Judge Henderson’s eyes darted to Keith like a hawk spotting prey. “Is there something amusing, Mr. Simmons?”Garrison Ford stood up immediately, placing a restraining hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Apologies, Your Honor. My client is simply frustrated. This process has been unnecessarily prolonged, and the emotional strain is significant.”
“Keep your client’s frustration silent, Mr. Ford,” the judge warned, his tone sharp enough to cut. He turned back to me, and I saw something in his expression—not sympathy exactly, but perhaps a flicker of annoyance at the waste of his time. “Mrs. Simmons, court began five minutes ago. You know the rules. If your attorney is not present within a reasonable timeframe…”
“She’s coming,” I insisted, my voice gaining a fraction more strength. She promised. She swore. “There was traffic. The Cross Bronx Expressway—”“Traffic?” Keith muttered, leaning forward so his voice carried across the aisle like a poison dart. “Or maybe the check bounced, Grace. Oh, wait. You can’t write a check. I canceled the cards this morning. All of them. Even the one you use at that pathetic coffee shop where you pretend to be an artist.”
“Mr. Simmons!” The judge banged his gavel once, the sound cracking through the room like a gunshot. “One more outburst and I will hold you in contempt. Do I make myself clear?”
“My apologies, Your Honor,” Keith said, standing up and buttoning his jacket with exaggerated humility. But his eyes never left me, and I saw the satisfaction there—the joy of a bully who’d found the perfect victim. “I just… I want to be fair here. My wife is clearly confused. She doesn’t understand the complexity of the law. She has no income, no resources. I offered her a generous settlement last week—fifty thousand dollars and the 2018 Lexus. She refused.”He turned to look at me directly, his eyes cold and dead like a shark’s. “I tried to help you, Grace. But you insisted on playing games. Now look at you. Sitting there with nothing. You don’t have a lawyer because nobody wants a charity case.”
“Mr. Ford, control your client!” Judge Henderson snapped, his voice rising for the first time.
“Your Honor,” Garrison Ford interjected smoothly, sensing the judge’s patience thinning like ice in spring. “While my client’s passion is perhaps regrettable, his point has merit. We are wasting the court’s valuable time. Mrs. Simmons has clearly not secured representation. Under the precedent of Vargas v. State, we move to proceed immediately with a default judgment on the asset division. She has had months to prepare for this hearing.”Judge Henderson looked at me, and for a moment I saw what he saw: a woman alone, unprepared, defeated before the battle even began. He looked tired, like a man who’d seen this story play out a thousand times.
“Mrs. Simmons,” he said, and there was almost gentleness in his voice. “Mr. Ford is technically correct. The court’s time is valuable, and we have fourteen more cases to hear today. If you cannot produce an attorney right now, I have to assume you are representing yourself pro se. And given the complexity of the forensic accounting involved in your husband’s estate, that would be… ill-advised.”
“I am not representing myself,” I said, my eyes fixed on the double mahogany doors at the back of the room. Please. Please don’t let me down. Not now. “Just two more minutes. Please.”“She’s stalling,” Keith hissed, his voice dripping with venom. “She’s got nobody. Her father was a mechanic in Queens and her mother’s been dead for fifteen years. Her friends are all suburban housewives who can barely balance a checkbook. Who is she going to call? Ghostbusters?”
Keith laughed again, that cruel, barking sound that I’d heard too many times in our marriage. He felt invincible. He looked at me, the woman he had vowed to love and cherish before God and two hundred witnesses, and saw only an obstacle he was about to crush beneath his Italian leather shoes. He wanted to humiliate me. He needed me to know that leaving him was the biggest mistake of my life.
