Southern Lights

She called Sava

It was two weeks before the trial, as Tom was watching the news in his den one night, when he saw a news conference come on and realized it was Alexa. He shouted to Sava

When the press conference was over, Tom looked at his oldest daughter and complimented her mother.

“She was very good. That’s going to be one mess of a trial for her to handle, and the media’s already going crazy. I thought she was very impressive, didn’t you?” Sava

“She looked like a movie star,” she said as Sava

The coup de grâce for Luisa came three days before the trial when the invitations to Travis and Scarlette’s wedding arrived in the mail and Sava

“Where did you get that?” She acted as though she had stolen it or was opening someone else’s mail.

“It’s mine,” Sava

“They sent you an invitation to the wedding?” She looked horrified and snatched it from Sava

“If she’s here when they get married, you can’t not have her at the wedding. She’s not going to sit home like Cinderella while the rest of us are there.”

“And if she’s not still here at the time of the wedding?” She didn’t want her coming back for it. She wanted her gone. Forever. And surely not coming back for a family event as important as this. Everyone who was anyone in South Carolina would be there, and from neighboring states.

“Then it’s up to Scarlette and Travis if they want to invite her. May I remind you that we’re not giving the wedding? Scarlette’s parents are. It’s entirely up to them.” He tried to sidestep it, but Luisa wouldn’t let him.

“Who put her on the list?”

“I have no idea,” he answered.

Luisa called Scarlette about it five minutes later and told her daughter-in-law in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want Sava

“Mother Beaumont,” Scarlette said gently, “I don’t think that’s right. She’s Travis’s sister, and I like Sava

“It will hurt me!” Her future mother-in-law shouted into the phone. “And you wouldn’t want that, would you?” It was a clear warning shot across her bow.

“Of course not. I’ll seat her at the opposite end of the tent from you,” Scarlette reassured her, and Luisa hung up on her brusquely and was in a rage for the next two hours.

“Maybe I’ll be gone,” Sava

“It would be fun for you to come to the wedding. Half of Charleston will be there. With eight hundred guests, you won’t be able to find anyone you know, if you want to. Luisa will calm down about it.” He reassured her, and tried not to look as upset as he was himself. Luisa was like a dog with a bone and just wouldn’t let go of it. She wanted Sava

Sava

“Would you go, Mom?” Sava

“No, sweetheart, I wouldn’t. But it was nice of them to ask me. You can go if you want to. I don’t think I should. Luisa would have a coronary, or she might poison my soup.” Sava

“There will be eight hundred guests there. Dad says she’ll never even see us if we’re there.”

“I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, Sava

“I know, Mom. But I’d like to go, and I’d rather go with you.”

“We’ll see. Let’s talk about it after the trial. I can’t think about it right now. Weddings are the last thing on my mind.” Alexa was going in a thousand directions at once.

She’d had another press conference that day, and the public defender had given one too. The PD insisted that this was all an unfortunate misunderstanding, of an i

She looked and sounded even crazier when Sava

“Did he do it or didn’t he?” Daisy asked her.

“That’s up to the jury to decide. But he did it. Believe me. They’re going to convict him and send him to prison.”

“Then why did the other lady say he didn’t?”

“That’s her job. She has to defend him. And it’s my mom’s job to prove he did it.” Daisy nodded. She was getting daily lessons on the criminal justice system from Sava

The day the trial started, Sava

Arthur Lieberman, the judge in the case, was a stern-looking man in his fifties. He had short white hair, and eyes that took in everything in his courtroom. He was an ex-Marine and tolerated no nonsense. He hated the press, and he didn’t like attorneys, neither for the prosecution nor for the defense, who wasted his time with useless motions and frivolous objections. He called Alexa and Judy Du