It is a thing you hand down, without meaning to, simply by refusing to break where they can see you.
Chapter 13 — Ms. Prewitt
Behind us, Judge Halloway cleared his throat, and I wiped my face and got to my feet, keeping Rory’s hand in mine.
“Mrs.
Halstead,” he began, and then he stopped, and corrected himself, and there was a kindness in the correction I have never forgotten.
“Or — Ms.
Prewitt, I should say.” My maiden name.
The name I had been trying to find my way back to for two years.
He said it as though he were handing it to me across the bench.
He restated the orders for the record — the custody, the protective order, the freeze, the restitution — and then he leaned forward and looked past me, at my son.