Chapter 9 - MY MOTHER’S DAY IN COURT
Mercer & Reed requested a competency evaluation.
Their attorneys argued Mom’s age made her memories unreliable.
Rebecca opposed it.
Mom agreed anyway.
“I want no one saying we were afraid of questions.”
A court-appointed physician evaluated her.
Memory.
Reasoning.
Dates.
Financial understanding.
Mom scored higher than most adults half her age.
The report described her as fully competent.
In deposition, the defense attorney spoke slowly.
Mom answered quickly.
He asked whether she hated Henry Mercer.
“No.”
“Did you resent his success?”
“I resented theft.”
“Did you ever experience depression?”
“Yes.”
“After your husband died?”
“Yes.”
“After the fire?”
“Yes.”
“So your emotional condition affected your judgment.”
Mom looked at him.
“Grief is not incompetence.”
The attorney moved to the settlement.
“You accepted thirty thousand dollars.”
“I accepted the return of my daughter.”
“No one took your daughter.”
“A petition requested emergency removal.”
“A court would have decided.”
“A poor Black widow accused of arson in 1985 did not experience that court as neutral.”
The room became quiet.
Mom continued.
“I understood the choice they placed before me.”
“Ownership or my child.”
“I chose my child.”
“That does not make the transaction honest.”
The attorney asked why she waited forty-one years.
Mom answered:
“I did not wait.”
“I wrote letters.”
“I contacted journalists.”
“I approached the store.”
“They threatened defamation claims.”
“They reminded me of the settlement.”
“I raised my daughter.”
“I worked.”
“I survived.”
“The world not listening is not the same as me remaining silent.”
I sat beside Rebecca.
For most of my life, I believed Mom avoided the past.
She had fought in small, private ways I never saw.
May you like
The failure had not been her courage.
It had been the number of institutions prepared to protect a famous name.
