My mother said nothing.
She just looked at him, the way you look at a house after the fire.
“Seventeen Christmases,” she said quietly. “Two hundred dollars.”
His eyes dropped.
Judge Warrick put on his glasses again.
“This court will recess for ten minutes. Mr. Ziegler is remanded. Mrs. Ziegler will remain in the custody of the bailiff pending the State’s filing. The motion to freeze the Talbot Trust is denied.”
He paused.
“Miss Talbot, I understand you wish to address the court.”
I rose.
My knees felt like water.
I walked to the podium, and for the first time in my life, I did not pull my hair forward.
Hundreds of faces looked up at me.
“On Friday night,” I said, “a whole gym full of people said Jonathan Ziegler was doing community service.”
I heard a chair creak.
Tatum put her face in her hands.
“I want to tell you what he really did. He carried a blue folder for six weeks, against his own chest, so that nobody could take it away from me. And then he asked me to dance.”
