“I’m going back to Toby’s room,” I said.

Brenda stood up, her face turning red as she jabbed a manicured finger at my chest.

“You think you’re so clever with your little courthouse job.

You’re a thirty-four-thousand-dollar clerk, Valerie.

Dad can buy and sell your whole life by Friday.”

I picked up the legal waiver from the glass table, walked past them down the tiled corridor, and stopped at the sanitation station beside the double doors.

I stepped on the foot pedal of the yellow medical waste bin and dropped Brenda’s legal waiver right into the trash liner.