Chapter 12 - The Courtroom Chair
On Monday morning, a courthouse deputy held the heavy door while Jonah guided my chair into a small hearing room. My bruised ribs hurt. Jonah slowed down without making a speech about independence.
Audrey sat across the aisle in a navy suit. She held tissues in trembling hands.
Her lawyer called the petition an act of love.
"Mr. Vale is vulnerable," he told the judge. "His daughter is only trying to protect him."
"From whom?" the judge asked.
Miriam stood. She presented the death record for Dr. Laird and the letter bearing his signature eleven months later. She then showed the court the hospital notes recording my statements and my refusal to transfer care.
"Was the doctor's status verified before this was submitted?"
He hesitated. Audrey stopped crushing the tissue.
I testified briefly. I described the lake, but I didn't ask the court to decide whether a crime had occurred. I explained that I knew my accounts, my children, and the difference between needing physical help and needing somebody to make my decisions.
"My legs don't work," I said. "My judgment does. And when my judgment failed about my son, that was my mistake to own, not a reason for somebody to take my voice."
The judge denied Audrey's request for immediate guardianship and referred the suspicious medical letter for further investigation. In a separate civil filing, Miriam was seeking to stop unauthorized asset transfers until the records could be examined.
Outside, reporters crowded the courthouse steps. Audrey pushed past them without answering questions.
She stopped beside my chair long enough to whisper, "You don't know what Pike can do to us."
"Then tell Bell," I said.
Audrey looked toward Jonah. Her anger cracked, just for a moment, into something almost like terror.
May you like
"He already has the last thing Mom left us," she said.
Then she walked into the rain.
