Chapter 7: Two O'Clock
Anna was waiting on a bench in the corridor with two cups of coffee from the machine near the elevator.
She handed one to me without speaking and moved over so I could sit beside her.
We sat for a moment.
"How bad was it?" she said.
"It's over," I said.
"Or nearly."
She looked at her cup.
"I heard her voice.
Through the door.
At the end."
"Yes."
"She was crying?"
"Something close to it."
Anna was quiet.
She was twenty-two and she had grown up watching her grandmother treat me the way someone treats furniture they didn't choose — present, functional, never quite right.
She had defended me more times than I had asked her to, and she had done it without making it a performance.
"Do you feel sorry for her?" Anna asked.
I thought about it honestly.
"I feel sorry for what she did with her grief.
I don't feel sorry for what she put us through to do it."
Anna nodded slowly.
"That's fair."
She pulled out her phone and looked at the photo again — Frank at the kitchen table, the blue curtains, the legal pad.
"Do you know who sent this?" she said.
"I have a guess."
She looked at me.
"Frank had a friend," I said.
"Tom Aldridge.
They'd known each other since college.
Tom was at the lake house the day Frank wrote that note on the legal pad.
He was the one who took the photo."
"Why did he wait until today to send it?"
"I think he was watching to see if it was needed," I said.
"Tom knew Frank's wishes.
He also knew Evelyn.
He would have waited until he was sure the case was actually going forward before he put himself in the middle of it."
Anna set her phone face-down on her knee.
"Did you know he had the photo?"
"I suspected.
Frank mentioned once that Tom had his phone out that afternoon.
I didn't ask Tom directly.
I didn't want to pull him into this if I didn't have to."
She was quiet for a moment.
"You had everything you needed, didn't you?
Even before today."
"I had enough," I said.
"I wasn't sure how much the court would need."
She leaned her head against my shoulder.
It was a thing she had done since she was small, and she still did it sometimes without seeming to notice.
"I'm glad you didn't sign the house over," she said.
"I was never going to."
"I know." A pause.
"I just wanted to say it out loud."
We sat until a quarter to two.
Then we went back in.
Garrett and his team were already at their table.
Two of the three attorneys had their jackets on and their briefcases closed — the posture of people preparing to leave, not to argue.
Garrett himself was writing something on a legal pad, but the writing was slow, and he stopped twice without adding anything.
Evelyn came in last.
She walked to her seat without looking at me.
She sat down and folded her hands on the table and looked at the front of the room.
Her rings were still on.
But she had stopped pressing them into the wood.
Judge Bennett entered at two o'clock exactly.
The bailiff called the room to order.
The judge settled, opened the file, and looked at both tables.
"I've reviewed all submitted materials," he said.
"I'm prepared to rule."
He looked at Garrett first.
"The emergency motion to compel surrender of the deed to the property at Smith Mountain Lake is denied.
The documentation supporting the original transfer is complete, properly witnessed, and consistent with the testator's clearly expressed intentions.
There is no credible evidence of undue influence, coercion, or cognitive impairment at the time of signing."
Garrett wrote something.
His pen moved without urgency now.
"Furthermore," the judge continued, "I am referring the conduct of this proceeding to the Virginia State Bar for review.
The introduction of financial records implying misconduct, without verification of the account's nature, raises questions about the standard of care applied in preparing this motion."
Garrett's pen stopped.
"Mrs.
Carter." The judge looked at Evelyn directly.
"You have the right to grieve your son.
You do not have the right to use this court to relitigate his choices.
The record is clear.
His wishes were clear.
This matter is closed."
Evelyn did not respond.
She looked at the judge, then at the table, then at nothing in particular.
"Court is adjourned," Judge Bennett said.
The bailiff called the room to rise.
I stood.
Anna stood beside me.
Garrett began packing his briefcase.
The two other attorneys were already moving toward the door.
Neither of them looked at Evelyn as they passed her.
She was still sitting when the room had mostly emptied.
I picked up my folder.
Anna picked up her bag.
We walked toward the door together.
"Mrs.
Hayes."
I stopped.
Evelyn was still at the table.
She had not turned around.
"I want you to know," she said, to the front of the room, to no one in particular, "that I genuinely believed he didn't know what he was doing."
I stood in the aisle and waited.
"I needed to believe that," she said.
"Because the alternative was that he knew exactly what he was doing and chose her over me.
And I couldn't—" She stopped.
"I couldn't carry that."
The room was empty now except for the three of us and the bailiff near the side door.
I walked back.
Not all the way.
Halfway.
"He didn't choose me over you, Evelyn," I said.
"He chose his home.
He chose the place where he felt most like himself.
He chose the person who was there."
She turned then.
Her face was older than it had looked that morning.
The expensive suit and the rings and the three attorneys with briefcases — all of it had been armor, and the armor was gone.
"I should have been there more," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"You should have."
It wasn't forgiveness.
But it was honest.
And honest was what Frank had always asked for.
May you like
Anna held the door open.
I walked through it.
