Part Five: What Nolan Said
The courtroom went completely silent.
Mr. Carroway turned around with an expression of polite surprise. The court reporter’s fingers stopped moving. The bailiff, a heavyset man by the door, took one step forward and then stopped.
Grant finally looked at his son. For the first time all morning.
Judge Halloway took off her reading glasses.
“Young man,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Nolan Bellamy,” he said. “I’m eight.”
“Nolan,” the judge said gently. “Usually children don’t speak in this courtroom. Usually I talk to them privately, in my office, if I need to hear from them.”
Nolan nodded.
“I know,” he said. “But that picture is about me. And it’s not true. So I want to say what’s true.”
Mr. Carroway stood up quickly.
“Your Honor,” he said, “I’d object. The child is clearly under emotional strain. Anything he says here will reflect his mother’s influence.”
Judge Halloway held up one hand without looking at him.
“Mr. Carroway,” she said. “I’ll decide what reflects what.”
She turned back to Nolan.
“Go ahead, Nolan,” she said. “But stay right there next to your mom. And if you want to stop, you can stop anytime. Okay?”
“Okay,” Nolan said.
He looked up at the poster board. At the photograph of himself walking out of school.
“That picture is from Monday,” he said. “After I came back from Dad’s house.”
The courtroom was so quiet I could hear the radiator hissing by the window.
“These stains,” Nolan said, and he pointed to the front of his shirt. “They’re not from Mom’s house. They’re from Dad’s house.”
I stopped breathing.
Across the aisle, Grant’s smile slipped.
“I wore it to Dad’s on Friday,” Nolan said. “Because it’s my lucky shirt. On Saturday night, his girlfriend Tessa made spaghetti. I spilled sauce on it. And chocolate milk. I asked if we could wash it.”
He looked at his father.
“Dad said no,” he said. “He said, Leave it. Don’t wash it. Send him back like that on Monday.”
The air in the room changed.
I turned and looked at Grant. His face had gone completely still. His hand had stopped halfway to his water glass.
“Then he said something else,” Nolan said. “On the phone. To a man named Jerry.”
Mr. Carroway was on his feet again.
“Your Honor,” he said sharply. “This is hearsay from a child who is clearly confused. I’d ask that—”
“Sit down, Mr. Carroway,” Judge Halloway said.
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
He sat down.
“What did your dad say, Nolan?” the judge asked.
Nolan opened his hand.
In his palm was a tiny black memory card. The kind that goes inside a tablet or a camera. Smaller than a postage stamp.
“I don’t remember all of it,” Nolan said. “But I don’t have to. Because I recorded it.”
Part Six: The Memory Card
I stared at my son’s hand.
I had never seen that memory card before in my life. I had no idea where it came from. I had no idea what was on it.
Judge Halloway leaned forward.
“Nolan,” she said carefully. “What is that?”
“It’s from my tablet,” Nolan said. “The old one Dad gave me for Christmas. Before he left. It has a camera.”
He looked up at me. For a second, he looked scared again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Mom,” he said. “I wanted to be sure first.”
I couldn’t say anything. My throat had closed.
“I was making a dinosaur movie,” Nolan told the judge. “On Saturday night. At Dad’s house. In his office. I had my T-rex and my stegosaurus on his desk, and I was doing a battle scene. With sound effects.”
He looked a little embarrassed.
“Dad came in and got on the phone,” he said. “He didn’t see that my tablet was recording. It was behind the lamp. He talked for a long time.”
He held up the tiny card.
“I heard him say Mom’s name,” Nolan said. “And I heard him say my shirt. And I heard him say the bad thing about her job. And about Mr. Pruitt. So I didn’t stop recording.”
His voice wobbled.
“After, I watched it in the bathroom with the door locked,” he said. “And I got really scared. Because he said mean things about Mom. Things that weren’t true. And he said things about me too.”
He looked at the judge.
“Grandma said the secret pocket is for important things,” he said. “So I took the little card out of my tablet and I put it in there. Behind the moon. So nobody could take it.”
He held it out toward the judge.
“I think this is important,” he said.
Judge Halloway looked at the memory card for a long moment.
Then she looked at Grant.
Grant was sitting perfectly still. His face had gone the color of old paper. His fancy watch caught the light as his hand trembled on the table.
“Mr. Bellamy,” the judge said quietly. “Is there anything you’d like to say before I look at this?”
Grant opened his mouth. Then he closed it.
Mr. Carroway leaned over and whispered something urgently in his ear. Grant shook his head. Then he looked at his son.
“Nolan,” he said. His voice cracked. “Buddy, you shouldn’t—that was private. You shouldn’t record people without asking.”
Nolan looked back at his father.
“You didn’t ask me,” he said, “before you used my picture.”
Nobody in that courtroom moved.
Leave a Reply