The full hearing was in three days.
Mia sat at Sarah's kitchen table at 9 p.m. with Patricia's final prep notes spread across the surface and a cup of tea she had made and forgotten about. Outside, Austin was doing what it did in November — cooling finally, decisively, the kind of cold that arrived like an apology after the long summer.
She had read the notes three times. She knew them. That was the thing about preparing for something you had been building toward for two months — at a certain point the preparation was done and what was left was simply the waiting, which was always the harder part.
She closed the folder.
Nathan had texted an hour ago: *How are you tonight?*
She had typed back: *Honestly? Ready. Which is strange because I've been terrified for two months and now I'm jus
