When she finished her inspection, the judge pulled off her glasses, and Nigel turned his attention toward me. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Bentley, I have no further questions.”
Mr. Carbellero stood.
He didn’t hesitate to tear into me.
Twisting his questions.
Slanting innuendo.
Casting an illusion of neglect and disregard and possible abuse.
Finally I could take it no more and there was nothing I could do to keep the tears from breaking free. They streaked down my face as my words cracked on the appeal. “I would never intentionally place my daughter at risk. She’s my entire life.”
I was sobbing by the time I was excused, no longer able to stand beneath the pressure, beneath the possibility of losing my daughter.
I broke in front of them all.
The judge adjourned for a fifteen-minute break.
Those passing moments were nothing less than excruciating.
Sebastian stood behind me, rubbing my shoulders, pressing gentle kisses to the back of my head while I felt as if I stood at the cusp of eternity. Two paths tangled. One that would lead me to perpetual torment, and the other directly to deliverance.
How daunting that a woman I’d seen for the first time today held the fate of my daughter in her hands.
An unparalleled position of power.
If only she could have seen the years I’d given Kallie. If only she’d been there to watch my sacrifices. The hours of loving her and protecting her and nurturing her.
Always keeping her safe.
She would know I’d never hurt her or put her in harm’s way.
We all rose when she reentered from her chambers, and sat when directed to do so.
It seemed as if the entire room held a collective breath.
She looked in my direction. “I find no evidence of neglect on Ms. Bentley’s part.”
Her words spun through me, tempting and teasing at my understanding.
She turned her gaze in the direction of Martin. “Mr. Jennings, if you have any true interest in forming a relationship with your daughter with joint custody, then I would suggest you do it through the normal channels and not through a stunt like this.”
She lifted the gavel. “I find in favor of the defendant and hereby lift the emergency injunction in the care of Kallie Marie Bentley. Care should immediately be reinstated to her mother.”
Wood cracking against wood thundered through the courtroom as she slammed the gavel down, and I was hit with a violent jolt of relief.
Resonating.
Pulsating.
Taking hold.
I gasped. My shoulders dropped in the same second I dropped my head into my hands. And I sobbed. Only this time…this time it was out of thankfulness. Out of joy.
Simple, simple dreams.
They cried out from within me.
Finally.
Finally.
They were within my reach.
A barrage of flashes went off the second the door swung open.
Click.
Click.
Click.
I ducked my head and Sebastian pulled me closer to his side, and I could feel the way every inch of him hardened in defense.
Resentment and hostility.
“Don’t even acknowledge them, Shea,” Sebastian hissed against my head as he sought to protect me from the swarming onslaught of paparazzi questions.
They pushed and pressed in, vying for position, to be the first to grab our attention.
My head spun with the sudden intrusion. It was a sharp contrast to the rest of my body that felt lighter than it ever had. My arms and legs tingled, my heart stampeding hours into the future when I would hold my baby girl again.
As if I were flying there, more desperate for that moment than for any I’d ever lived in the past.
Over the last two days, as the shock had worn off, the sadness had grown. We’d never had a day apart. It had been utter agony. As if a tangle of roots had sprouted in my insides.
Spearing.
Tunneling.
Burrowing.
Cutting through muscle and bone and marrow.
Piercing me to the core.
To the most vital part of me.
They say our children are made of us. Essential to our being.
It’s never so apparent until they are ripped away, and now all those places resonated with the void only my baby girl could fill.