The attorneys exchanged looks. Permission was requested. I turned toward my lawyer, my thoughts racing, and after a brief moment I nodded, trusting instinct over fear. Joel nodded too, though his lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes flickered toward Phoebe with something that looked like alarm.
The court clerk connected the tablet Phoebe handed over to the display screen, and when the image appeared my stomach tightened sharply.
It was our living room, dimly lit in the evening, familiar down to the crooked picture frame and the worn arm of the couch. A timestamp glowed in the corner from several months earlier. Phoebe sat on the sofa clutching her fox, her posture rigid, her eyes fixed forward in a way I recognized with sudden horror, because I had seen that same stillness on her before and dismissed it as tiredness.
Then Joel entered the frame.
He was not yelling. He was pacing, phone in hand, voice low but edged with tension, and he spoke with a sharp focus that made the hair on my arms stand up.
“I told you I would take care of it,” he said into the phone. “You need to stop pushing me.”
A murmur rippled through the room.