The streets of Sycamore Hills were quiet. The elms just shapes against the sky. I sat in the car in the driveway for a moment before going inside, hands on the wheel, engine ticking as it cooled, and I breathed in and thought about Patricia O'Shea and her voluntary recusal and her silence. I thought about Emma Briggs, who was 6 years old and had been caught in the middle of her parents' war for 8 months, and I thought about Maya, asleep upstairs with her stuffed rabbit, who had sat in her stroller on a Saturday morning and watched a man rest his hand on a gun near her father. I went inside.
I kissed Denise, who was reading on the couch with a cup of tea and the particular watchful expression she wears when she is waiting for news she already knows is serious. How bad? she said. Worse than I thought, I said. But I know what it is now, and I know what to do. She looked at me for a long moment, then she nodded once and handed me her tea.
The next 3 days were the kind of quiet that is not peaceful, but tactical. I submitted my written account to David. I reviewed the Briggs versus Holt file with the attention I give to every case, not more, not less. And I prepared for Thursday the way I prepare for every hearing. I slept 6 hours each night, not because I was calm, but because I had learned somewhere in my 40s that exhaustion is not the same as preparation, and that the people who had sent a patrol car to my corner were counting on me to be shaken.
I intended to disappoint them. Wednesday night, after Denise and Maya were asleep, I sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee going cold on the table. The house was quiet around me in the particular way houses are quiet at midnight. The refrigerator's low hum, the sound of the wind in the oak in the backyard, the occasional creak of the floor settling. I thought about the first time I'd put on a judge's robe, the specific weight of it across my shoulders, what it had meant to me standing in that changing room before my first day on the bench that a man in this country could be born into what I had been born into and end up here.
I thought about the cases that had moved through my courtroom over 6 years, parents desperate to keep their children, families breaking apart, and families trying to hold together. I thought about what the robe means and what it requires, and I thought about resting against a leather holster strap, and a 2-year-old girl in a yellow jacket with embroidered ducks frowning at the direction a threat had just gone. I poured out the cold coffee. I went to bed. I was ready.
Thursday morning, the courtroom on the second floor of the Crestfield Family Court Building had 12 rows of wooden spectator seats, most of which were empty on a regular day. That morning they were not empty. David Chen was in the back row with a woman I didn't recognize until I placed her. Patricia O'Shea, whom I had never met in person, but whose face I knew from her judicial biography. She was in her 50s, composed, wearing a dark coat.
She gave me a brief nod when I entered. Two people from the Judicial Conduct Board, a man and a woman, both in gray suits, were seated near the door. Sandra, at her clerk station, met my eyes briefly and looked back at her desk. Glenn Pratt entered at 9:52 with Kyle Briggs beside him. Pratt was compact and neat, as always.
Briefcase precise on the table. Expression professionally neutral. Kyle Briggs was 31 and had his brother's rectangular build, though softer, and he wore a dark blue suit that had been recently pressed. He did not look at me when he sat. Renata Holt came in separately with her attorney, Simona De Yemi, young, tenacious, thorough throughout this case.
Renata sat very straight in her chair with her hands folded on the table in front of her, and she looked at me with an expression that contained, under the weariness, something that was almost hope. I took my seat. Sandra called the case. "Before we begin," I said, "I want the record to reflect several things." Pratt looked up from his papers.
"Over the past 72 hours," I said, "I have filed a formal report with the Crestfield Judicial Conduct Board and the State Attorney's Office documenting what I have reason to believe was a deliberate attempt to intimidate a sitting judge in connection with this case. The report includes a time-stamped record of a public social media post, the Crestfield PD's non-emergency call log from the morning of October 4th, a formal account of an encounter with Officer Tyler Briggs of the Third District on that morning, and information regarding a substantially similar incident involving another family court judge in Ridgefield County 18 months ago." The room was very still. Kyle Briggs had gone the color of old wax. Pratt's pen had stopped moving.
"I want to be clear," I said. "None of this affects my ability to rule on this case fairly and in accordance with the evidence. My obligation to this court and to the child at the center of this proceeding does not change because someone attempted to remove me from this bench. What it does mean is that the attempt is now on the record and the people who made it will answer for it through the appropriate channels." I paused.
"Mr. Pratt, do you have any preliminary motions?" Pratt stood slowly. His voice, when it came, was careful and slightly smaller than usual. "Your Honor, we may need to request a brief continuance to to consult with "On what grounds?"
I said. A pause. Pratt's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, a single whitening at the hinge. "In light of the statements you've just made, my client may wish to Mr. Pratt," I said.
"Your client has sought a continuance in this case three times. Each time, a six-year-old girl has waited. She has been waiting for eight months. I'm going to need a legal ground for the continuance request, not a strategic one." Pratt looked at his client.