Chapter 11 - A Witness They Had Borrowed
Patricia Wells arrived at the deposition with an attorney, a gray coat, and trembling hands.
She was younger than I expected, perhaps in her forties, with dark circles beneath her eyes.
I was not in the room for most of her testimony, but Thomas briefed me afterward and provided the portions properly available to us.
Patricia said a consultant had offered her a temporary assignment helping an elderly widow with household transitions.
She had never visited my property.
She had never cared for me.
She had attended two meetings where a family member described my supposed memory problems.
Then she had been asked to sign a statement saying she had witnessed those problems directly.
She refused the first version.
A revised declaration, she said, was circulated anyway with her name on it.
Thomas asked whether the signature was hers.
She said it resembled one taken from an unrelated hiring document.
A document examiner would need to assess that claim.
But Patricia had retained messages showing she objected to the declaration.
Those messages were extraordinary because they recorded the moment the plan's language changed from concern to fabrication.
One email said firsthand observations would carry more weight at the next hearing.
Another urged that paperwork be finalized before the holidays.
The sender's address belonged to Northpoint Advisory Services.
Thomas showed me the email headers.
I recognized the business name as the one receiving trust payments.
I wondered how many people had been drawn into this arrangement by a promise of easy money or a fear of losing their jobs.
I also wondered how many had understood what they were helping to do.
Patricia didn't excuse herself.
She admitted that she had failed to report the problem immediately.
"I was afraid of losing work," she told counsel.
I understood fear.
But I had learned that fear could not be the last word in a decision that hurt someone else.
Afterward Thomas filed a motion addressing the disputed declarations and requesting safeguards against use of unverified witness statements.
Jessica responded with a furious voicemail.
"You've turned this into a circus."
I didn't answer.
She called again.
"Mom, you're destroying your own family."
I let the message save automatically.
The next evening, Lily sent me a picture of a painting she'd made at school.
It showed our family garden in spring.
In the corner she had drawn Robert standing beside the apple tree.
He had been gone for years, but in her picture he was still there.
I cried over that drawing harder than I had cried over the petition.
It reminded me that the family had held real love once.
The current cruelty did not erase every ordinary good moment.
But remembering good moments did not require accepting new harm.
On Sunday Ruth invited me for soup and insisted I wear comfortable shoes because she wanted to walk by the water afterward.
We watched gulls circle over the gray Sound and talked about everything except court.
For an hour I felt like a person instead of an estate.
Then my phone rang.
It was Melissa, Brandon's wife.
She asked whether I could meet privately.
I said she could speak with Thomas present.
"Brandon doesn't know I'm calling," she said.
I heard the sound of a door closing on her end.
"I found something in his desk."
"What is it?"
Her voice thinned.
May you like
"A letter saying the company owes your trust a lot more money than he told us."
