Chapter 9: Deposition

Finn read it over my shoulder.

"Can he do that?"

"He can ask." I put the phone face down. "He wants a jury to hear the word 'diary' and think of a teenage girl with a lock and a pink pen."

"Is it pink?"

"It's green."

"I'll allow it," he said, and the room breathed again.

He didn't try to kiss me after that.

He walked me the three blocks home and waited on the sidewalk until my light came on.

I stood at the bay window and watched him walk away with his hands in his pockets.

My father fought the demand for four days.

In the end we agreed to hand over every page that mentioned Jade, and nothing else.

Chris got the pages.

He also got to depose me.

On July 8 I sat in a conference room on Lexington, nine floors below my old desk.

Same building.

He'd chosen it on purpose.

Chris sat across the table in his charcoal suit, with his junior associate and a stack of binders.

Jade sat at the end in the boot, her crutch leaned against the wall, sipping an iced coffee through a straw.

The court reporter set up her machine without looking at anybody.

My father sat at my elbow.

He'd told me in the elevator to answer only what was asked, and to let him do the objecting.

"Breathe out before every answer," he said. "It drives them crazy."

Chris started gently.

Name, address, employment history.

How long had I known the plaintiff.

How long had I known him.

"Five years," I said.

"And for those five years, did you tell me the truth about your parents?"

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