Chapter 7 - The Deposition Ambush
Monday morning arrived with the oppressive heat of an impending thunderstorm.
Room 402 of the Marion County Courthouse was freezing, chilled by industrial air conditioning.
Matthew Carver sat beside his public-defender-tier divorce attorney, Harold Jenkins. Matthew wore a charcoal suit that was noticeably loose around his shoulders; he had lost twenty pounds in the last six months. Dark circles bruised the hollows beneath his eyes.
When the heavy wooden door swung open, Matthew stood up so fast his chair screeched against the linoleum.
Evelyn walked in.
She was wearing an emerald green wrap dress that accentuated her pregnancy with radiant clarity. Her skin was glowing, her shoulders back, her beauty completely undeniable.
Matthew gasped. The sound was audible in the quiet room.
“Evie...” he choked out, his hands shaking at his sides. “Mom told me... she told me on Friday, but I didn't believe her. I thought she was hallucinating.”
Arthur Vance walked in behind Evelyn, followed by a court reporter who immediately began setting up her stenotype machine.
“Take your seat, Mr. Carver,” Arthur commanded coldly.
Matthew didn't sit. He took three stumbling steps toward Evelyn. “Evie, look at you. My God, look at you. When... how? Dr. Collins told us the last cycle failed!”
“The last cycle didn't fail, Matthew,” Evelyn said, taking her seat at the opposing table. “The blood test confirmed it that Monday morning. The day I came home to find your mistress arranging candlesticks on my mantle.”
Matthew grabbed his hair with both hands, stumbling backward into his chair as if he had been shot. “You knew? You knew that night?”
“I had the ultrasound in my purse,” she said, her voice cutting through the sterile room like a razor. “I bought the little lemon cake from Bellamy’s. With blue icing that said Finally. You remember that cake, don't you? Serena told you about it before she stole three million dollars from your father.”
“No... no, no, no,” Matthew groaned, pressing his face into his palms. “Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me walk away? I would have ended it with Serena that second! I would have thrown her out! I would have done anything for you!”
“And that,” Arthur Vance’s voice boomed across the room, “is precisely why she didn't tell you.”
Arthur slapped a thick motion onto the table in front of Matthew’s lawyer.
“What is this?” Jenkins, Matthew’s attorney, mumbled, scrambling to put on his reading glasses.
“That is an amended petition for sole legal and physical custody, complete termination of spousal parental presumption during pendency, and a request for emergency supervised visitation restrictions upon birth,” Arthur stated with mechanical precision.
Matthew looked up, horrified. “Supervised visitation? For my own daughter? You can’t do that! I’m her father!”
“You are a biological contributor who is currently under active investigation by the United States Attorney’s Office for interstate wire fraud and corporate malfeasance,” Arthur shot back. “You currently reside in an uninspected month-to-month sublet with two roommates. You have zero verified income following the revocation of your contractor’s license, and you have accumulated ninety-four thousand dollars in personal civil liability to Carver Building Group.”
Arthur leaned across the table, his face inches from Matthew’s.
“You want joint custody, Matthew? You want to bring an infant into a life where the FBI might kick your front door down at six in the morning to arrest you for aiding and abetting Serena Blake’s shell corporations?”
Matthew began to sob. He turned toward Evelyn, dropping from his chair onto his knees right there on the courthouse floor.
“Evie, please. Don’t take my child. Please. I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll surrender the house, the stock, everything. Just let me hold her. Let me be her dad.”
Evelyn looked down at him.
Six months ago, this sight would have torn her heart in two. Today, it felt like watching an actor finish a poorly rehearsed scene.
“Stand up, Matthew,” Evelyn said. “Have some dignity.”
Matthew swallowed his tears, slowly climbing back onto his chair, his hands trembling violently.
“You will be allowed to see her,” Evelyn said clearly. “Under supervision. At my home. When she is ready. But you will not use this child to rewrite history. You chose Serena Blake. You chose deceit. You chose greed. Now you have to live with the consequences of who you are.”
May you like
She looked at Matthew’s lawyer. “Sign the dissolution papers, Mr. Jenkins. Or we take this to open court this afternoon and let the judge read the Delaware bank statements aloud.”
Ten minutes later, Matthew signed his name on the final line with a hand that shook so violently the ink smeared.
