William Edwards Leaves His Screaming Son on a Friday Afternoon in Hartford
I opened it, the plastic crackling in the quiet room. Owen’s small blue passport lay on top of his birth certificate, his five-year-old photograph showing his serious, unsmiling face under the laminated plastic.
I slid the documents into my inner coat pocket, the weight of the paper settling against my ribs.
The blue folder remained flat against my chest the next morning as I sat at the oak table in Courtroom 4B.
The room smelled of old floor wax and damp winter coats. Behind me, the gallery was empty except for David Vance, my department chair, who sat in the third row with his winter coat folded neatly over his knees.
Judge Robert Geller, a bald man with thick reading glasses resting on the tip of his nose, was looking down at a stack of white papers.
Marsha sat twelve feet away at the opposing table, wearing a dark gray wool suit. She was not looking at me, but her manicured fingernails tapped a steady, dry rhythm against the wood.
Next to her, Sue Melton stood with her hands clasped tightly behind her back, her posture as rigid as a fence post.
