Chapter 8: The Deposition
The conference room was on the twelfth floor, with a long table and a view of downtown Dallas that nobody looked at.
Garrett sat across from me with a yellow legal pad and a recorder.
Carol sat beside me.
A court reporter was at the end of the table.
Daniel was not present.
Evelyn was not present.
It started calmly.
Employment history.
How long I had lived in Dallas.
How long I had been married to Daniel.
Then Garrett set a document on the table and slid it toward me.
"Mrs.
Hartley, I'd like to ask you about a period of treatment you underwent beginning in the spring of four years ago."
I looked at Carol.
Carol looked at the document.
"Counsel," she said, "I'd like to know the source of that document before my client responds to anything related to it."
"It was produced voluntarily," Garrett said.
"By whom?"
A pause.
"By Mr.
Hartley."
Carol's expression did not change.
But her pen stopped moving.
"My client's therapy records are protected," she said.
"If Mr.
Hartley shared any clinical documentation with you, we will be challenging both the admissibility and the method of acquisition."
"Mr.
Hartley had access to shared household files —"
"A therapy record is not a household file."
Garrett moved on.
But the document stayed on the table between us, and I understood now what Evelyn had meant when she said it like she already had it.
Daniel had given it to them.
Whatever was in that folder — my therapist's notes, a summary, something I had never imagined anyone else would read — Daniel had handed it over.
I kept my hands flat on the table.
Garrett asked about the miscarriage.
He asked about the eight months of therapy.
He asked whether I had ever been prescribed medication for anxiety.
"I took a low-dose prescription for approximately three months," I said.
"My doctor and I agreed I no longer needed it.
That was over three years ago."
"And during that period, would you characterize your emotional state as stable?"
"I was grieving," I said.
"I sought professional help.
I got better.
That's what mental health care is for."
"Were there incidents during that period where your husband expressed concern about your behavior?"
"You would need to ask my husband."
"I'm asking you."
"Then my answer is no."
Garrett made a note.
He asked several more questions — about the birthday dinner, about my decision to play the video, about whether I had informed Daniel in advance that I intended to present the footage.
"No," I said.
"I didn't tell him."
"Why not?"
"Because I had watched him tilt the camera away from what his mother was doing.
I didn't know what else he might do if I told him in advance."
Garrett paused.
It was a small pause, but I caught it.
"So you acted deliberately to surprise your husband."
"I acted deliberately to make sure the truth was seen."
After the deposition, Carol and I sat in her car in the parking garage.
"The therapy record," I said.
"We'll file a motion.
If Daniel obtained that document from shared household storage, it may not be admissible.
If he obtained it from your therapist directly, that's a different problem — for him." Carol turned to look at me.
"But I want to ask you something.
Is there anything in those records that Evelyn's attorney could use effectively?"
I thought about it honestly.
"I was sad," I said.
"I had lost a pregnancy.
I cried in sessions.
I talked about feeling isolated in Daniel's family." I paused.
"I talked about Evelyn.
About feeling like she didn't accept me.
About feeling like Daniel chose her over me in small ways, repeatedly."
"That's not instability," Carol said.
"That's insight."
"I know.
But it's in writing."
Carol nodded slowly.
"Then we call your therapist as a witness," she said.
"We let her explain, in her own words, what she observed and what she treated.
We take that document out of Garrett's hands and we put it in ours."
I looked through the windshield at the concrete wall of the parking garage.
"Daniel gave them my therapy records," I said.
"Yes."
"He sat in that house and let his mother build a case against me and he handed over my therapy records."
"Yes."
I didn't say anything else for a moment.
"Call the therapist," I said.
"Her name is Dr.
Yuen.
She'll remember me."
Carol wrote it down.
"There's one more thing," I said.
"The deed.
Did you get the county records?"
Carol opened her bag and pulled out a folded printout.
"Evelyn Hartley is listed as a co-borrower on the refinance," she said.
"Which means she has a financial interest in the family home.
Which means if Daniel is awarded primary custody and remains in that home, Evelyn has a legal basis to be present there regularly." She set the paper on the console between us.
"She didn't just fund the divorce.
She structured it so that winning custody means winning access."
I stared at the paper.
"She planned all of it," I said.
"From the beginning," Carol said.
"The question now is whether we can make a judge see the whole picture."
"Can we?"
Carol started the car.
"We're going to try," she said.
"And we have something Evelyn doesn't."
"What's that?"
May you like
"The truth," she said.
"And a ten-year-old boy named Marcus who saw exactly what his grandmother did."
