It got continued twice.

The order entered on the second of December, which was seventy-eight days after I stood on a porch.

Seventy-eight days.

That is the actual answer to “why didn’t you just go to court,” and it is the answer for essentially everybody: because court is not a thing that happens to you on Tuesday.

It is a thing that begins to happen to you in about three months, and you have to be alive and housed and have your children with you and be sane when it does.

Which is what Arthur Vance’s guest rooms actually were.