Richard whipped around, his face dark.

“Shut up!” he barked, and the judge’s gavel came down hard, reprimanding him where he sat.

Beside me, Silvia did not smile, did not gloat; she only reached over and gave my arm one soft squeeze.

There was nothing left for us to argue.

In two sentences, in front of a judge, they had done the entire job themselves.

And then, almost gently, Silvia laid down the grocery receipt — seven-oh-two, twenty minutes away — and Richard’s claim that he had been home monitoring his daughter’s punishment simply ceased, quietly, to exist.