Chapter 9 - On The Record Under Oath
The bailiff called us to stand before we sat down. It was 9:04 by the clock over the flag and the air in the courtroom still smelled like old wood polish and coffee from the clerk's desk.
Judge Patricia Harris adjusted her glasses and looked down at us. "We are back on the record in the matter of the estate of Eleanor Whitaker. All parties are present. You will be sworn."
I stood with my hand raised and the girl's small hand tight in my other one. The deputy had set two chairs behind our counsel table so she could sit close to me. My daughter wore the same pink floral skirt and her pigtails were still clipped with the pink clips, but her eyes were open now and fixed on the bench.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" the clerk said.
I said, "I do." Behind me, he said, "I do," a little too loud.
Judge Harris nodded. "Ms. Whitaker, you may call your first witness."
My lawyer touched my elbow. "We call the mother."
I let go of my daughter's hand. She reached for it again and I squeezed once before I walked to the witness stand. The chair was hard and the microphone was too close to my mouth. I could hear myself breathing.
"State your name for the record," my lawyer said.
I gave it. My voice sounded smaller through the speaker.
He asked me what happened on the first morning of this hearing. I stared at the grain in the wood railing in front of me and made myself say it plain.
"He stood up at the counsel table and shouted at us," I said. "He said, 'Take your brat and go to hell.' My daughter was in my arms. She buried her face in my chest and started crying."
Judge Harris didn't interrupt. She wrote as I spoke.
"Has he spoken to you that way before?" my lawyer asked.
"Yes," I said. "Not always in those words. But that way. When he was angry. When I said I was leaving. When I asked about child support."
"Are you afraid of him?"
I paused. I could feel his eyes on the side of my face from the table where he sat in his navy suit and red tie.
"Yes," I said. "Sometimes I am. But I have always taken care of my daughter. She has a home. She goes to school every day. I work at the county clinic. My mom — my grandmother Eleanor helped us when I was short, but I never left her without what she needs."
On cross-examination his lawyer asked if I was trying to keep his client from his child to get the money. I said no. He asked if I had ever denied him a visit. I said I had asked that visits be at the diner or the library where other people were, after he yelled in our apartment parking lot last spring. He asked if that wasn't me being difficult. I said it was me trying to keep things calm for my daughter.
When I stepped down, my daughter was watching me with her hands folded tight in her lap. I sat beside her and put my arm around her.
Then they called him.
He smoothed his tie and took the stand like he owned it. He said he was a good father who had been shut out, that he loved his daughter and wanted to be part of her life, that the estate should not cut him out because of a misunderstanding.
My lawyer stood. He didn't raise his voice.
"Sir, did you say on the first morning of this hearing, 'Take your brat and go to hell' to the mother and child in open court?"
He smiled a little. "I was provoked. I was emotional. I don't recall the exact words."
My lawyer picked up a sheet from his table and nodded to the clerk. The clerk pressed play on a small speaker. The audio was thin but clear, his voice filling the wood-paneled room the same way it had that morning.
"Take your brat and go to hell."
No one moved. My daughter pressed closer to my side. The man's smirk was gone. His face went pale.
"Is that your voice?" my lawyer asked.
After a beat he said, "Yes."
My lawyer set down a second exhibit, a printout from the county support office. "Are you current on child support?"
"I've had some tough months," he said.
"The record shows twelve months of arrears totaling over nine thousand dollars, correct?"
He didn't answer at first. Judge Harris looked at him over her glasses.
"You may answer," she said.
"Yes, but—"
"Thank you," my lawyer said. "Nothing further."
His own lawyer had no questions after that.
Judge Harris then turned to the evaluator, a woman from family services who had met with my daughter at school. "The court will not call the child to the stand," she said clearly, for the record. "But her statement through the evaluator will be heard."
The evaluator stood and read from her notes. She said my daughter had told her she felt safe with me, that she didn't like yelling, that she liked that grandma Eleanor left her the special box with the pink clips inside and said it was for her future. She said the girl answered plainly, without coaching, and that she clung to her mother when discussing her father but spoke freely about school, her teacher, and her room at home. I felt tears sting my eyes and I kept my hand steady on my daughter's shoulder.
My lawyer then offered the two remaining exhibits. "We move to admit the sealed letter from Eleanor Whitaker to her granddaughter and the trust instrument as Court Exhibits Four and Five."
Judge Harris took the beige file with the red ribbon closure that had sat on her bench since the first day. She opened it again, checked the seal that read Estate of Eleanor Whitaker and SEALED, and initialed each page.
"There being no valid objection, the court admits the decedent's letter and the trust instrument into evidence," she said, and the clerk stamped them. "The trust language and the letter will be considered as part of the record."
She looked at both tables, then at my daughter and me.
May you like
"Testimony is complete. All exhibits are admitted. This matter is taken under advisement. I will issue my findings and orders tomorrow morning at nine. Until then, the prior temporary orders remain in place. The child remains in her mother's care."
The gavel tapped once. It wasn't loud, but my daughter startled and then settled when I stood and lifted her hand in mine.
