Chương 10
“You make that face when you’ve already decided something and want permission to resent it.”
Clara opened the envelope. It was a formal notice from Margaret’s attorney identifying her as a potential witness.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because people who decide too quickly usually decide the thing that hurts them in a familiar way.”
Clara looked at her mother.
“Did you read that somewhere?”
“No. I stole it from therapy.”
“You have therapy?”
“Every Tuesday. I don’t tell you everything.”
The sentence landed gently and still managed to bruise.
Rose adjusted the sleeve over her unreliable hand.
“I testified against your father once,” she said.
Clara stared at her.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After you left for college.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing useful. He had violated a restraining order. His lawyer made me sound confused. The judge warned him and sent us home.”
“You never told me.”
“You were finally sleeping.”
Clara looked toward the dining room, where a staff member was trying to persuade a resident that sugar-free syrup was still syrup.
“Did you regret it?”
“Every day for about a year.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“You asked the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“Would I regret staying silent more?”
Rose picked up her bingo card.
“Yes.”
Clara agreed to testify in Margaret’s case.
Preparation took weeks. Margaret’s lawyers asked about every lesson, every forgotten appointment, every repeated story. Clara answered carefully and refused to turn ordinary lapses into proof of perfect memory.
“Did Mrs. Mercer ever repeat a question?” one attorney asked.
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“I didn’t count.”
“More than once a week?”
“Possibly.”
“Did it concern you?”
“Not usually.”
“When did it concern you?”
Clara hesitated.
Margaret sat across the conference table, listening.
“One afternoon she asked whether her husband had called.”
The room became still.
Margaret’s husband had been dead for two years.
“What happened?” the attorney asked.
“She had fallen asleep in the music room. When she woke, she was disoriented for perhaps ten seconds. Then she corrected herself.”
“Did you document it?”
“In my private lesson notes.”
“Were those the notes Julian reviewed?”
“Yes.”
Margaret looked down at her hands.
The attorney continued. “Why did you not tell the family?”
“Because she had just awakened, she understood what happened, and it did not repeat.”
“Are you medically trained?”
“No.”
“So you made a judgment outside your expertise.”
“I made a decision not to turn ten confused seconds into a diagnosis.”
Julian’s attorney later used the same incident during Clara’s deposition.
He was a calm man named Everett Sloan who spoke softly enough that everyone else lowered their voices. Julian sat beside him, taking notes on a yellow pad.
“Ms. Wynn, you concealed an episode of confusion from Mrs. Mercer’s family.”
“I did not conceal it.”
“You wrote it in private notes and told no one.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Did Mrs. Mercer remember that her husband was dead?”
“Yes.”
“Not immediately.”
“She had been asleep.”
Mr. Sloan glanced at Julian’s yellow pad.
“Do sleeping people commonly forget their spouses have died?”
Clara felt the old impulse to look down.
She kept her eyes on the lawyer.
“Grieving people sometimes wake inside the life they had before.”
Margaret’s attorney objected to the phrasing of the question. The court reporter asked everyone not to speak over one another.
Mr. Sloan changed direction.
He asked how much Margaret paid Clara, whether the apartment was part of her compensation, whether Margaret had ever increased her salary, whether Clara had financial problems, and whether her mother’s care cost more than she earned.
Clara answered.
Each truthful response sounded worse than the last.
“Mrs. Mercer provided housing, salary, transportation on occasion, a Christmas bonus, and assistance after the alleged assault,” he said.
“She paid for three hotel nights.”
“And arranged legal counsel.”
“No. She offered. I used legal services independently.”
“Through a referral from her lawyer.”
“Through a victim advocate.”
Julian wrote something.
Mr. Sloan noticed Clara looking.
“Are you distracted by my client?”
“No.”
“Do you fear him?”
Clara paused.
“Yes.”
Julian’s pen stopped.
Mr. Sloan folded his hands.
“Yet you have chosen to place yourself in the center of his family’s private financial affairs.”
“I was placed there when he asked me to sign a statement about his grandmother and hit me when I refused.”
Margaret’s attorney did not object.
Mr. Sloan’s voice remained mild. “That is your account.”
“Yes.”
“Your employer then struck him with a cake.”
“Yes.”
“An unusual response.”
“Yes.”
“Did it seem rational to you?”
Clara thought of Margaret opening the pastry box, the pause before she lifted it, the controlled force of the impact, the cream on Julian’s face.
“No,” she said.
Margaret looked at her.
Mr. Sloan leaned back.
“Did it seem emotionally stable?”
“No.”
The answer moved through the room.
Julian’s mouth shifted in satisfaction.
Clara continued before anyone could stop her.
“It seemed furious. It seemed impulsive. It created legal problems for her and gave Julian a story he could use. It was also the first time in years that someone in that family responded to him without first calculating how to protect him.”
Mr. Sloan’s expression sharpened.
“Are you offering a psychological opinion?”
“No. I’m offering my experience.”
During the break, Margaret stood by the conference-room window.
“You could have protected me,” she said.
Clara closed the door behind them.
“You asked me to tell the truth.”
“I did.”
“You hit him with a cake.”
“I remember.”
“It was not rational.”
“I remember that too.”
Margaret turned from the window.
“I am not angry with you.”
“You sound angry.”
“I am angry that he made the worst thing I did that day more useful than the worst thing he did.”
Clara leaned against the wall.
“That doesn’t make your part disappear.”
“No.”
The answer came faster than before.
May you like
Margaret looked older than she had in the kitchen. Not confused. Tired in a way wealth could disguise but not prevent.
“I spoke to his father yesterday,” she said.
