It looked thorough.
The slips were in my name.
The signatures were mine, close enough.
The dates were in April.
The branch records showed a woman with my license presenting at the teller window four times.
It was thorough.
Thomas leaned toward me.
He whispered: should’ve taken the settlement, Ang.
He said it the way he said things when he was very sure of himself.
The tone he had developed over nine years of being very sure of himself in my presence.
He thought I was afraid.
He thought the stillness was afraid.
He did not understand that the stillness was the thing you learned in fourteen years of night shifts.
The stillness that meant you were ready.
The judge was a woman in her fifties with the specific patience of someone who has heard many versions of many stories and who has learned to wait for the story to finish before forming an opinion.
