Chapter 7: Gerald Makes His Move
The challenge arrived on Tuesday.
Arthur called Elena at seven in the morning, before she'd finished her first cup of coffee.
"Gerald filed a motion to dismiss," he said.
"He's arguing that the medical records you submitted were improperly obtained and cannot be authenticated without the original custodial institution, which no longer exists."
Elena set her cup down.
"Can he make that argument?"
"He can make it.
Judge Hartwell will not find it persuasive, but it delays us by at least two weeks while we file our response." A pause.
"There's something else.
Victoria's team contacted three former Hargrove staff members this week.
I have it from a source inside her attorney's office.
They're building a counter-narrative — that your mother had good days, that she was capable of understanding documents, that the capacity assessment overstated her decline."
"They're going to try to discredit the diagnosis."
"Yes.
And they've retained a medical expert who specializes in exactly this kind of testimony."
Elena stood up and walked to the window.
This was the move Gerald had been describing the night of the event.
Slow it down.
Make it expensive.
Find a crack in the record and push until the crack became a doubt.
"How does Rosalind's affidavit affect their argument?" she asked.
"Significantly," Arthur said.
"An eyewitness account of Gerald physically guiding an incapacitated patient's hand on a document is not a question of medical interpretation.
It's a factual account from a trained medical professional with contemporaneous written notes." He paused.
"Which is why I expect their next move will be to discredit her."
He was right.
By Thursday, Elena received a forwarded email from a former Hargrove colleague of Rosalind's — a woman named Patricia, who had been contacted by someone from Victoria's legal team asking whether Rosalind had ever been subject to any disciplinary review or performance concerns during her time at the facility.
Elena called Rosalind directly.
"They're looking for anything," Elena said.
"A complaint, a reprimand, a disagreement with management.
Anything they can use to say your account is unreliable."
Rosalind's voice was steady.
"Let them look," she said.
"My record is clean.
The only note in my file from that period is a written memo from the director saying I had overstepped in questioning a visitor's authorization." She paused.
"Which is, if you think about it, exactly what we'd want them to find."
Elena almost smiled.
"You're not frightened," she said.
"I've been frightened for six years," Rosalind said.
"I was frightened the afternoon I watched that man guide your mother's hand and I didn't do enough to stop it.
That kind of fear is worse than anything their lawyers can send me."
Elena held the phone for a moment.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't thank me yet," Rosalind said.
"Win first."
Arthur filed the response to the motion to dismiss on Friday.
He attached Rosalind's signed affidavit and the contemporaneous personal notes, each page dated, each entry specific.
He also attached a single additional document that he had spent the past week tracking down.
The original sign-in log from Hargrove Care Center, October 2019, preserved in the state records archive after the facility's closure.
Gerald Marsh's name.
His signature.
The time of entry.
The time of exit.
Forty-one minutes.
Enough time to place papers on a tray table.
Enough time to guide a hand.
Enough time to leave with a signature that would transfer a property worth millions.
Arthur called Elena when the filing was confirmed.
"Judge Hartwell has the full package," he said.
"Motion to dismiss denied, I expect, by end of next week.
And the hearing date holds."
"Gerald will escalate," Elena said.
"Yes," Arthur said.
"I think so too."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Elena.
Be careful this week.
In general.
Just — be careful."
She understood what he wasn't saying.
A man like Gerald, with a career and a license and a reputation all depending on the outcome of a single hearing, was a man who might reach for something outside of legal procedure.
She locked her apartment door that night and sat at her small kitchen table with her mother's photograph in front of her.
The garden.
The window seat.
The names of every flower.
May you like
"Almost," she said quietly.
"Almost."
