Chapter 10: The Last Thing He Said
The deposition took place on a Thursday morning in Patricia's conference room.
Julian arrived with Hale and a junior associate who took notes and never looked up from her legal pad.
Julian was in a dark suit.
He looked composed.
He had the expression of a man who had prepared carefully and believed his preparation was sufficient.
He hadn't seen Arthur's statement yet.
Patricia had kept it back deliberately.
For the first hour, it went the way Hale had planned it.
Julian answered questions in measured sentences.
He acknowledged the incident.
He described it as a single moment of poor judgment under extreme stress.
He expressed remorse.
He noted that Clara had destroyed property valued at $34,000.
He said the marriage had been under strain.
He said he had been seeking counseling.
Hale sat beside him with the calm of a man who had done this many times and expected to do it many more.
Then Patricia opened a second folder.
"Mr.
Ashworth," she said, "I'd like to direct your attention to an email dated March 14th, seven years ago.
Can you tell me who wrote this email?"
She slid a printed page across the table.
Julian looked at it.
His expression didn't change immediately.
He read the first two lines.
Then his eyes moved to the header.
To the sender address.
To the recipient.
"I'd like to take a short break," Hale said.
"We haven't been going long enough for a break," Patricia said pleasantly.
"Mr.
Ashworth, can you identify the sender of this email?"
Julian looked at Hale.
Hale looked at the page.
"This appears to be a private communication," Hale said.
"I'm going to object to the—"
"The email was provided voluntarily by its original recipient," Patricia said.
"There is no privilege." She looked at Julian.
"Mr.
Ashworth?"
Julian set the page down.
"It's from my mother."
"And the recipient?"
A pause.
"Me."
"Can you read the highlighted portion aloud?"
Hale put his hand on Julian's arm.
Julian looked at the page for a moment.
Then he read, in a flat voice: *"You need her to feel that leaving is more frightening than staying.
That is how you keep order in a marriage."*
The junior associate's pen stopped moving.
"Mr.
Ashworth," Patricia said, "was this advice given to you in the context of your first marriage, to Serena Cole?"
"I'd like that break now," Hale said.
"Was it?" Patricia said.
Julian looked at me for the first time since he had walked into the room.
I looked back at him.
"Yes," he said.
"And did you follow it?"
Hale stood up.
"We're taking a break."
"Did you follow the same approach in your marriage to Diane Marsh?"
"We are taking a break." Hale's voice had an edge now.
"And did you follow it in your marriage to my client?"
"Julian, don't answer that." Hale's hand came down on the table.
"Patricia, I'm asking you to—"
"I followed it," Julian said.
The room went completely still.
Hale turned to look at him.
Julian was still looking at me.
Not with remorse, exactly.
With something more complicated — the look of a man who has been running a very long race and has just decided to stop.
"I followed it in all three marriages," he said.
"My mother taught me that was how you kept a family together.
That was what she called it.
Keeping order." He looked down at the page.
"I know what it actually was."
Hale sat back down slowly.
He said nothing.
Patricia let the silence sit for a moment.
Then she said, quietly: "Thank you, Mr.
Ashworth."
---
The settlement was reached six weeks later.
Julian did not contest the divorce.
The apartment remained mine.
The credit line was formally severed.
Julian agreed to a civil protective order restricting contact.
Hale negotiated a clause requiring confidentiality about the emails.
Patricia declined it.
Hale pushed.
Patricia put Arthur's statement on the table.
Hale stopped pushing.
Julian's $34,000 property claim was withdrawn.
As part of the final agreement, Julian entered a court-mandated treatment program.
It was not the consequence I would have written for him if I were writing the story from the outside.
It was not a public collapse or a dramatic fall.
It was a man being required, by a document with a judge's signature, to sit in a room and account for what he had done.
I thought about what Patricia had said.
*It's enough for everything.*
It was.
Victoria called me once, the week after the settlement was signed.
I was at the hospital, halfway through a shift.
I stepped into the hallway to look at the screen.
Her name.
Her number.
I let it ring.
May you like
She left no message.
I went back to my patients.
