“And because I’m not alone anymore.”
Marcus held her gaze.
Then slowly nodded.
An estimate had just been revised upward.
He picked up his phone.
“I’m calling the courthouse.”
He began dialing.
“We’re requesting a continuance so we can prepare properly.”
“She’ll oppose it.”
“The judge may grant it.”
Marcus looked over his glasses.
“If it’s denied, we walk in the day after tomorrow with what we have and make it enough.”
“It’s enough,” Sky said.
Marcus almost smiled.
“Go back to the garage.”
He pointed toward the door.
“Paint something.”
“I’ll call Gregory tonight.”
Sky and Gregory were halfway out when Marcus called her name.
“Sky.”
She turned.
“The letter Luther left you.”
Her hand instinctively moved toward the inside of the jacket.
“I need to know whether anything inside it is relevant to the estate matter.”
Marcus held up one hand.
“I’m not asking to read the private parts.”
“I’m asking you to read it again tonight.”
“If there’s something I should know, call me.”
Sky held his gaze.
“There is.”
Marcus nodded.
“I’ll call.”
The continuance was denied.
Marcus called Gregory at 8:15 that evening.
The judge reviewed Renata’s emergency filing and decided that a petition alleging potential ongoing harm to a young adult was not something the court wanted to postpone.
The hearing remained scheduled for nine in the morning, the day after next.
When Gregory told Jimmy, Jimmy said nothing for several seconds.
Then he asked a question.
“How many people can we have inside that courthouse?”
“As many as want to be there.”
“All of them.”
Jimmy thought.
“Clean clothes.”
“No patches in the courtroom.”
“Marcus will tell us the same thing.”
Then he paused.
“I want every man who knew Luther and everybody who has seen what Sky can do inside that building.”
Another thought.
“And someone stays with her tonight.”
“She shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’ll ask.”
Gregory did.
Sky said no twice.
Then yes once.
That was becoming her pattern.
Gregory’s sister Patrice was 61 and recently retired from teaching.
She lived four blocks from Garland’s and had heard about Sky that afternoon.
She had opinions.
Patrice prepared the guest room.
At ten that night, she placed a plate of food outside the door.
She did not knock.
Sky ate standing beside the bed while reading Luther’s letter again.
The second reading felt different.
During the first, she had been in shock.
Not the falling-down kind.
The standing-up kind.
The kind where the body keeps functioning while the mind is somewhere else.
This time, she read every word.
And felt every one.
Near the end, Luther had written:
“I know you’re angry at me right now for leaving things the way I left them. You’re allowed.”
Sky stopped.
Then continued.
“But I need you to know that every single thing I did, I did thinking about you.”
“You were the reason I tried to be better at being a person.”
“You were the reason I tried.”
Sky sat on the edge of the guest bed.
She laid the letter across her knees.
Then pressed both palms over her eyes.
She did not cry.
She had cried long ago in places that had not been this safe.
What moved through her now was older.
Quieter.