Chapter 7 - The Deposition
Carter was brought into the hospital room four hours later, flanked by two armed federal marshals and a sweat-soaked public defender who looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Carter was unrecognizable from the smug, tailored attorney who had stood over me in the kitchen.
He was wearing an orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit that hung loosely off his shoulders. His wrists were secured by heavy steel handcuffs chained to a leather belt around his waist. His right cheek was dark purple and swollen from where he had hit the floor, and his eyes were bloodshot, hollowed out by terror.
When he saw me sitting propped up in the hospital bed, his knees visibly buckled.
“Clara…” he rasped, taking an eager, desperate step forward.
The marshal on his left seized the chain of his handcuffs, yanking him back until the metal bit into his wrists. “Stand on the yellow line, inmate.”
Carter flinched, turning his pleading gaze to me. “Clara, baby, look at you… you look so beautiful. Thank God. Thank God you and the baby are okay. I haven't slept a second. I was out of my mind with worry!”
I sat quietly, my hands resting over my bandaged stomach. Beside the bed, my father stood like an obsidian statue, his arms folded across his chest, watching Carter with the detached interest of an executioner checking his blade.
“You weren't worried, Carter,” I said, my voice steady, smooth, and clear. “You were angry that dinner was late.”
Carter’s lawyer, an older man named Higgins, cleared his throat nervously. “Mrs. Reynolds—or, Ms. Vance—my client is under tremendous stress. He recognizes that his behavior was entirely unacceptable. We are prepared to sign an immediate, uncontested divorce settlement granting you one hundred percent of the marital assets, provided the U.S. Attorney’s office agrees to recommend concurrent sentencing on the state charges.”
“One hundred percent of the marital assets?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Everything,” Carter pleaded, his voice breaking into a desperate whimper. “The house in Alexandria, the investment accounts, the cars—take it all, Clara! Just tell your father to call off the federal prosecutors! They’re talking about twenty-five years without parole! Clara, I’ll die in there! You know what they do to lawyers in federal prison?!”
“You should have thought about that before you smashed my phone,” I said.
“It was an accident! I was trying to grab it, and it slipped!” Carter lied, panic making his voice high and squeaky. “And my mother—it was my mother who shoved you! She’s the one who poisoned my mind, Clara! She hated you from day one! She told me you were trying to trap me! I was just trying to keep peace in the family!”
“Your mother,” my father said, speaking for the first time, “is currently in a holding cell, claiming under oath that you shoved Clara into the counter after she begged you to stop.”
Carter’s jaw dropped. The betrayal on his face was almost comical. “What?! She said that?! That miserable old viper!”
“You two truly deserve each other,” I said softly.
I gestured to the nurse standing by the side door.
The nurse smiled, stepped out for a moment, and returned pushing a clear, high-tech neonatal transport bassinet.
Inside, swaddled in a tiny blue blanket, wearing a white cotton cap no larger than a teacup, lay my son. His chest rose and fell in perfect, tiny rhythms. His eyes were open, blinking lazily into the warm light of the room.
Carter stared at the infant, his breath catching in his throat. Tears spilled down his cheeks. “Is that… is that him? Is that my son?”
He took an instinctive step toward the bassinet, reaching his chained hands outward.
“Stop,” I said.
The word wasn't loud. But it froze Carter in his tracks.
“He is not your son, Carter,” I said, looking him dead in the eyes. “A father protects. A father sacrifices. You pushed his mother into a granite counter and watched her bleed while you checked your phone.”
“Clara, please—”
“I didn't tell you who my father was because I wanted to see who *you* were,” I continued, every word landing like a surgical hammer. “And you showed me. You are a coward who bullies pregnant women and hides behind his uncle’s political connections. But those connections are gone. Your firm dropped your partnership this morning. Your bar license has been suspended by emergency order. And your uncle is facing ten years for wire fraud.”
Carter collapsed onto his knees on the linoleum floor, sobbing uncontrollably, the chains rattling against the tiles. “Please, Clara… don't do this to me… please…”
“Take him away,” I told the marshals.
May you like
The marshals didn't wait. They seized Carter by the armpits, hauling him backward toward the door. Carter screamed, kicking his feet, begging, crying, until the heavy wooden doors swung shut, cutting off the sound of his pathetic pleading forever.
***
