He looked up, startled.
“You’ll need strength,” I told him. “And in this house, people eat before they fall apart twice.”
Emma laughed through tears. Brandon managed half a slice.
The trial took eleven months to arrive and nearly four weeks to finish.
By then, Diane had traded the silk blouses for court suits and the wounded smile for something sharper. She entered the courtroom every morning as if she were attending an unpleasant charity board meeting. Roger sat at the defense table beside her, diminished without movement, his tan fading under fluorescent light. They had separate lawyers, though their defenses tangled around each other like snakes.
I sat in the gallery every day.
So did Emma.
So did Brandon.
The first day he testified, he wore a navy suit and looked like he had aged five years since brunch. Emma held his hand until the bailiff called his name. Then he walked to the stand alone.
Diane did not look at him when he passed.
The prosecutor began gently, establishing his name, his work, his relationship to Diane and Roger. Then came the history. Brandon’s childhood. His father’s death. Diane’s relationships. Her financial crises. Roger’s arrival. The pressure. The Boca incident. The estrangement. Roger’s tearful visit. The calls. Emma.
“Did you believe your mother and stepfather intended to defraud Henry Calloway?” the prosecutor asked.
Brandon closed his eyes briefly.
“Yes.”
“When did you understand that?”
“At the brunch,” he said. “When my mother presented the wedding budget and demanded over a million dollars under what she called Whitfield tradition.”
“Was that a real tradition?”
“No.”
“Had you heard of it before that day?”
“No.”
“Did your mother know it was false?”
Brandon looked toward Diane then.
She stared straight ahead.
“Yes,” he said.
His voice cracked, but he did not look away.
The defense tried to paint him as a bitter son, unstable, manipulated by Emma and me. Diane’s lawyer suggested he had invented parts of the story to escape responsibility. Roger’s lawyer implied Brandon had participated and turned on his parents only when the scheme failed. Brandon answered every question. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes painfully. But he answered.
“Isn’t it true,” Diane’s lawyer asked, “that you resented your mother for remarrying after your father died?”
“No.”
