Petra Read Her Appointment Book Across The Courtroom From Lucien

By September, my binder had grown too thick for its rings.

Simone replaced it with two binders. One held ownership records. One held money records. I carried neither into the witness chair. She said I should answer questions, not clutch my proof like a shield.

Lucien sat across the courtroom in Covington with a new blue tie. He smiled at people he knew. When he saw Petra, he stopped smiling.

The earlier emergency orders had kept the glass safe. Now the judge would hear the ownership dispute, the challenge to Grandma's signed acts, and Lucien's handling of estate funds. Both sides had agreed to bring those related issues together.

His lawyer began with me.

"You depended on your grandmother for a place to work?"

"Yes."

"You stood to benefit from this trust?"

"Yes. I was appointed to care for its collection and direct approved restoration work."

"And you were alone with her a great deal."

"I lived next door. I helped her every day."

He let that sit, hoping it would become something else.

"You handled her medicine?"

"According to her doctor's written schedule."

"You decided who visited?"

"No. I asked people to call before coming when she was resting."

He showed me a text asking Lucien to come after two.

Simone later showed the whole exchange. Grandma had been at a medical appointment until one-thirty. I had offered to save him lunch.

He had replied with a thumbs-up and never arrived.

Petra took the chair after me. Her gentle voice made the lawyer lean forward.

"You were close to Mrs. Delacroix?"

"We were friends. That is why I was careful about having independent witnesses."

She explained the codicil signing. Grandma had stated her wishes herself. Petra had read the document aloud. The two witnesses had stayed through the signing and declaration. Both were in court, ready to confirm it.

"You remember a routine appointment eighteen months before her death?"

"It wasn't routine to her."

Petra opened her green book after the judge allowed her to consult it.

"She requested a morning appointment because she was sharper before lunch. We moved it to the afternoon because one witness had a school meeting. She complained about that change."

The lawyer glanced at Lucien.

"Complaining doesn't establish capacity."

"No," Petra said. "Her clear instructions, her questions, and her understanding of the document were what I observed. The appointment book fixes the date."

She did not try to be a doctor. She described what Grandma had said and done.

The lawyer who had prepared the trust was gone, but his file remained. His notes described meetings with Grandma before any illness had required daily care. The deed had been recorded three years before her death. Bank records showed the funding. The witnesses to those acts confirmed their signatures and the signing process.

Lucien's challenge rested on late hospital notes from her final week.

Those notes described a sick woman years after the trust transfer and eighteen months after the codicil. They did not reach backward just because he needed them to.

Then Simone asked Lucien about the sale.

"Did you have permission from the bank trustee?"

"I believed I owned it."

"Did you have permission to sign Ms. Delacroix's name?"

"She signed plenty of things for Grandma."

"Did you have her permission?"

"Not in writing."

"Or orally?"

He looked at me.

"She would have made a fuss."

The judge asked him to answer the question.

"No."

Mavis explained the payments next. She used four checks, four false receipts, and one bank statement. Her chart fit on a single sheet.

Lucien said he had paid me cash.

"Where did the cash come from?" Simone asked.

He could not match the amounts to withdrawals. Asked about the email, he said his tax preparer had misunderstood.

The preparer had preserved his original message.

Simone also offered the attached care logs Lucien had sent with his receipts. One claimed I had worked twelve hours at Grandma's house on a day she had spent entirely in the hospital. He said he had filled in the dates from memory. The judge compared the log with the hospital's visitor record, then asked why an estimated log had been labeled exact.

He blamed a spreadsheet.

I watched him wait for somebody to smile. Nobody did. Even his lawyer looked down at the table.

When testimony ended, the judge said she would issue written reasons. The protective orders would remain in place.

Lucien passed me near the water fountain.

"You could have let me sell one window."

"You could have asked whose it was."

For the first time, he had no answer ready.

Two weeks later, Simone called while I was brushing old cement from a lead channel.

"The ruling is in," she said. "Come read the last four pages with me."