be decided between the two parties,” he points out to the arbitrator. “And you two should be at school,” he adds, waggling a finger at the boys. My lawyer turns agitated eyes toward Yahto. “And you there—close the door! This meeting is supposed to be confidential.”

Yahto does as he’s told, then comes to a stiff stance right beside the door.

But Ender glares mutinously at all my lawyers before saying, “Actually, I can cite several precedents where minors were allowed to present their sides of the case during a custody dispute.”

Before Gil can respond, the judge peers over her reading glasses at the two boys, “Barron Pinnock, I presume.”

Ender nods his head once before sticking his stubborn chin back in the air.

“And you are?” the arbitrator asks Wes with more than a little amusement in her voice.

To my surprise, instead of answering with a whining snap as he is so often prone to doing, Wes says, “I’m Wesley Calson. Barron’s half-brother. We would have been here sooner, but we had to wait until second period to sneak out.”

“Judge Wallins, this is highly irregular,” Gil says, standing up. “Both these boys are truant from school, and this is meant to be a closed hearing without the custodial party present.”

“Hmm, apparently no one made these boys aware of those conditions,” the arbitrator answers before turning her amused gaze back to Ender and Wes. “Well, come on over and let me see what you’ve got, boys.”

After exchanging a look, the two boys approach the arbitrator together, walking around the unoccupied side of the table. And though I am furious they’ve come here like this, I can’t help but be a little impressed by how resolute they look, standing side by side when they stop in front of the judge. A team for everyone to see as Ender hands the papers over.

Judge Wallins pushes her reading glasses back up her nose and reads over the words written out in pencil on the lined sulphite paper kids typically use for handwriting practice. “Not bad legal language,” the arbitrator says as she flips through it. “Which one of you wrote this up?”

“We both did, Ms. Judge,” Ender answers. “I came up with the language, but my handwriting is really bad and I couldn’t ask my mom to type it up like I usually do. Plus, dictation software isn’t where it needs to be to capture a voice at my register. So, Wes wrote it up. His handwriting is really good.”

Judge Wallins peers over her glasses at Wes. “You know and understand the contents of this proposed parenting plan?” she asks the younger boy.

Wes nods and Holt is surprised to hear no whining whatsoever in his voice as he answers, “We want to stay with Vee—” Ender nudges him and Wes self-edits, “With Sylvia Pinnock on school nights and all major holidays, and every other weekend with Holt Calson as long as the weekend doesn’t fall on a major holiday.”

“Both of you?” Judge Wallins clarifies. “Even though, from what I understand, Sylvia Pinnock is of no blood relation to you, Mr. Calson?”

“Yeah. She’s my brother’s mom, and I love her like a mother,” Wes answers. “She’s nice and she helps me with my homework and she talks to me a lot and she’s also—what’s that word you taught me?” he asks Ender. Ender whispers in his ear and Wes finishes with, “Naturing.”

The arbitrator titters before correcting him, “Nurturing, young man.”

She turns her scrutinizing gaze back to Ender. “And if you were smart enough to draw up an alternative custody agreement, you should understand we didn’t plan to hear testimony from you during this arbitration.”

“Well, you should have been planning to hear what I had to say about it,” Ender answers, sounding a lot like a Calson with a Jamaican accent. “This is me own life we talking about. And I do want to get to know my father, I do. Been wondering about him for years…”

Ender turns his head to look at me and for a moment, we both take each other in, as if seeing one another for the first time. Which in some ways, we are. And now that I know he is my son, I can spot all sorts of things I hadn’t noticed before. Many of his facial features are all Sylvie—the brown eyes and full, thick lips. But he has sharp cheekbones like me, and the same long thin nose as my mother. I can’t believe I couldn’t see it before.

However, after getting his fill of looking at me, Ender turns back to the judge to say, “I wonder about my dad, but I do not want to be taken from my mother—even if I’m plenty mad angry at her for not telling me who Mr. Calson was from the beginning. And I don’t think it be fair that my custody can be decided without having me ownself say, too.”

Gil stands at this point. “Your honor, with all due respect, there is no precedent for children drawing up their own custody agreements—especially ones that include a third party that shares no blood ties to the proposed primary custodian. In fact, if Ms. Pinnock were here, we would use this request to establish how she has obviously exploited her bond with her former charge, Wesley Calson, to further manipulate his father, Mr. Calson.”

“That makes no sense,” Ender says.

At the same time, Wes yells, “Don’t talk about Vee like that! She’s nice. A lot nicer than my dad who doesn’t even love me and never wants to spend time with me or do anything but work.”

My eyes widen at his accusation. It’s both vicious and unexpected. But Gil puts a restraining hand on my shoulder before I can respond, and says, “Your honor, I must object again. Obviously this young boy has been manipulated by his half-brother and Sylvia Pinnock.”

“Oh, I hear your objections, I do. You may sit back down, Mr. Meier,” the arbitrator answers with a grumpy look. She then gives Ender and Wes an apologetic shake of her head. “As compelling as your handwritten custody agreement is, I’m afraid Mr. Meier is correct. There is a chance you both may have been unduly influenced by Ms. Pinnock. Also, it is well after the appointed time for our arbitration, and she has yet to show up. I’m afraid that doesn’t speak very well of her commitment to this process.”

The arbitrator purses her lips before saying, “And because of her absence, I’ll have to side in favor of Mr. Calson’s proposed custody agreement—”

The door suddenly slams open a second time, and the room once again turns, along with Yahto.

But his time instead of two little boys, Sylvie is standing in the open doorway with Luca’s blind ex on her arm.

“Wait a minute! Not so fast there, Judge Wallins,” Amber calls out.