“Let them talk first, Cassidy,” Gwen whispered to me while touching the manila folder on the table to keep me from standing up. I watched as my mother pulled in neighbors and old church friends to testify that I had been seen in town during the years I was actually overseas.
She scattered old family photos across the table like clutter in an attempt to prove that I had never truly left the state of Arizona. “She was just hiding out in a different city and pretending to be a hero,” one of the neighbors told the judge while avoiding my gaze.
The worst part was hearing my mother tell the court that she had carried the burden of my grandfather’s care alone while I was off pretending to matter. “I was the one who changed his bandages and drove him to the clinic while she was playing soldier,” she said with a sob that sounded practiced.
For one ugly second I actually understood the bitterness that was pouring out of her because she had been the one driving him to every single appointment. She was the one who fought with insurance companies and cleaned him up when his hands shook too hard for him to hold a spoon at dinner.