At 1:30 PM on Monday, December 21, I sat in row K at the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center.
Two hundred twelve of us were being admitted that day.
About six hundred people filled the room.
Snow fell past the tall windows.
I wore the black dress again.
The program lay on my knee.
The clerk would read every name and every sponsor from it.
Mine was on page six.
Delia Reyburn — Sponsor: withdrawn
Clay had withdrawn before the program went to print.
He had come anyway.
He sat in the sponsors' row with two of the firm's new associates.
We had lined up in the aisle before the start.
He'd passed close enough to brush my program.
"Some things you don't get to keep," he said.
I didn't answer him.
I hadn't said a word to him since the hallway.
The clerk began with the A's.
Every name came with a sponsor.
Every sponsor stood, and the room clapped.
Ruth sat in the gallery behind me, beside Paige.
Paige had brought a camera she wasn't allowed to use.
At 2:20 the clerk reached the R's.
"Delia Reyburn."
She looked down at her page.
"Sponsor: withdrawn."
A sound went through six hundred people.
It wasn't a laugh.
It was worse than a laugh.
Heads turned to find me.
A few found Clay first.
He looked down at his program.
Then a seat creaked in the gallery.
Jonah stood up.
"Calloway, 38871."
"I'm her sponsor."
The clerk looked up at the bench.
The Chief Justice checked a sheet and looked out at row K.
"Admitted October ninth."
"Come forward."
I stood.
Row K let me out one knee at a time.
The aisle ran past the sponsors' row.
Clay's two associates looked at their shoes.
Clay looked at the clerk.
I walked to the bar without turning my head.
Somewhere on my left, a program snapped shut.
The applause started in the gallery, near Ruth.
Then the rest of the room joined in.
I signed the roll in blue ink.
My hand didn't shake.
By 3:10 the snow had covered the steps.
Families took pictures in it.
Ruth hugged me a second longer than she needed to.
"Every page," she said into my coat.
Then Paige drove her home.
Jonah waited on the bottom step with snow on his shoulders.
"You stood up," I said.
"You'd have walked up anyway."
"Probably."
"I just made it faster."
He reached into his inside pocket.
The yellow page came out folded once.
He held it out to me.
The binder-clip dent was still at the top.
Five weeks flat had softened the crumple lines.
I opened it.
The ink was blue, and the handwriting was mine.
11/14/2022
spoliation → adverse inference
Snow landed on the page, and I brushed it off.
"You carried this for five weeks?" I asked.
"Inside pocket."
"Every day."
"Even in court?"
"Especially in court."
"Ruth initialed it," he said.
"It's yours."
I folded it again along his crease.
"I'm not your client anymore," Jonah said.
"I know," I said.
"I closed the file."
"Then ask me properly."
His breath fogged in the cold.
"Dinner."
"Tonight, at seven."
"Not a meeting."
"Yes," I said.
At seven we ate at a place on Larimer that put paper on the tables.
He didn't order for me.
He asked what I wanted and waited for the answer.
He never mentioned the case.
Neither did I.
Outside, under the awning, he kissed me.
The snow was heavier by then.
For a while, neither of us noticed.
On Saturday, January 16, 2027, at 8:10 AM, I unlocked my office on Santa Fe Drive.
Frost covered the bottom of the window.
The radiator ticked.
The glass door had new gold letters, still sharp at the edges.
DELIA REYBURN · ATTORNEY AT LAW
Jonah came in behind me with two paper cups of coffee.
He set one on my desk and took the second chair.
He'd brought the legal newspaper.
He folded it to page three and read in silence.
Trial Lawyers Association Rescinds Haverty Award
The crystal gavel was going back in its box.
Clay's referral was still open.
So was Lorna's.
Lorna's $4,100,000 never came.
Neither did Clay's $3,600,000.
In March, a judge would decide what Ostrander Keane's work on Ruth's case had been worth.
The conversion suit was never filed.
My new client was a nurse with a wage claim.
I opened her file and started drafting.
Jonah didn't look at my screen.
He turned a page and drank his coffee.
Above my desk, one yellow page hung from a black binder clip.
It was dated 11/14/2022, in blue ink, with one line circled twice.
The handwriting belonged to the person who wrote the brief.