The courthouse smelled like paper, disinfectant, and the stale air of institutional endings. Marriages and property disputes and bad decisions had been sweating into those walls for decades. I got there early in a simple navy dress, hair smooth, shoes practical enough to walk in but sharp enough to remind me who I was. Miranda met me in the lobby looking immaculate and faintly amused, as she always did, like life kept throwing her increasingly unbelievable stories and she kept billing them accurately.
“You ready?” she asked.
“I’ve been ready since 2:47 a.m. on Tuesday,” I said.
That made one corner of her mouth lift. “Good. Today we finish the paperwork.”
I wasn’t nervous. Weeks of chaos had burned that out of me. What I felt instead was anticipation—the last act of a play whose ending I already knew but still wanted to watch land.
Then Ethan walked in.
He looked worse than I expected.