Chapter 9: The Day Before Court
Gerald filed the motion for continuance the following morning.
The court granted it within hours.
The original hearing date passed without event.
The rescheduled hearing was set for three weeks out.
In those three weeks, several things happened.
Daniel moved out of the house he shared with Ashley.
He called me the evening he left, from the driveway of his friend Marcus's apartment, sounding hollowed out in the particular way of someone who has done the right thing too late and knows it.
"I packed what I needed," he said.
"She didn't try to stop me.
She just sat on the couch and watched."
"Are you safe?"
"Yes.
Marcus has the spare room." A pause.
"I found some things when I was packing, Mom.
Things in her home office.
I took photographs."
"What kind of things?"
"A notebook.
It had names in it.
Addresses.
Some of them I recognized — elderly people, I think.
People in the area." His voice tightened.
"And there was a letter from someone in Garfield.
A woman.
Thanking Ashley for all her help with her neighbor's estate.
Saying she'd made everything so easy."
I thought of the man in Garfield.
The care facility he hadn't wanted to enter.
"Send me the photographs," I said.
"Already did."
I forwarded them to Gerald within the hour.
He called back twenty minutes later.
"This is no longer just a civil matter," he said.
"I have a friend at the district attorney's office.
She looks at elder financial abuse cases.
I'm going to make a call."
---
Dr.
Heller's letter arrived by courier two days after our meeting.
It was four paragraphs long, formally addressed to the court, and stated clearly that the assessment had been generated based solely on unverified, secondhand observations from a single non-medical source, that his eleven-year clinical history with me showed no indicators of cognitive decline, and that he was formally withdrawing his support for the guardianship petition.
I read it at the dining table.
Then I called Patricia.
"It came," I said.
"Good." I could hear her smiling.
"How do you feel?"
"Like someone just handed me back something that was taken from me." I ran my hand along the edge of the table.
"Robert built this table, did I ever tell you that?
He bought the wood at the salvage yard on Route 9 and spent a whole summer on it.
I told him it was taking too long and he told me good things always took longer than you expected."
"He was right."
"He usually was." I paused.
"Patricia, what if Ashley doesn't come to court?
What if she simply doesn't appear?"
"Then she loses the petition by default and the case is dismissed.
That would be the end of it, legally speaking."
"She won't do that," I said.
"She's not the kind of person who accepts a loss quietly."
"No," Patricia agreed.
"She isn't."
I was right.
Three days before the hearing, Ashley called me directly.
I had not spoken to her since the morning she left my house with the folder.
I answered.
"Margaret." Her voice was exactly as it had been on the voicemail.
Warm.
Practiced.
A tone she had cultivated the way other people cultivate a garden.
"I think we've both let this go further than it needed to.
I'd like to sit down with you.
Without lawyers.
Just the two of us."
"Why?"
"Because I think if we talk honestly, we can find a resolution that works for everyone.
Daniel is upset, I understand that.
But this doesn't have to go to court.
We could reach an agreement privately."
I looked out the kitchen window at the rose garden.
"What kind of agreement?"
"You could choose to sell the house voluntarily.
A fair market sale.
You'd receive the full proceeds and you could move somewhere smaller, more manageable.
We'd drop the petition.
No court, no hearing, no stress for anyone."
"And you would handle the listing."
A half-second pause.
"I could do that, yes.
I know the market well."
"Ashley," I said.
"I want you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say."
"Of course."
"In eight days I am going to walk into that courtroom with Dr.
Heller's written retraction of the assessment you used to build your case.
I am going to walk in with emails from your former assistant documenting a pattern of targeting elderly homeowners.
I am going to walk in with photographs of a notebook containing other names and addresses from your home office.
And I am going to walk in with my son, who is prepared to describe every document you put in front of him and every thing you told him that was not true."
Silence.
"You should speak to an attorney," I said.
"Not about my house.
About your situation."
The call ended.
May you like
She didn't say goodbye.
She didn't say anything at all.
