Nothing else there 25

I wake up and his arm is across my ribs and the light is wrong. Too bright, too high. 8:47 AM and the hearing is at eleven and I sit up so fast the room tilts.

Nick is awake, been awake, propped on one hand looking at me with the unhurried face of a man who has nowhere else to be even though he does.

“We’re going to be late,” I say, already reaching for my phone.

“Worth it,” he says, and the way he says it — slow, half-smiling, his eyes still on my face — makes me want to lie back down into his bed and forget the hearing exists.

I lean down and kiss him, short and hard, a kiss that means ‘get up’. But his hand catches the back of my neck for one more second before he lets go.

We shower, dress, move through the apartment in a rush. I put on the green dress and when I walk into the kitchen he’s buttoning his shirt. He looks up and his eyes travel down the dress and back to my face, his hands stop on the buttons.

“We need to go,” I say.

“I know.” He finishes the button without looking at it. “You look… gorgeous.”

“Let’s go,” I said with a smile, taking his hand and leading toward the front door.

After a half an hour ride we’re at the courthouse. Same steps, same stone. When we enter, Dominic is already seated across the aisle with his two attorneys, same calm face. Then I see Camille in the gallery behind him with her legs crossed.

Janet leans over when I sit down, her voice low and precise. “Their filing is strong on continuity. Ours is stronger on change. Stay still, stay quiet, let me work.”

The judge enters and Janet stands. “Your Honor, Mrs. Carraway’s circumstances have materially changed since the temporary order…”

She walks the judge through it — the apartment, Nick’s position, my employment — each fact steady and clean.

Dominic’s attorney pushes back with routine and stability, then pauses. “We’d also note that the petitioner’s new marriage is to the respondent’s brother, which suggests this arrangement may be strategic rather than domestic.”

Janet is on her feet before he sits down. “The nature of the petitioner’s marriage is not before this court. Whether the petitioner can provide a stable, safe, and loving home is. The answer is yes.”

The judge asks if there’s anything else. Both sides say no. She removes her glasses. “This court grants joint custody of the minor child, with primary residence transitioning to the mother effective immediately.”

My hands are shaking on the table and I wait for the word however, for the clause, for the thing that takes it back. It doesn’t come.

Dominic passes my table on his way out without looking at me, and Camille follows, leaning close enough that I can feel her breath.

“Enjoy it while you can,” she whispers. “This isn’t over.”

Outside on the steps I press my face into Nick’s chest and his arms close around me and I hold the front of his jacket with both fists.

“I get her back,” I say into his shirt.

“You get her back,” he says, and his arms tighten and I can feel his heart through the fabric.

My phone buzzes with messages.

Little L: how did it go??? tell me tell me tell me

Me: Pack your bag baby, you’re coming home

Little L: FOR REAL???

Me: For real 🙂

Then ‘MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM’ fills my screen and I show it to Nick. His face does the thing where his eyes go soft and his jaw goes tight at the same time.

“Let’s go get her,” he says.

***

Lily is on the brownstone steps with her backpack and a duffel bag, she’s down the stairs before I’ve parked. She slams the backseat door and wraps her arms around my headrest from behind, pressing her face into my hair.

“Mom!” she says, and her voice cracks.

“I know, baby. I know…” and she says it again and I say it again and neither of us needs any other words.

Nick pulls away from the curb and in the rearview mirror the brownstone gets smaller. Camille is in the window, but I don’t look back.

At the apartment Lily drops her bags and walks straight to the third bedroom and stops in the doorway.

Purple bedding, her books on the shelf arranged in her exact order — series together, favorites on the end, the paperback with the broken spine face-out. A desk by the window, the small rug with the blue pattern from her old room.

She stands there for a long time with her hand on the doorframe, and I watch her take in every detail and I can see the moment she understands that someone studied her life closely enough to rebuild it.

“Who did this?” she says, her voice barely there.

I look at Nick, leaning against the wall behind us, hands in his pockets. “Lucky guess,” he says.

She turns and crosses the hallway and hugs me — fast, hard, both arms locked around my waist, her face pressed into my stomach. I hold her with my chin on her head and then I feel it — a kick, strong and definite, pressing outward against Lily’s ribs.

She pulls back and looks down at my stomach. “Mom. What was that?”

My hand goes to the spot and another kick comes and I can feel my eyes filling. “I need to tell you something.”

We sit on her bed and I take her hands and tell her about the twins — two boys, twenty-two weeks. I tell her I found out before the divorce and didn’t tell Dominic and why.

She stares at me. “I’m going to have brothers?”

Her face crumbles — not the bad crumble, the one where the tears come from a place that isn’t pain. She puts her hand on my stomach and then leans down.

“Hi. I’m Lily. I’m your big sister,” she says very seriously. “You’re going to like it here.”

She looks up at me with her hand still on my stomach. “Is Nick their dad?”

“It’s complicated, baby…”

“Is he going to be their dad, though?” She asks it the way she asks everything — direct, unwilling to accept the softer version. “After they’re born.”

“I think so. Yeah.”

She wipes her face and nods.

That night I sit on the edge of her bed. She’s in my old t-shirt, burrowed under the purple comforter, hair still damp.

“Mom? Is this real?” Her voice is soft, half-asleep. “Permanently?”

“Permanently,” I say, and the word feels like something I’m signing.

She’s quiet for quite a time and I thought she’s ready to fall asleep. “Mom? I think Nick loves you.”

“Why do you say that?” I brush the hair off her forehead.

“Because he set up my room. He got the book order right, he remembered the rug.” Her eyes are finally closing. “Dad never did anything like that. Dad didn’t know what order my books went in…”

I kiss her forehead and say goodnight and close her door. I stand in the hallway with my back against the wall and my hands on my stomach, breathing in and out.

In the living room Nick is standing by the window with his phone in his hand, just ending a call. The softness from tonight is gone from his face, replaced by something tighter.

“What?” I say.

“My father’s nurse.” He sets the phone on the windowsill. “He wants us at dinner tomorrow night. Both of us. She said he’s getting worse and he wants to discuss the will.”

The apartment is quiet around us — Lily asleep in her purple room, the twins kicking inside me, Nick standing at the window with his father’s summons.

“Okay,” I say, and I walk to him and take his hand. “We’ll go.”