Chapter 13: Testimony’s Echo
In February a civil deposition in the parcel dispute required Mom to appear one final time on the narrow question of the old affidavit.
Ruiz and I flanked her. Opposing counsel for the development fight was clinical, not cruel; they needed the chain of knowledge, not a second assault. Mom answered in short truthful sentences. She had signed at a kitchen table. She had trusted her son-in-law. She had not been briefed on later valuations. She had been attacked when family “problems” became a word that meant her voice. The reporter took it down. When it was over, Mom’s hands shook in the elevator and then steadied on my arm.
“I keep thinking about the pie,” she said in the car. “As if sweetness could hide the aluminum.”
“That was the point of the pie,” I said.
She looked out at the wet highway. “You’re different than you were at twenty-five.”
“I had to be.”
“I’m glad,” she said, and then, softer, “I’m also sorry you had to be.”
May you like
I let both truths sit. Rank had taught me to accept after-action realities without sanding them into inspirational posters. Marriage had taught me the cost of sanding them anyway.
Ryan’s name surfaced in industry blogs as a cautionary line item. I did not subscribe. Ruiz sent quarterly summaries until the financial exposure no longer touched our side of the caption. I filed them. Filing was how I ended wars that were no longer mine to fight in person.
