Chapter 8: The Deposition
The conference room was on the twelfth floor of a building that was everything Gerald's office was not — glass, steel, a view of the river, a long table with water glasses already poured.
My father's attorney was a man named Hargrove.
Fifties.
Silver hair.
The kind of suit that was meant to make you feel underdressed.
He smiled when I walked in the way people smile when they've already decided they've won.
My father sat at the far end of the table.
He didn't smile.
He looked at me the way he had looked at me my entire life — like a problem that kept failing to solve itself.
Chloe wasn't there.
She had given her declaration in writing and declined to appear in person.
I sat down next to Gerald.
Hargrove opened a folder.
"Miss Maya.
Thank you for coming.
We'll try to keep this brief."
"Take all the time you need," I said.
He started with the transfers.
Dates, amounts, frequency.
Framing each one as evidence of a pattern — a young woman systematically drawing money from an elderly relative.
"You called your grandmother frequently," he said.
"Multiple times per week in her final years."
"Yes."
"And during those calls, the topic of money came up."
"She asked me how I was doing.
I told her.
Sometimes that included my finances, yes."
"And shortly after many of those calls, transfers occurred."
"She chose to make those transfers.
I never asked her to."
"You never asked her directly."
"I never asked her at all."
Hargrove smiled again.
"Miss Maya, isn't it possible that by sharing your financial situation with a woman who loved you deeply, you created a situation where she felt compelled to help — whether you asked explicitly or not?"
"It's possible to interpret it that way," I said.
"It's also possible that a grandmother who loved her granddaughter wanted to support her.
People do that."
"People do," he agreed.
"But not usually to the exclusion of the rest of the family."
"She didn't exclude anyone.
She made a choice about her own money."
Hargrove turned a page.
"Your father has testified that he visited your grandmother in the spring of 2021 and that she expressed concern to him about the frequency of your financial conversations.
That she felt — his word — pressured."
Gerald's pen touched the table once.
"My father told her I was in debt," I said.
"That wasn't true.
He told her the transfers needed to stop.
He spent six months undermining her confidence in her own relationship with me.
And then he arrived with a lawyer." I looked directly at Hargrove.
"I have the notes from her original attorney documenting the conversation where she described that visit.
Would you like me to walk you through them?"
Hargrove's smile didn't move.
But something behind it did.
"We're aware of those notes."
"Then you're aware she used the word 'confused' to describe how she felt after my father's visit.
And the word 'ashamed.' " I kept my voice level.
"He made her feel ashamed for loving me.
And then he used that shame to get her signature on a document she didn't understand."
My father's hand, resting on the table, closed into a fist.
"That is a serious allegation," Hargrove said.
"It's what the documents show."
Hargrove shifted.
"Let's discuss the photographs provided by Carol—"
"Let's," I said.
He hadn't expected that.
He'd expected me to be defensive about Carol, to distance myself from her, to let him frame her as a troublemaker.
"The photographs show a document in progress," he said carefully.
"They don't establish—"
"They show my grandmother's handwriting in the margin of the document she signed.
*I do not fully understand what I am signing.
I am signing because my son asked me to.*" I looked at my father.
"That's her handwriting.
That's her words.
Written in the moment."
My father looked at the table.
"Dad." My voice was quiet.
Not angry.
Just direct.
"She wrote that while the lawyer was packing up his papers.
She wrote it because she wanted someone to know.
She was eighty-one years old and she was trying to leave a record."
He didn't look up.
"I'm not doing this to destroy the family," I said.
"I'm doing this because she asked me to.
Because she spent the last years of her life building something for me, and then she spent her final weeks trying to protect it, and nobody helped her." I paused.
"I'm helping her now.
Even if it's late."
Hargrove cleared his throat.
"We'll take a short break."
He and my father stepped into the hallway.
Gerald leaned toward me.
"You did well."
"Did it matter?"
"Watch his face when they come back in."
They were g*ne for eleven minutes.
May you like
When Hargrove returned, he sat down and folded his hands on the folder without opening it.
"My client," he said, "is prepared to discuss a resolution."
