Chapter 7 - The Deposition
The conference room at Arthur’s firm was stark and brightly lit. I sat on one side of the long mahogany table with Emily and Arthur. On the other side sat Mark, his high-priced corporate lawyer, a man named Richard Vance, and my mother.
Margaret looked smaller than she had at Christmas. She was dressed in a dark navy suit, her pearl necklace firmly in place, but her hands were trembling as she clutched her leather handbag. She wouldn't look at me. Her eyes remained fixed on the table.
Mark, however, glared at me with pure fury.
"We can settle this right now, Daniel," Mark said, leaning forward before the court reporter could begin. "This is a public embarrassment. A civil suit for assault? Are you out of your mind? You’re dragging our mother’s name through the mud."
"Mark, let your attorney speak," Arthur chided gently, tapping his pen against his yellow legal pad.
Richard Vance cleared his throat. "We are prepared to offer a settlement. If Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Harrison drop the civil suit and sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the events of December 25th, Harrison & Sons will lift the freeze on the trust fund and agree to a formal severance package of $200,000."
I looked at the settlement offer sheet pushed across the table. Six months ago, that amount of money would have felt like safety. Now, it looked like a bribe to keep my mother’s sins quiet.
"No," I said, pushing the paper back.
Vance frowned. "Mr. Harrison, this is a very generous offer. If this goes to a judge, the details will become public record. It will ruin your mother’s social standing and damage the firm's reputation."
"Good," Emily spoke up, her voice ringing clearly through the room. "Let them see who Margaret Harrison really is when the cameras are off."
My mother finally raised her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed and angry. "Emily, please. Have you no shame? I apologized to Daniel on the phone. I was under immense stress. You brought out the worst in me that night."
"You hit me, Margaret," Emily said, looking her directly in the eye. "And then you called me trailer trash. You tried to make my daughter believe her mother was garbage. You don't get to blame stress for that. That was who you are."
"Daniel!" Margaret turned to me, her voice breaking. "Are you really going to let her do this to me? I raised you! I gave you everything!"
"You gave me everything except respect, Mom," I said quietly. "You spent years letting Vanessa treat Emily like a second-class citizen because you enjoyed having someone to look down on. You thought because Emily didn't come from money, she had no value. Well, look around this room. The only people losing anything today are you and Mark."
Arthur stood up, buttoning his jacket. "We reject the settlement. We will see you in court on Monday morning. And Mr. Vance, I suggest you advise your clients to prepare their financial records, because our breach of fiduciary duty suit will include a full audit of Harrison & Sons’ management of my client's trust."
Mark’s face went pale. An audit was the last thing he wanted; he had been using the firm’s capital to fund some of his own risky real estate ventures, a fact I had suspected for months but now had the legal leverage to prove.
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As we walked out of the conference room, Mark chased me into the hallway, grabbing my arm. "Daniel, stop! Please. An audit will destroy the firm’s credit rating. We could lose everything."
I pulled my arm out of his grip. "Then you should have thought about that before you tried to starve my wife and daughter, Mark. You chose Mom’s pride over your brother. Now you get to live with the consequences."
