“Your Honor, there’s something else. Sarah wasn’t the first person who needed help.”
I unfolded the paper.
“This is a note Sarah wrote to Walter last winter.”
Sarah recognized her handwriting.
I began reading.
“Dear Walter, please stop trying to pay me for dinner. My children love knowing someone is looking after you. You’re family to us now.”
The judge looked puzzled.
“Dinner?”
“Sarah was feeding him long before he started bringing groceries to her house.”
Walter had fallen ill the previous
winter.
His wife had died years earlier, and he had no close family nearby.
Sarah noticed his curtains hadn’t been opened for two days.
When she knocked, she found him too weak to prepare a meal.
From then on, she brought him dinner almost every evening.
Sometimes, she invited him to eat with her children.
Walter rarely accepted.
Walter assumed she was bringing him leftovers.
