As we were walking into the courthouse, I didn’t have time to move Collins behind me and nor did Gage when Hazel stormed through the hallway, stopped, and said, “Hi Collins. I’m your mother.”
To get that information, I knew they hired someone. Assholes.
“You’re not my mother.” Collins pointed at me. “She is.”
“I know she has raised you into an amazing young lady, and I am thankful for that. But Collins, I carried you for nine months.”
“And you walked away when I was born,” Collins said with her head held high, but I noticed the slight tremor in her voice.
Everyone that knew her did.
But Hazel and Roger hadn’t.
Because that was when Hazel snapped, “You know I tried to have an abortion, but dear old precious Conleigh wouldn’t hear of it. She forced me to have you. So, I guess you have her to thank.”
I bit my tongue when I saw Collins’s entire body stiffen. It took everything in me to not drop to my knees and wrap my arms around Collins.
I stood there with Gage’s arm around my waist, feeling the heat that was radiating from him from his temper that was about to hit the Richter scale from five to one hundred.
Collins turned her head so slowly that it appeared to be in slow motion. “Is that true? She tried to not have me?” Collins was smart as a whip. She knew what abortion meant. And I hated that she just found that out.
With tears streaming down my cheeks, I said, “Yes, baby.”
And then Collins wrapped her body around mine. Dropping to my knees with Gage hunching beside me, wrapping us both in his arms as he held onto us while Collins’s little body shuddered.
“I thought she knew that,” Hazel said with concern in her voice, but I didn’t buy it. Not one single bit.
“She’s only seven, you dumb bitch. Conleigh never wanted Collins to know that ugly truth. It’s in your best interest to leave and not come back.” Gage growled as he stood and then moved to stand in front of us.
And that was when the women gathered around Collins and me while in succession the men moved in front of us and around us, blocking her from our view.
That was when the bailiff told us that the judge was ready to hear the case.
One by one we filed into the courtroom, but not before Powers pointed in the courtroom and barked at Hazel and Roger, and said one word, “Move.”
When they jumped, I chuckled.
Powers turned his head and winked at me.
Sitting behind the table in the courtroom, I smiled as I stood as Judge Salazar walked out of his office and up to his bench.
I hadn’t wanted to bring Collins to this, but the judge had asked for Collins to be here. In cases like these, he wanted to talk to the children. Even if they were young, they knew their true feelings.
Collins sat behind me and Gage, with Skinner and Heathen sitting on either side of her.
And what had tears in my eyes was the fact that both men had their pinkies latched with Collins’s little hands.
She still had little tears trailing down her cheeks.
As Judge Salazar started the proceedings, our lawyer, who was also Jacob’s lawyer, spoke our case, and then Hazel and Roger’s lawyer spoke their case. Only he hadn’t gotten to continue as our lawyer had…
Because that was when Judge Salazar held his hand up for Hazel’s lawyer to stop talking, and asked, “What’s wrong Collins?”
“She… she wanted to abort me,” Collins said, and it took everything in me to not jump over the small barrier separating us and pull her into my arms, where she would never leave.
Judge Salazar turned a glare on Hazel and her husband that reminded me of Skinner’s glare. I shivered with Gage’s hand in mine.
He looked at me with his eyebrow raised as we looked back at the judge.