Chapter 8: What They Decided to Do Instead
Pritchard said no.
He said it politely and with the particular kind of finality that men like him use when they believe the conversation is over.
He gathered his papers.
My father-in-law pushed back his chair.
Grace said: "Before you stand up, I want to tell you what happens Monday."
My father-in-law stopped.
He didn't sit back down, but he stopped.
"Monday morning the complaint goes to three places simultaneously," Grace said.
"The county unit, the state board, and the IRS referral desk.
By Monday afternoon it will be a matter of record.
By Tuesday, anyone running a search on your business name will find a pending federal referral." She paused.
"You have two outstanding judgments already.
A third flag — federal — changes the category.
It changes what banks will do with your accounts.
It changes what your current clients can say to their own boards about continuing to work with you."
Pritchard said: "This is a pressure tactic."
"It's a calendar," Grace said.
"Monday is Monday whether we're in agreement or not."
My father-in-law looked at me.
Not at Grace.
At me.
"What do you actually want?" he said.
The same words he had used on the porch.
But the tone was different now.
The unhurried quality was gone.
"I already told you," I said.
"The clause about the other women," he said.
"You'd blow up a settlement over that."
"Yes."
"You don't even know them."
"No," I said.
"But you do.
And you're afraid of what happens if they find out I didn't stay quiet."
His jaw moved.
He looked at Pritchard.
Pritchard said, very quietly: "Gerald."
It was the first time I had heard my father-in-law's name spoken in that room.
Something about hearing it — plain and small like that — made him seem suddenly less like a force and more like a person who had made a long series of choices and was now sitting at the end of them.
He sat back down.
"Remove the clause," he said to Pritchard.
Pritchard opened his folder without expression and drew a single line through a paragraph.
"Full restitution," Grace said.
"All funds.
Itemized."
"Agreed."
"The signed letter of non-involvement, notarized, delivered to my office before five o'clock today."
"Agreed."
"And one more thing," I said.
Both men looked at me.
"The form I signed at the kitchen table.
The household registration.
I want a written statement that it was obtained under false pretense and that any data collected from it was used without my knowledge or consent."
Pritchard looked at my father-in-law.
"That's an admission," Pritchard said quietly.
"I know what it is," I said.
My father-in-law was quiet for a long moment.
The kind of quiet that isn't thinking — it's accepting.
"Write it," he said.
Pritchard wrote.
We signed at eleven forty-seven in the morning.
Grace kept the originals.
I kept the copies.
Pritchard shook Grace's hand and did not shake mine, which told me everything I needed to know about how he felt the morning had gone.
My father-in-law stood and buttoned his jacket.
He looked at me one final time.
"You're not what I expected," he said.
I thought about everything I could say to that.
"I know," I said.
He left.
The door closed.
Grace set her pen down and looked at the signed pages and allowed herself one small, private exhale.
"It's done," she said.
"Almost," I said.
May you like
She looked at me.
"I need to find Donna," I said.
