My father smirked across the courtroom and said, “You don’t even have the money to hire a lawyer,” loud enough for strangers to laugh, and I stood there alone in uniform with no counsel beside me while his expensive attorney flipped through his folder like the case was already over, but the second the judge looked at me, paused, and said, “For the record, she won’t be needing one,” the entire room changed

I had arrived forty minutes early and sat alone on a wooden bench near the back while watching clerks move in measured lines. Attorneys greeted one another with the easy familiarity of people who existed in the same professional weather system every single day.

A bailiff had nodded once when I entered, his eyes lingering for a half-second on the service ribbons pinned over my left pocket. He didn’t say a word, and I preferred it that way because I had not come here to be thanked or noticed.

I had come because I had to protect what was left of my life.

Two weeks earlier, I had been in my backyard trying to fix a broken fence panel that Duke had pushed through during a chase. Duke was an old shepherd with a muzzle turned mostly gray, and while he was slower than he used to be, he still had bursts of conviction regarding squirrels.

My right knee had been aching in that deep, familiar way it did when the weather shifted or when old memories got too close. That was when the thick, white envelope arrived via a courier.