My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
Seventy-three.
He said my age as though it were evidence against me.
As though every birthday had somehow erased the thousands of mornings I had gotten those boys ready for school.
As though the gray in my hair mattered more than the nights I had sat beside their beds when they were sick.
As though ten years of raising them could suddenly become less important because their mother had decided to return.
I didn’t look at Vanessa.
Instead, I looked behind me.
My grandsons, Jeffrey and George, were sitting side by side in the second row.
Twelve years old now.
Tall for their age.
Blond hair that refused to stay neatly combed.
School backpacks resting beside their feet because I had picked them up directly from school before the hearing.
They looked nothing like the toddlers who had first arrived at my house ten years earlier.
