She took her seat at the witness table and waited.
The first two hours were procedural agony.
Testimony from policy experts about broadband infrastructure. Testimony from rural community leaders aboutthe impact of the digital divide. Questions from committee members, some genuine, some clearly designed to create soundbites for campaign ads.
Melissa answered everything with ease, citing statistics, referencing case studies, pivoting smoothly when hostile questions tried to knock her off balance. This was what she was good at—the chess game of legislative debate, the careful dance of persuasion.
But underneath the composure, she was exhausted. She’d barely slept in two weeks. The house was silent without June, with no music and none of her daughter’s laughter. The smell was now back to the clean, nondescript scent it had been before Melissa knew how it could be, with freshly baked bread or thick sauces bubbling on the stove. Lila had started speaking to her again, but in that careful, wounded way that made Melissa’s heart ache every time.
Focus,she told herself.You can fall apart later. Right now, you have a job to do.
The morning session recessed for lunch. Melissa retreated to a small office down the hall, where David had arranged for sandwiches she had no appetite for and coffee she drank too fast. She looked at her notes—pages of talking points, rebuttals, carefully crafted responses to every possible attack she’d prepared over the past three weeks. She could recite all of it in her sleep.
She’d written some of these arguments before June left. Before the article, before the press conference, before she’d stood at a podium and saidhousehold staffinto a microphone and felt walls going up deep within as the words came out. Reading them now felt like reading a letter written by someone she used to be. Someone who thought that connection was a talking point rather than the reason you got out of bed in the morning.
None of it felt like enough.
“Public comment starts at two,” David said. “Webb is scheduled to speak third.”
“He’s going to do as much damage as he can in his five minutes.”
“That’s the concern, yes.”
Melissa closed the folder.
The afternoon session began with the precision of a well-rehearsed performance, which was pretty much what it was.
Melissa returned to her seat at the witness table. The gallery was even more crowded now—word had spread that Thornfield was making a final stand, and everyone wanted to watch the fireworks.
She scanned the room again, that same automatic sweep of faces. Rachel was still in the back corner.
And next to Rachel…
Her hands went still on the folder.
June. Sitting in the last row, half-hidden behind a heavyset man in a suit, but unmistakably June. Honey-blonde hair pulled back. Face pale but determined. Eyes fixed on the front of the room.
On Melissa.
She came.The thought arrived slowly, like something her mind needed time to absorb.She came.
She didn’t have time to process what that meant, because Senator Morrison was calling the session to order, and the first public commenter was approaching the microphone.
The first two speakers were forgettable—a small business owner supporting the bill, a retired teacher opposing it for reasons that didn’t quite track. Melissa barely heard them. She was too aware of June’s presence at the edge of herconsciousness, like a note held just below audible range, felt more than heard.
Then Arnold Webb stepped up to the microphone. Silver-haired and impeccably dressed, he radiated the confidence of a man who’d never been told no. He smiled at the committee, at the cameras, at the gallery full of observers.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of concerned citizens throughout Oregon.”
His voice was smooth, the voice of a man who only wanted what was best for everyone.
“We all support the goal of expanding broadband access. That’s not in question. What’s in question is whether this particular bill, sponsored by this particular senator, is the right vehicle to achieve that goal.”
Melissa’s hands tightened on her folder. Without meaning to, she glanced toward the back of the room.
June was watching Webb. Her jaw was set, her expression very still, and there was something in her face that Melissa hadn’t expected—not anger on Melissa’s behalf, not distress. Something that looked, from across the crowded room, like belief.
Melissa looked back at the microphone.
