“Miss Whalon, you admit you’ve been in a sexual relationship with Mr. LeBlanc, a married man, and claim he is the father of your two-year-old son, Vincent Whalon. Mr. LeBlanc, you are determined to prove that you are not the father of Miss Whalon’s son in hopes of saving your marriage.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Mrs. LeBlanc, you are at your breaking point and say if the DNA proves your husband is the father, your marriage is over.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So, Miss Whalon, how did you get yourself in this situation?”

“Well, it started back when I was pregnant. He was staying in my house. It was one night, I was telling him that I might be pregnant ’cause I hadn’t started my menstruation. So he went out and got some pregnancy tests, asked me to take ’em. He sat on the side of my bed, holding his head. When I took the first one, I gave it to him, and it showed that I was pregnant. He asked me to take another one ’cause he was in disbelief. So I took another one, and he still sat there and said, ‘Oh, man, this can’t be true. This can’t be true. You can’t be pregnant.’ And it was only because he did not know how he was gonna go back and tell his wife that I was pregnant.”

“So you told him you were pregnant, you proved that you took the test, and he said—oh, my goodness.”

“Hold on. Ladies. Ladies. Ladies. Ron, just stand between the two podiums. We can’t ever get to the start of the case, and you all are goin’ on. Let’s try to figure out what is really going on here.”

“A baby.”

“Now, listen. Mr. LeBlanc, when she told you she was pregnant, what were you thinking?”

“I was in disbelief. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Were you worried about how you were going to be able to tell your wife?”

“I was. Yes, Your Honor. I was worried, and that was the thing. That’s why I didn’t want her to be pregnant because I didn’t know how to—”

“Unfortunately, you should have thought about that desire before you acted on the other desires you had. Before you thought with that body part. Because at that point, you really can’t reverse it just by thinking. Miss LeBlanc, how did you find out about this?”

“I found out about Vincent through a text message. Through my husband.”

“He sent you a text? A text? No phone call—a phone call’s not even good enough for that. ‘I need to see you face to face. Can I speak with you face to face?’ None of that. It was through a text message.”

“What did the text say?”

“The text message stated, ‘I can’t believe I did this to you again.’”

“Again? The word I’m hearing is ‘again.’ So, wait a minute. There was another time?”

“Yes, ma’am. Prior to Vincent, there was Jayden.”

“Who’s the mother of that child?”

“I am. That’s my three-year-old.”

“Mr. LeBlanc, really?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Yes, Your Honor.”

“We all make mistakes in life, some more serious than others, but to make the exact same mistake again—”

“And that’s, Your Honor, why I didn’t want at that time when she was telling me about Vincent, her being pregnant with Vincent—it was happening all over again. And that’s why I just really couldn’t—I didn’t know how to bring that up.”

“I mean, but then again I look at it like this. My wife was steady putting me out. I really had nowhere to go. He knew that. That was easy. It was easy access. He knew when he went out there, it was whatever. He could do what he wanted to do.”

“But let me explain it to you. He kept getting put out over here ’cause he couldn’t do what he wanted. Over there, he knew he could do what he wanted to do.”

“You keep taking him back. You keep taking him back.”

“That’s my husband. That’s called love.”

“Feelings you can put in your pocket and throw away. You can throw ’em on the ground, step on ’em. Love—I love my mother.”

The first hinge landed in the chaos of the courtroom: “Three women. Two children. One man. And a wife who had already forgiven him once. Mr. LeBlanc wasn’t just fighting paternity. He was fighting for a marriage he had already broken twice. And the only person who didn’t seem to realize it was him.”

“Ladies! Calm down. ‘Cause I know you all think it’s cute when you go on back and forth, but all y’all look crazy. ‘Cause you still out there arguing, and he doing nothing but running back and forth. So it’s not even solving anything. It doesn’t look cute. You not getting under one another’s skin. None of you all gonna come out looking any better than the other one. It’s a mess. And it’s babies comin’ into the world and a daddy going back and forth between houses. I’m just trying to—I’m watching a tennis match. ‘Okay, now he over here. Okay, now he back over here. Okay, now he back over here.’ I got a married man bouncing back and forth between his mistress and his wife. You all lettin’ him. Then you all want to come into court and downgrade one another. Come on, man. I don’t have time for this. I’m trying to understand how these children got into the world, and now Vincent’s in the world. I don’t know about this one. So I’m trying to understand what makes this child different. Why is his paternity in question?”

“There were rumors, Your Honor, going around that Miss Whalon had slept with a neighbor. I was confronted at one time by a guy who pulled up on me in a pickup truck. He was like, ‘Oh, you know who I am?’ I was like, ‘No, who are you?’”

“Did you get any information that she was sleeping with somebody?”

“There were rumors going around that she had slept with this guy.”

“Do you believe Vincent is your husband’s child?”

“No, Your Honor, I do not.”

“Why?”

“Her promiscuity. Very promiscuous. Like I said, the mailman, the milkman. Not only that, she’s sleeping with a married man. You ain’t gonna sleep with a married man if he come to you. Why not be promiscuous? He came to you ’cause you were easy.”

“Hold on. Miss LeBlanc, you’re saying if Vincent is your husband’s biological child, you’re saying this marriage is over? You’re finally done?”

“Yeah. I’m finally at my breaking point. This is it. Michael Jackson: This Is It.”

“So you say you’re at your breaking point. Why, ma’am?”

“I’m just at the breaking point. It’s just getting overwhelming.”

“You all have children together as well, am I correct?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“How many children do you have?”

“Two.”

“So you say you are at the point now that you would break your family up because you just had enough?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I just had enough.”

“And you understand that, Mr. LeBlanc?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I do.”

“Is that why you’re not acknowledging and claiming the paternity of Vincent the way you did Jayden? Because you’re afraid your wife is gonna leave?”

“No, ma’am. It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with my wife leaving. It comes about—look at the name ‘Vincent.’ Who is Vincent? Where did she get the name ‘Vincent’ from?”

“You know what? I’m gonna need you to use a little bit more logic in these proofs you’re presenting.”

“Okay, so Miss Whalon, I want to ask you respectfully. Are you truly convinced that Mr. LeBlanc is Vincent’s father? Or is there a question? Is there a possible—”

“It might be. I might have had a moment.”

“Oh, okay. I mean, I wasn’t committed to this man, nor was I married to this man. So, yeah, I might have had a moment.”

“Well, go ahead and tell the truth then, ’cause that’s why we’re here. So now we have the truth. There potentially could be another father, and so your doubts or your concerns have been validated.”

“Miss Whalon, did you ever tell anybody else that they’re potentially the father?”

“No, Your Honor. I have not.”

“I want to hear from your witness, Miss Whalon. Please stand, ma’am. Miss Byrd, you are Miss Whalon’s—”

“Grandmother.”

“All right. What is it that you have to add? Do you believe Mr. LeBlanc is Vincent’s biological father?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why is that, ma’am?”

“Well, for one thing, I know he was living with her at the time. He came to me and a family member and told us why he was staying there. ‘All Kim want to do is fuss, fight, and f—.’ The three F’s. And every time that come about, here come a little ugly baby. There come Vincent.”

“My baby ain’t ugly.”

“All the babies are beautiful. Let’s just say that children are beautiful. But let’s move on. You say you believe that Mr. LeBlanc is Vincent’s biological father.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I do.”

“But your granddaughter has testified in court today that she might have had another sexual encounter.”

“Yes, Your Honor, I heard that.”

“Did you know that already?”

“No, I did not.”

“You heard it in court for the first time? And now that you’ve heard that, does that change how you feel about the situation?”

“Well, if she come out and he’s not the father, then I just know my granddaughter was a sneaky little—that bypassed me, and I didn’t catch that. But I honestly don’t believe that.”

The second hinge arrived as the grandmother spoke: “Every family has secrets. But some secrets are so well-hidden that even the grandmother doesn’t know them. When Miss Whalon admitted she ‘might have had a moment,’ the entire courtroom shifted. Because in paternity cases, ‘might have’ is just a gentler way of saying ‘probably.’ And ‘probably’ is a crack in the foundation that a good lawyer can drive a truck through.”

“Mr. LeBlanc, you’ve said the least today but done the most. I’m sure it’s still going on. Another baby will come out later. I’m with grandma on that. Not from this one over here. That’s what love do for you.”

“Miss Whalon, I don’t know how long you gonna stand around here being a good-time girl. I know you weren’t sitting on the porch as a little girl playing with your dolls talking about, ‘And when I grow up, I want to be this married man’s good-time girl, so whenever his wife kicks him out of the house, he can come over my house and we can make babies, and then he can question the paternity.’ That was not your dream for your life. But that’s the reality of your life right now. And you gotta do something different to get something different. Cannot give yourself away to these men for free, ’cause you see what they do. And the same thing they do to you, they do to your children.”

“I can see the tears in your eyes, and honestly, I know why. You are not in an easy position. Please tell Mr. LeBlanc how this makes you feel.”

“I mean, it hurts, but then it doesn’t. Because at the end, I’m gonna take care of my kids, regardless. But they didn’t ask to be brought here.”

“Mr. LeBlanc, who do you really want to be with?”

“I love my wife, Your Honor. I wanna be with my wife. But at the same time, it’s a struggle. It’s hard to try to be with my wife knowing there is possibility that these other kids are mine and my wife is trying to move forward in our marriage. It’s hard for her to accept me bringing other kids into the household outside our marriage.”

“Exactly. That’s why you had no business doing it, and today she says she is done. If Vincent is your biological child, she says she just hit her breaking point. And that is a keyword to me because that word she chose wasn’t just incidental. And you gotta understand as a man, when a woman starts talking about ‘you put me at my breaking point’—’cause women are strong. We do a lot more than y’all. But when a woman looks at you and says, ‘You pushing me to my breaking point,’ that means you really are messing with her mind, her heart, her spirit.”

The DNA results arrived: “In the case of Whalon v. LeBlanc/LeBlanc, when it comes to twenty-three-month-old Vincent Whalon, it has been determined by this court, Mr. LeBlanc, you are the father.”

“Miss LeBlanc, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear today.”

“No, not at all. Not at all, Your Honor. It’s over.”

“Miss Taylor, you say Mr. Brown is an older man who swept you off your feet and got you pregnant. You’re here today to prove to Mr. Brown that he is the father of your three-month-old daughter, Melanie Brown.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Miss Taylor, you’re also suing Mr. Brown for $2,256 in child-care expenses for the past three months of your child’s life.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Brown, you say Miss Taylor is obsessed with children and has baby fever. And you believe she may have already been pregnant by another man the first night you had sex with her.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So, Miss Taylor, what exactly has Mr. Brown done for your baby since she has been born?”

“He haven’t did nothing for her. All he did was bought her two packs of cheap diapers. And I let my baby wear ’em, and two days later, she got a diaper rash, and I had to take my baby to the hospital. And I called him to tell him that she got a diaper rash. He said, ‘So what I’m supposed to do? That ain’t my baby.’”

“Mr. Brown, so you bought some cheap diapers ’cause you didn’t think it was your baby?”

“Yes, I mean, it was better than nothing, ’cause I didn’t really know whether it was my baby or not. So I can’t take care of somebody else’s baby.”

“So did you have sex with Miss Taylor?”

“Yes.”

“Did you use protection?”

“Not all the time.”

“Well, then there’s a possibility it could be your baby.”

“Yeah.”

“All right, you all take me back. So you say up until this point—three months old—nothing. He’s done nothing except those two cheap diapers?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Miss Taylor, have you tried at all to get Mr. Brown involved? Have you called him? Have you said, ‘Do you wanna come by and see the baby?’”

“Yes, Your Honor. Every time I call him, he’d say, ‘That ain’t my baby. You need to go find your baby daddy and stop calling me.’”

“Well, actually, she didn’t know that I—that I had a condom on. Totally, I had a condom.”

“He didn’t use a condom, Your Honor.”

“Bottom line is you say no protection was used. You say you did. Now, how did you guys even meet?”

“I met him at the club. It was right at my eighteenth birthday, and I went to a club, and I was drinking and dancing with my friends, and he came up to me and was like, ‘You beautiful, and I’d like to get to know you.’ And we went back to his place.”

“Well, she was more asking me to come back to my place.”

“No, I wasn’t, Your Honor. He was coming onto me.”

“He came up to you in the club. And you’re how old?”

“Eighteen.”

“And he was how old?”

“Thirty-two.”

“What? Thirty-two, Your Honor.”

“How old are you, sir?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Thirty-two. Always say, ‘Beware of the old man in the club.’ Continue, Miss Taylor.”

“So I got back to his place, and we got into it. We had sex, so whatever. Well, she kept asking about like, ‘Hey, do you like babies?’ This is my first time meeting her. She talking about, ‘Oh, do you like babies?’ Or ‘How do you feel about babies?’ I’m thinking that she was already pregnant.”

“And yet you still went ahead and had sex with her.”

“Yes. That should have been a note to self.”

“So was this ever a relationship or an extended-play booty call? What was this?”

“Just a booty call.”

“Thirty-two-year-old man with an eighteen-year-old girl.”

“Well, actually I was thirty-one then, so.”

“So, Miss Taylor, were you interested in him being your boyfriend? Would you—”

“Yes, I did. I’ve felt like—Your Honor, the only reason I went back to his place was because I felt like we would be more than what it came out to be because I thought he would be more mature because he’s older. I’ve always been interested in older men, but he turned out just to be like the rest of them.”

“I think she’s still looking for a daddy. A father figure or a father for her baby.”

“You had a strong suspicion she was already pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“I was not, Your Honor. The first time we used a condom. The second time, we—if I was already pregnant, how come my baby’s three months? I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure that out.”

“The third time, the condom broke.”

“So in fact, you could potentially be Melanie’s father.”

“She kept saying, ‘Keep going, keep going.’ I was like, ‘No, no.’ And then—I told her I’d be back, and I left.”

“It was never no condom in the first place.”

The third hinge landed as Mr. Brown held his daughter: “He bought two packs of cheap diapers. He held the baby for five minutes. He said he didn’t feel a bond. Then he went outside to smoke a cigarette and never came back. When the DNA test came back positive, he asked, ‘When can I hold her again?’ That’s not a man who doesn’t care. That’s a man who was terrified of caring. And there’s a difference.”

“He came after I had the baby. He holding her. I have a picture of him holding the baby.”

“For five minutes, then he said he was gonna smoke a cigarette, and he never came back, Your Honor.”

“See this picture here of you holding Melanie. It looks like you’re looking at her in a loving way.”

“No, I was looking like, ‘I gotta go.’”

“You more immature than the eighteen-year-old that you could have dated. How do you say you’re looking at a beautiful newborn baby like, ‘I gotta go’? And then you go outside. You tell her, ‘I’m going out to smoke,’ and you never come back?”

“‘Cause my other baby—soon as I held the baby, I felt a bond.”

“So you are a father?”

“Yes.”

“How many other children do you have?”

“Five.”

“Did you put him on the birth certificate?”

“Yes.”

“You put his name down?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Brown, you see your name there, right?”

“I didn’t know it was there.”

“Jerome, if you’d like to hand that to Mr. Brown, he can see his name on that birth certificate. That establishes paternity, and so you are legally responsible to support that child. Have you received any notice from the court? You should check your mail.”

“Are you still interested in being with this man? Are you like in love with him or something?”

“She’s in love ’cause she keeps trying to hound me down.”

“No, Your Honor. I’m not in love with him. I just want him to be there for my baby.”

“He’d be calling me for sex. I’d be trying to see if he can come see her or bring any stuff. He say, ‘Go find your baby daddy. That’s not my baby. Stop calling me here.’ And hang up.”

“I feel like if I give him what he wants, he’ll give me what I want. And I want him to take care of my baby.”

“And this is exactly why young girls have no business having babies, because that math you just stated has never added up. That’s not how it works. It never ceases to amaze me how many young women stand before me and will have a baby by a man that doesn’t want them and then act surprised that he don’t want the baby. He never wanted to be your boyfriend, your husband. Failure to protect yourself leaves the door open for the exact situation you are in today. You must learn this lesson. When you offer a man sex in exchange for something—love, attention, you want him to take care of the baby—understand this: nine times outta ten, he gonna come get the sex, tell you he going out to smoke, then never come back. Do you get it? You’re replaying the same situation over and over again.”

The DNA results for Melanie arrived: “In the case of Taylor v. Brown, pertaining to three-month-old Melanie Brown, it has been determined by this court, Mr. Brown, you are the father.”

“I told you.”

“When can I hold her again?”

“That is so sad.”

“Ms. Taylor, as for your suit for half of the child care expenses, it has been determined by this court that Mr. Brown is, in fact, Melanie’s biological father. Therefore, you were suing for $2,256 in total expenses. Mr. Brown has admitted that he has given $8 of those total expenses. So therefore, doing the math, he’s going to owe you $1,124. I will rule on that suit in favor of you for that amount.”

“I actually see a little emotion in your eyes. Is it hitting you now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That you have a beautiful little girl?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He faking.”

“Miss Torry and Miss Henderson, you have both entered the court today with cases against the defendant, Mr. Goodson. You have joined together because you, Miss Torry, claim the defendant is denying he is the father of your two kids. And Miss Henderson, you state Mr. Goodson refuses to take responsibility for your four-year-old daughter.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You have both asked the court to award paternity tests and enforce his financial obligations as a father. Now, Mr. Goodson, you claim Miss Torry has admitted that she cheated on you in the past, and she is also not confident that you are the children’s biological father.”

“Yes.”

“Although you are actually hoping the test proves that you are.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Okay. Additionally, you state Miss Henderson slept with you and your cousin in the same time frame, and therefore you can’t be sure her daughter is yours.”

“Which was a lie.”

“Please tell us about your story.”

“My story is that I went on a chat line one day, and I met his cousin on the chat lines. He know that. So far, when we met on the chat line, I was just looking for a friend, someone to hang out with on a regular basis, and smoke and drink. So one day he came to pick me up in a white car, a white truck. Put the music all loud and whatever. He in the back of the car, looking at me like, ooh, he wanted me or whatever. So we went to go take some drinks or whatnot, listening to some music. They recording music, they rapping, and I’m singing on their songs, having fun. So after that night was over, he dropped me back off at home. An hour later, he come calling me like, ‘What’s up, baby?’ I’m like, ‘Who is this?’ He like, ‘This is Chubby. You remember doing it in the back of the car?’ I’m like, ‘That ain’t why you calling me.’ He like, ‘I think you cute.’”

“Okay, watch the language now. I know you giving it verbatim, but it is court.”

“I’m sorry. He like, ‘Shoot, I think you cute.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s what’s up.’ And then we just got to talking. The next thing I know, he like, ‘Shoot, baby, can I come see you?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, you can come see me. What’s up?’ So he came to see me in a stolo, which they call down in Saint Louis—a stolen car. So he come picks me up in a stolo. Oh. And I’m getting dressed or whatnot, and I’m looking out the window, and he like, ‘Yeah, boo, I’m outside.’ Next thing I know, here come the police lights. ‘Freeze! Get out of the car!’ I’m like, ‘Really? You came to pick me up in a stolen car?’”

“I don’t know nothing about that.”

“You don’t know nothing about it?”

“I don’t know nothing—I believe it ’cause one day his mama said he stole her car to come and see me.”

“Okay, this is—I can’t believe you sitting up here talking about he came to pick you up in a stolen car.”

“That’s what he came to pick me up in. I didn’t ask him what he was going to pick me up in, but he came to pick me up in a stolen car. I’m about to go out the door to go get in it, like a dummy.”

“That’s ’cause she wanted to get away from my cousin, so I had to go—”

“Why would you talk to her if you know your cousin was talking to her?”

“‘Cause he don’t care.”

“No, because she left my cousin for me.”

“I want to get past the stolen car. I want to move forward because obviously this relationship heated up from ‘that’s what’s up’ to ‘yeah, whatever.’ We was young, dumb.”

“So it heated up, you all became involved sexually.”

“Sexually. After he got out of jail for stealing the car, he called me. He called me like, ‘Can I come see you?’ or whatnot. I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ He came to see me again, but this time with his Caucasian homeboy and his son. And so I hopped in the van with them, we went to their house.”

“Did you check the registration?”

“No.”

“So we went to go kick it or whatnot, and we all got drunk, again, and smoked, again. And that was the first time we first had sex. After that, we was having sex for a year, unprotected.”

“Did you have sex with me and my cousin, though?”

“No, I never had sex with your cousin.”

“Unprotected sex for a year before we broke up. The only reason we broke up was because he called me on the phone, saying he’d been getting some sex from some other female.”

“He called to tell you?”

“He called to tell me. I’m like, ‘Really?’ Like I’m supposed to just sit here and listen to it.”

“Did you call her to tell her this?”

“No, Your Honor, I didn’t even know me and her was supposed to be together, you know what I’m saying?”

“Oh, you thought you all was just kicking it?”

“Yeah.”

“You were having unprotected sex with me, hoping that I don’t get pregnant, for a year.”

“Excuse me, Your Honor. I just feel like, say, at the time, she’s a little bit older than me, whatever, so I liked that she was older. And she had a little bit of money, I didn’t have no money. I couldn’t work at the time. I was a little bit younger. So the money kind of got me into liking her. That’s all it is between me and her. I really kind of wanted the money and a little bit of—you know what I’m saying. You know?”

“So what I’m still trying to understand is, even if you didn’t think you were in a committed relationship, what woman wants to get a call from you saying that you’re having sex with somebody else?”

The fourth hinge landed as Mr. Goodson’s mother took the stand: “She said her son didn’t have a job. She said he wasn’t making good decisions. She said she was tired of watching young women have babies by a man who couldn’t support them. Then she looked at her son and said, ‘He think it’s a joke. See how he laugh? He think it’s a joke.’ She wasn’t there to defend him. She was there to save him from himself.”

“First of all, I don’t want him to be like his dad. His dad got seventeen kids. I’m here to stop my son from going through all that. I know the baby, and I think to myself, it’s mine. I think the grandbaby’s mine. Charles, he need to keep his privacy in his pants. You don’t think your son is making good decisions? Not at all. He’s not making no good decisions with his life at all. First of all, we gonna start with these babies. When we bring babies in the world, then we got problems. ‘Cause we got little kids that need a dad. That’s what I’m trying to teach my son, to be a good dad. And that’s why we’re here today, to see if these kids are his, so we can take care of these kids. Not me—I’m a grandparent. I’m supposed to just be here as a grandparent. But him, I want him to be a successful father. And as a parent, I feel sorry for these girls right here, because I’m quite sure they knew what they was dealing with when they dealt with him. ‘Cause first of all, he don’t have a job.”

“I want you to take this opportunity, Miss Anderson, and look at your son and explain to him why you’re here with him.”

“He know why I’m here. He know exactly why I’m here. He thinks it’s a joke. See how he laugh? He think it’s a joke. It’s not a joke, Chubby. We dealing with babies. Just trying to see if you their dad, okay? Don’t play. We ain’t here to play. You, Drea, you know about him. You had two kids by him, and I told you—I told you from the first baby that I helped you raise. Okay? I made a mistake. Yeah, you made two mistakes. He wasn’t even helping you with the first one. He didn’t even have a damn job. So why would you have two? And then on top of it, I go get you a pill that we paid fifty dollars for, and you take it back and had a second baby? Come on now, Drea.”

“Chubby, you told me to take them back.”

“You shut up. You shut up. When I see y’all on the internet, all three of y’all baby mamas arguing over a man that don’t even have a damn job and making all these damn babies, like you crazy. Now you got another one in there.”

“What about your son here? Is he just not thinking?”

“He’s not thinking. When he say it’s not his, you gonna believe him?”

“No. We gonna go get a paternity test. We ain’t gonna go all through no four years.”

“But did I not say I was going to get a paternity test, but then you said, ‘Don’t put him on child support. I got you. I’m gonna take him, I’m gonna make him take care of your baby.’ And that’s what I meant. Exactly what I said.”

“When you called me and told me that you was gonna put him on child support, I said, ‘Would you give us time?’ He don’t have nothing. Quit having all these damn babies by him, ’cause he ain’t got nothing.”

The DNA results for all three children arrived: “In the case of Torry v. Goodson, when it comes to two-year-old Charles III, Mr. Goodson, you are the father. In the case of Torry v. Goodson, when it comes to four-month-old Dreion, Mr. Goodson, you are the father. In the case of Henderson v. Goodson, and whether you or your cousin is the father, it has been determined that when it comes to four-year-old Lazeyja, Mr. Goodson, you are the father.”

The final hinge landed as the judge spoke to the young women: “Two young women. Three children. A man with no job and a mother who told the truth. The DNA didn’t just prove paternity. It proved a pattern. And the only person who could break that pattern was standing right in front of the bench—holding a baby she didn’t plan and a future she hadn’t imagined. The test results were just paper. The real verdict was in the mirror.”

“I don’t think I have to say much, ’cause your mother has said it all. Mr. Goodson, I don’t know if you think this is a joke or whether you just haven’t grown up enough to understand what it means to be a man and a father.”

“I’m gonna make a change from this day forward.”

“What you gonna do? Gonna help your kids? That’s what I want you to do as a parent. That’s why I brought you here, Chubby. You gonna come and give her a doll on her birthday.”

“Now listen. Before you all start condemning him, I must say that two young ladies—I have to agree with Miss Anderson. Sitting up, running around with a guy with no job and nothing to offer, you’re not protecting yourself. Even if he’s too stupid to know he needs to put on a condom, you all need to be smart enough to know. And you do know it. So the kids are here. What are you gonna do? You gonna step up to the plate and get it right for the kids? You don’t want your kids standing in this courtroom before me fifteen, twenty years from now, do you? You don’t want this for your kids, do you?”

“Get it together. Court is adjourned.”