Chapter 22: The Table

Roz's POV

The mediation room had a long oak table, a pitcher of water and a window onto a parking garage.

I sat on one side with my lawyer.

Dean sat on the other with his, a gray-haired man in a gray suit.

That lawyer had not looked at me once.

The mediator was a retired judge with half-moon glasses.

She folded her hands and said, "Let's begin with the house."

"My client will keep the house," Dean's lawyer said.

"Mrs. Ames contributed to the renovation, and she will be compensated."

"Ms. Fletcher," I said.

He glanced at me for the first time.

"My name is Roz Fletcher. I never took his."

"Ms. Fletcher." He didn't blink. "Compensated generously."

"By how much?"

"Thirty thousand dollars."

I turned my head toward my lawyer, and she opened her folder.

I had spent four days on that folder.

"Before we talk about thirty thousand," she said, "I would like to enter a few items."

She slid them across the oak one at a time.

The first was a transcript of the recording.

Then came the order log, with Manually Entered circled on thirty-one orders.

The second was the listing agreement for the house.

"Page three," I said. "The signature of the second owner."

The mediator put on her glasses and read it.

"This reads Rosalind Fletcher."

"I have signed my name R. Fletcher on every document since I was nineteen. I have brought forty of them."

My lawyer laid out forty sheets in four neat rows.

There were mortgage papers, tax forms, a lease and a birthday card to my father.

Each one said R. Fletcher, in the same short, slanted hand.

Dean's lawyer leaned over the table.

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