Carmen read over my shoulder. "Three is thin as written."
"Thicken it. Cite the flags with dates. Then the shelter documentation."
"The kid is ten, Eleanor. His statement is hearsay without him on the stand."
"Then use the social worker. Marta Reyes documented bruising consistent with a belt, a padlocked basement door, and a child who ran three months ago and never went back. Attach her intake note."
She nodded, typing fast. "Osei will call this opportunistic."
"Osei can call it whatever he likes. He still has to answer the basement."
"The lock or the hunger?"
"Both."
At midnight Sterling put his head in. Sixty-two, tie off, and he looked at the boxes and the empty coffee cups and said, "Halcyon calls at nine tomorrow. Be in that meeting, Eleanor."
"I will be."
"Then I suggest you get some sleep." He was gone before I could answer.
Carmen said, "He means the merger."
"I know what he means."
"Do you care?"
I looked at her. "Draft the affidavit."
She grinned, quick and sharp, and went back to typing. We worked paragraph by paragraph, me cutting her clean sentences down to the bone, her pushing back when I cut too far. At one point she said, "This line about the petitioner being fit and willing reads like a tax return."
"Rewrite it."
"I did rewrite it. Twice. You keep changing it back."
"Because it's a petition, Carmen, not a profile."
"Fine. Tax return it is."
At one thirty she slid the signature page across the table. Petitioner, my name typed beneath a blank line. I picked up the pen and my hands were shaking. I gripped it until my knuckles went white and signed anyway, and the signature came out jagged, nothing like the clean slant I use on briefs.
Carmen looked at it for a second and said nothing, and I loved her for that.
We filed at eight forty-five. I carried the petition in a slim folder and Carmen carried the exhibits box, and the clerk stamped everything.
The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor and Ray Dolan was standing there with a young man in a frayed suit.
Daniel Osei. Court-appointed. He looked like he had slept in his car.
"Ms. Vance," he said. "My client intends to contest."
"Your client intends to contest an emergency guardianship for a child who ran from his house three months ago."
"My client says the boy left after a disciplinary disagreement."
"That is what he calls it?"
Osei rubbed his eyes. "I have read the CPS flags. I am not going to stand here and tell you they are nothing. But Mr. Dolan has held legal custody for two years, the home passed inspection in June, and my client is prepared to testify that the basement door was locked because the boy was sneaking out at night."
"To the shelter."
"To wherever. The point is we are not consenting, so this goes to the judge."
Judge Patricia Mwangi took the bench at ten. No-nonsense did not begin to cover it. When she sat she said, "Ms. Vance. Emergency relief. Make it quick."
"Your Honor, the child is ten years old, currently at a shelter, having fled his foster placement three months ago. The placement carries two documented CPS flags for suspected neglect. Petitioner is the child's maternal aunt, a fit adult with stable housing and no criminal history, and she seeks temporary kinship guardianship pending a full hearing."
Mwangi turned. "Mr. Osei."
"Your Honor, the Department has not removed the child from Mr. Dolan's home. The home passed inspection. The child left voluntarily, and Mr. Dolan has cooperated with every inquiry. This motion asks the court to strip a licensed foster parent of custody on the word of a woman who has had no contact with the child in eleven years."
There it was. Eleven years.
Mwangi said, "Is that accurate, Ms. Vance?"
"Your Honor, I am the child's maternal aunt. I will address my history at the evidentiary hearing."
Osei opened a folder. "Your Honor, if I may. I hold a waiver signed by Ms. Vance eleven years ago, declining to attend the custody hearing following her sister's death and relinquishing any claim to placement. I would like it read into the record."
I said, "No objection," before Mwangi could ask.
He read it. The whole thing. The formal language, my signature at the bottom, the date. The courtroom went very quiet.
When Osei finished she said, "Noted. Emergency relief is granted in part. Temporary kinship guardianship to the petitioner, effective immediately, pending a full evidentiary hearing one week from today. Mr. Osei, your client will have supervised visitation if he wishes it. Ms. Vance, bring everything you have."
She struck the gavel and stood.
Outside, the press was waiting on the courthouse steps. Someone shouted about the Halcyon merger. Carmen put a hand on my elbow and steered me past the microphones.
"Keep walking," Carmen said.
"I'm walking."
The car was at the curb. Thomas stood beside it in the rain with the door open and a thermos in his hand.
I slid in. He closed the door, got in front, and handed the thermos back without looking.
"You did fine," he said.
And that nearly undid me.