On the morning of the hearing, my season finale drops without me.
My laptop sits open on the kitchen table, waveform frozen on the last line of the episode. I scheduled it three nights ago, back when I still believed in endings. The little progress bar inches forward, turning the file from private to public while the laundromat hums under my feet and the kettle shrieks on the stove.
My phone buzzes with the first push notification from the hosting app. “Glass Roses S01E12: The Story They Wrote For Juliet” is now live. I flip the device face down before the download numbers can climb in front of me.
“You’re going to be late,” my mother calls from the doorway. She leans on the frame in yesterday’s blouse, keys in one hand, lipstick in the other. She offered to take Theo to school and then wait at the courthouse, “if they let her,” which we both know depends on whether sitting with me makes her useful or radioactive.
I smooth my dress—plain navy cotton, no pattern, no personality. My lawyer told me to look “stable” and “boring.” The hem brushes my knees when I stand.
“Ready,” I say, lying with my mouth and my shaking hands.
Family court in Crescent Bay smells like coffee and old paper. The hallway outside the courtroom hums with whispers, stilettos ticking over tile, the soft thud of doors opening and closing on other people’s crises.
Through the narrow window at the end of the corridor, I catch a slice of the bay. The water is flat and gray, cliffs rising behind it like a backdrop. Somewhere below those postcard edges, the rock shelf waits, hidden, the same way all the sharp parts of this town hide beneath regatta photos and Prom Throwback flyers on bulletin boards.
“Remember,” my lawyer murmurs as we sit at the petitioner’s table. “Answer only the question. You don’t need to explain your entire podcasting philosophy on every one.”
“You say that like I know how to shut up,” I whisper back. My voice comes out dry, powdered by the recycled air.
Eric sits at the other table, navy blazer, tie knotted too tight, hair tamed into something that makes him look like a man who pays his taxes on time. His lawyer, Ms. Duffy, arranges a neat stack of papers, a legal pad, a tablet. She doesn’t look like the type to listen to true-crime podcasts for fun. I remind myself that doesn’t matter.
The judge walks in and everyone rises. Judge Harmon is silver-haired and spare, robe hanging straight from his shoulders, glasses perched low. He carries a mug that smells faintly of hazelnut and an impatience that prickles across the room without him saying a word.
We sit. The clerk reads the case caption. My full name ricochets off the paneled walls, followed by Eric’s, joined forever in the state’s file even if our lives fell apart years ago.
They start with him. His lawyer leads him through the script: his job, his apartment in New Haven, the bedroom he’s painted for Theo there. He talks about stability, about routines, about wanting more time “away from media attention.”
When it’s my turn, my knees knock once against the underside of the witness stand before I sit. I press my palms to the worn wood railing, grounding myself in old varnish and splintered edges.
“Ms. Lane,” Judge Harmon says, “your attorney has provided the court with your affidavits. I’m going to ask a few clarifying questions before counsel begins. Understood?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” My voice wobbles on the first word, steadies on the second.
He asks about Theo’s school schedule, the mornings we race down the stairs, the afternoons I juggle homework and editing. He asks about the threats—how many, how specific, how often I’ve called the police.
“I’ve reported all of them,” I say. “I’ve changed his pickup routine. I walk him in every day. I’m working with the department to—”
“You are referring,” he interrupts gently, “to Detective Navarro?”
“Yes.” I grip the rail harder, my knuckles whitening. “She’s reopening Juliet Reeves’s case. The podcast brought forward evidence that—”
“We are not adjudicating the Reeves matter today,” he says. “Only its impact on your son.”
Impact. Like a drop into water, like a body into a bay.
My lawyer takes over, guiding me back to safer ground: Theo’s grades, his bedtime, the parenting class I signed up for on Saturday mornings to show “continuing education.” I talk about reading with him, about board games on the floor, about how we turn off screens an hour before bed and listen to music instead. I mention how we talk about fear using concrete language, not monsters.
I loosen my grip on the rail. For a minute, it feels like I might survive this.
Then Ms. Duffy stands.
She smiles at the judge, at me, at the jury that doesn’t exist, and picks up her tablet.
“Ms. Lane,” she says, “you host a podcast titled Glass Roses. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And this morning, a new episode was released.”
“Yes.”
“You chose to schedule that episode to publish on the day of your custody hearing.”
I lift my chin. “I set the schedule last week. The audience expects a consistent release day. I didn’t want speculation about a delay to cause more—”
“Speculation,” she supplies, lips curling. “The very thing your show thrives on.”
My shoulders stiffen. My lawyer objects to the characterization; the judge sustains. Duffy nods, recalibrates.
She taps the tablet. A recording crackles to life over the courtroom speakers—my own voice, thick with late-night edits and righteous anger.
“This town would rather throw a dead girl off a cliff than admit its golden boys did anything wrong,” past-me says, echo sharp and tinny. “If I have to burn the school board, the cops, and every yacht-club donor on the way to the truth, so be it.”
Hearing it in here, beneath the state seal and the flag, feels like being stripped in public. My cheeks burn. I remember the context—an unedited rant I later prefaced with an apology—but they don’t play that part.
“Ms. Lane,” Duffy says when she stops the clip, “do you consider this an example of your normal tone on the podcast?”
“No,” I say. My voice scrapes. “That was from the unedited confession episode I released after a man was harassed due to speculation on my show. I was angry. At myself.”
“You were angry,” she repeats. “At the school board. At the police. At ‘every yacht-club donor,’ I believe you said.”
My lawyer objects again. The judge allows the question “as to mindset.”
“I was angry,” I say. “And I apologized on the air. I changed my practices after that.”
“Did you know,” Duffy continues, “that several parents at Theo’s school expressed concern about that episode at a PTA meeting? That they worried about retaliation, given your stated willingness to ‘burn the school board’?”
The room closes in. I picture the PTA moms from last year’s ambush, their smooth blowouts and pearl earrings, whispering about me over centerpieces shaped like miniature sailboats.
“I don’t control,” I say carefully, “what other people assume about one clip.”
“But you control what you publish,” she says. She swipes to another file. “Let’s listen to another example.”
The next clip is shorter but uglier. My voice again, this time late at night at the cliffs, wind whipping the mic.
“Whoever did this to Juliet, whoever has been leaving glass roses like trophies—if you’re listening, I’m not afraid of you.” A beat of wind and breath. “Come after me instead. Leave everyone else alone.”
I remember the chill on my face that night, the way the rope along the cliffline creaked, the treacherous shelf below grinding with waves. I had thought I was drawing fire away from Theo. Hearing it now, it sounds like a dare.
“You invited unknown individuals you believe to be dangerous to ‘come after’ you,” Duffy says. “While your minor child lives in your home.”
“I did not give out my address,” I say. “I have security cameras. I work with the police. I—”
“You use your child’s first name frequently on the show,” she says. “You reference his school. You talk about his fears into a microphone that reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners. Is that what you consider a safe boundary?”
Her words land like blows. I want to say: I anonymize where I can. I change details. I’ve cut whole segments to protect him. I started this to honor Juliet, not to turn my own son into content.
I also want to admit how addictive it is, the way downloads spike when I mention my own life.
“I’m learning,” I say instead. My hands sweat against the rail. “I’ve made mistakes. I’ve corrected them. The show has brought evidence to light that law enforcement missed for twenty-five years. That matters. Juliet matters. So does Theo.”
“You say this investigation matters,” Duffy says. “Would you prioritize it over your son’s safety?”
“No.” The word snaps out of me. “Never.”
“Then why,” she asks softly, “did your son skip school to visit the cliffs alone earlier this year? Why did he find the alleged crime scene before a police escort did?”
The memory spikes behind my eyes—the empty classroom, the frantic drive, the sight of Theo small and stubborn against the rope barrier, the sea chewing the rocks below.
“Because I underestimated,” I say, the admission sour on my tongue. “I underestimated how much he was absorbing. I am in therapy. He is too. We work on that. Together.”
Judge Harmon watches me over steepled fingers. His expression gives nothing away.
Duffy studies her notes for a beat, then sets them down.
“No further questions at this time,” she says.
I step down from the stand on legs that feel like they belong to someone else and sink into my chair. My lawyer leans over.
“You did fine,” she murmurs. “We knew they’d play clips. You answered. You owned what you needed to.”
I nod, but my tongue tastes like metal.
During the recess, I slip into the hallway with the excuse of needing water. The fluorescent lights buzz above me. My mother sits in a plastic chair near the end, clutching her purse in both hands. She looks up, scanning my face like it’s a diagnosis.
“You okay?” she asks.
I shrug one shoulder. My throat feels too tight for words.
Noise drifts through the glass doors at the entrance—chanting, the rise and fall of voices, the occasional sharp trill of a whistle. I walk toward it, drawn.
Outside, behind the security guards and the metal detector, a crowd has gathered on the courthouse steps and the sidewalk below. The day air slams into me when the inner doors whoosh open, salted and damp, carrying faint hair spray from a news crew’s on-the-spot styling and the distant muffled bass of midday soundcheck for some waterfront event.
The signs catch my eye first.
JUSTICE FOR JULIET in glitter paint on poster board. BELIEVE GIRLS, NOT DONORS. MOMS FOR MARA with a row of tiny drawn microphones. And, twist of the knife, PROTECT THEO in bold black letters, a heart in place of the O.
My podcast logo—glass rose, cracked center—appears on homemade T-shirts, on stickers slapped onto reusable water bottles, on a banner strung between two lamp posts bearing the same surnames I grew up hearing at regattas and charity balls. A few people wear 90s dresses and crimped hair, a dark little Prom Throwback under daylight, nostalgia repurposed for protest.
A reporter speaks into a mic, the courthouse columns behind her, the bay just visible over her shoulder. Her words are muffled through the glass, but I see my own face flash on the camera monitor for a second, pulled from a promo photo where I tried to look serious and instead looked terrified.
My lives have merged—Juliet’s dock and my kitchen table, the cliffs and Theo’s Lego-strewn floor, the fandom’s fevered threads and this courthouse corridor. The story doesn’t live in my feed anymore. It lives out here, on cardboard and camera lenses, in strangers’ mouths.
One of the protesters catches my eye, a woman about my age with a pink streak in her hair. She raises her sign—LISTEN TO SURVIVORS—and mouths something I can’t hear. It could be We’ve got you. It could be Don’t screw this up.
A security guard clears his throat behind me. “Ma’am? You need to stay inside the vestibule.”
I step back over the tape line, heart rattling my ribs. When the inner doors shut, the chanting dulls, but it doesn’t disappear. It vibrates in the floor, in my teeth.
“Mara,” my mother says when I walk back down the hall. “Sit. You’re white as that judge’s hair.”
I sit. I stare at my hands. The faint indents from the witness stand’s wood still mark my palms.
When they call us back in, my phone buzzes again in my purse. My season finale is an hour old. Comments, emails, new anonymous tips will be pouring in, merging with court summaries and protest photos in one endless scroll.
For once, I leave the phone where it is.
The end, when it comes, isn’t an end at all.
We stand as the judge reenters, then sit. The room settles into organized tension. My lawyer and Duffy both straighten their stacks of paper. Eric looks at the table, jaw flexing.
“I have reviewed the filings and testimony presented today,” Judge Harmon says. His voice carries without effort. “I am also aware of the unusual amount of public attention focused on this family and this case.”
He glances toward the door, where the faint echo of chanting still filters in.
“Ms. Lane,” he says, turning back to me, “your podcast clearly has had an impact beyond entertainment. You have, by multiple accounts, brought forward information of potential value to an old criminal investigation. That is commendable.”
My lungs unlock a fraction.
“However,” he continues, “the same work has attracted threats to your person, public criticism of your parenting, and at least one incident in which your child placed himself at risk related to the subject of your program.”
The cliffs flash in my mind again, rope barrier cutting across his small chest.
“Mr. Hill”—he uses Eric’s last name—“presents as a more conventional picture of stability. Yet the court also recognizes that abrupt disruption to a child’s primary home can be harmful, and that Mr. Hill has until recently played a limited role in the day-to-day care of the child.”
Eric shifts in his seat.
“At this time,” Judge Harmon says, “I am not prepared to issue a final modification order.”
My heart plummets and rises all at once, caught in midair.
“Instead,” he says, “I am directing a comprehensive psychological evaluation of Ms. Lane, focusing on stress, boundary management, and capacity to provide a safe environment amid ongoing public scrutiny. I am also ordering a family assessment, including interviews with the minor child and both parents, to be conducted by court-appointed services.”
The words thud into me one after the other. Evaluation. Assessment. Capacity. They sound clinical; they feel like checkpoints I might fail.
“Existing custody arrangements remain in place on a temporary basis,” he finishes. “We will reconvene upon receipt of the reports. Counsel will be notified of dates. In the interim, Ms. Lane, I strongly advise you to consider ways to reduce your son’s exposure to the more volatile aspects of your work.”
I nod. My tongue sits heavy behind my teeth.
“Court is adjourned,” the clerk calls.
The gavel doesn’t slam; Judge Harmon just stands and leaves, mug in hand, robe swishing.
People start to move. Chairs scrape. Someone’s perfume—sharp, floral—cuts through the coffee-and-paper haze. My lawyer touches my arm.
“This is not bad,” she says under the noise. “He didn’t reduce your time. He wants more information. You have a chance to show you’re doing the work.”
“He wants to look inside my head,” I say.
“You invite thousands into it every week,” she points out. “This one just writes a report instead of an Apple review.”
Eric approaches with Ms. Duffy flanking him. His expression is complicated—triumph tangled with something that used to be love and fear.
“I didn’t ask for the evaluation,” he says. “I just… I want him safe, Mara.”
“So do I,” I answer. The words scrape my throat. “I wish that part didn’t keep getting lost in translation.”
Duffy clears her throat. “We’ll be in touch through counsel,” she says, and steers him away.
My mother appears at my elbow, her hand hovering inches from my shoulder, not quite landing. “You tell your story to one more stranger,” she mutters, half bitter, half resigned.
“This one already thinks I’m crazy,” I say. “At least the listeners start out on my side.”
We walk out together. In the foyer, a reporter angles toward us, eyes bright, mic lifted.
“Ms. Lane, do you have a comment about today’s proceedings? About the overlap between your fight for custody and the popularity of your podcast?”
I look past her, through the glass, at the protesters and their signs. Justice for Juliet. Protect Theo. The bay shines beyond them, deceptively calm. Somewhere under that surface, a dock waits on Harrow Island, and a tape, and a truth I haven’t aired yet.
“Not today,” I say. My voice comes out steady for the first time all morning. “Today isn’t an episode. It’s my kid’s life.”
Her brows lift. She lowers the mic.
Outside, chants swell again as the doors open, washing over me in a jumble of my own episode titles and Juliet’s name and Theo’s. My phone vibrates in my bag: more downloads, more messages, the finale working its way through other people’s ears while the court’s evaluation order settles into my bones.
I walk down the steps into the noise, breathing in salt and hairspray and exhaust, knowing that from now on every choice I make—every interview, every file I open, every secret I put on tape—will be measured not just in downloads or justice or harm to strangers, but in visitation hours and supervised meetings and checkboxes on a psychologist’s form.
I square my shoulders, lift my chin, and let the crowd’s cameras catch my face, wondering which story they’ll listen to harder: the one I scripted for the finale, or the one the court is about to write about me.