Marilyn's wrists were cold where they came into contact with the metal handcuffs. She didn't try to fight the restraint, though, instead calmly sitting in the hard wooden chair outside the courtroom.
Her attorney had walked away a few moments earlier, phone held up to his ear. It didn't matter to her, though, because once she walked through that door, she was going to see her Petey again. She was sure of it.
They had taken him away from her and told her that he wasn't hers. But if he wasn't hers, why was she the one who remembered the elementary school birthday parties and warm hugs at night when the shadows got long and scary? That was her Peter.
But when she was finally escorted through the courtroom doors, all she saw were unfamiliar men and women in wrinkled suits. Peter wasn't there. Instead, a red-headed woman sat with the lawyer at the next table.
The lawyers spoke. Hers requested that the court order a psychiatric evaluation and said that she was pleading not guilty. Of course she wasn't guilty. Peter was her son.
The other lawyer spoke about years of emotional trauma and kidnapping and false imprisonment and crossing state lines and forged documents and she just shook her head.
"Bail is set at $10 million," the Judge said. "The next hearing will be on September 7th at 11 AM."