Chapter 6
The day of the first hearing arrived quickly.
I had requested time off and flown back to Briarhold a day early.
In the courtroom, I finally saw Charles again, someone I hadn't set eyes on for a long time.
He had thinned down noticeably, and there was a drawn, weary look about him. Dressed in a cleanly tailored suit, he sat in the defendant's seat with an expression that revealed nothing, and his gaze never once came to rest on me.
Bertha occupied the front row of the gallery, her eyes fixed on me with such venomous intensity that they might as well have been knives.
The trial unfolded pretty much exactly as I had expected.
Charles' lawyer seized on the fact that I had left home on my own, doing everything he could to frame me as an irresponsible, unreasonable wife.
Charles, meanwhile, was being presented as the long-suffering, good-hearted husband who had been deeply hurt but was still willing to forgive his wife for the sake of keeping the family together.
When the judge asked Charles whether he consented to the divorce, he rose slowly to his feet. His voice wasn't loud, but every word came through clearly.
"I don't agree to the divorce," he said. "My wife and I have had some misunderstandings, I'll admit that. But I believe that as long as we're willing to sit down and talk things through, we'll find a way to resolve them.
"I still care about her very much, and I hope Your Honor will give us another chance."
He spoke with such conviction, as if he truly meant every word. A few muffled sobs rose from the gallery.
Watching him, I suddenly felt like laughing.
What a beautiful image he had crafted for himself.
If I hadn't been through it myself, I probably would have fallen for it too, and I would have believed him to be the kind of man worth spending a lifetime with.
My lawyer submitted the screenshot of the post Charles had shared, but it took the opposing counsel only a few sentences to turn the whole thing around.
"Your Honor," he said, "my client is the deputy head of surgery. Attending a hospital reception with his assistant is a routine professional obligation. There's nothing in that to raise any question about his personal character.
"As for the phrase 'best partner,' that was simply a compliment on a subordinate's work performance, with no romantic implications whatsoever. For the plaintiff to claim marital infidelity based on a single photograph seems, frankly, rather subjective and arbitrary."
When he finished, he made a point of casting a brief glance at the witness statement Sophie had written.
In that statement, Sophie laid out the entire timeline of the reception in painstaking detail, emphasizing again and again that she and Charles shared nothing but a perfectly proper working relationship, that she held him in high regard and hoped I would not get the wrong idea.
All their accounts fit together seamlessly, which left me looking like nothing more than a paranoid troublemaker.
The outcome was entirely predictable. The judge concluded that our marriage had not yet irretrievably broken down and dismissed my divorce petition then and there.
As I stepped out of the courthouse, Bertha blocked my way.
With the trace of a triumphant smile on her lips, she looked down at me and said, "You hear that, Sarah? Even the court won't back up your little outburst.
"I suggest you pack your things, move back home, give Charles a proper apology, and get on with your life like a sensible person. Stop embarrassing yourself out here."
I couldn't be bothered with her, so I simply stepped around her and kept walking.
Charles was standing at the bottom of the steps. His eyes rested on me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
A moment later, he hurried up to me. "Sarah," he said, "I really think we should talk."
"There's nothing to talk about. I'll see you in court in six months." That was all I said before walking away without so much as a backward glance or a moment's hesitation.
Having my first petition thrown out had been well within my expectations, but that doesn't mean I was ready to call it quits.