What if Jeffrey and George were forced to leave the only home they remembered?
Then I heard movement behind me.
A chair scraped softly across the floor.
I turned.
Jeffrey was standing.
Of the two boys, he was the last person I expected to get up.
George could speak to anyone.
Teachers.
Coaches.
Cashiers.
Strangers standing beside us in line at the grocery store.
Jeffrey was different.
He once spent an entire weekend worrying about a two-minute science presentation because he hated speaking in front of people.
Yet now he walked slowly into the aisle.
His face was pale.
His hands were trembling.
“Your Honor?”
Every head in the courtroom turned toward him.
I whispered his name.
“Jeffrey…”
He glanced at me only once.
Then George stood too.
He walked over and stopped beside his brother.
Vanessa’s expression changed immediately.
She smiled at them.
Warmly.
Hopefully.
Almost proudly.
It was the kind of smile a mother might give her children when she believed they were finally about to take her side.
