He Asked The Court To Call My Molds Worthless

Celia's message was part of the sale email chain she had forwarded to Briar.

It read: Marisol still appears as licensor. Get her release before I pay the remaining $80,000. The hotel accounts come with it, as agreed.

Beneath that, Nolan had replied: She thinks we're broke. I'll get it signed.

I read those two lines until the letters stopped looking like words.

Celia knew my name stood between her and the sale. Nolan thought fear would move it.

"Keep reading," Ruth said.

Celia had answered: Then use the debt. I need clean rights before Thursday.

That was the part I printed.

Ruth filed the divorce petition and a separate civil case about the royalties and proposed transfer. The papers named Nolan and Prairie Lantern. Celia's company was included because it claimed a right to buy the designs.

We asked for a quick hearing to stop the sale and preserve records while ownership and the money were examined.

The filing fees and initial legal work cost $3,800. Beatrice lent me the amount with a page from her kitchen notebook.

"Interest?" I asked.

"Stop marrying idiots."

"That's not a rate."

"It's my rate."

She wrote zero percent beneath it.

I kept working. I delivered the three bowls to a hotel off Fleur Drive and collected the remaining $600. I paid $410 toward electricity and bought two pairs of gloves.

For once, those numbers belonged to actions I could see.

Nolan sent messages at midnight. He offered me the van if I signed. Then he said the van had a loan. Then he offered to let me keep my tools as a kindness.

I sent everything to Ruth and stopped answering.

On Wednesday, we went to the Polk County courthouse. Beatrice wore a navy coat and carried the original envelope flat between two pieces of cardboard.

"It survived my cupboard," she said. "It can survive a judge."

Nolan stood beside a lawyer I hadn't met. Celia waited across the hall, tapping her phone against her palm.

He looked at my plain black trousers.

"You could have dressed like you took this seriously."

"I did."

Inside, his lawyer described a failed small business. Heavy costs. Weak demand. An owner who misunderstood money.

I knew that last person was meant to be me.

Ruth handed up the royalty agreement, the numbered photographs, and Briar's unit reports. Copies had gone to the other lawyers first. Nothing came flying out of a surprise folder.

"We ask for preservation," she said. "A final accounting will take time. This sale will not."

Nolan's lawyer said the designs had little value without Nolan's sales work.

Ruth placed the $120,000 purchase schedule next to his statement of zero value.

"Which figure should govern a sale tomorrow?" she asked.

The judge looked over her glasses.

Nolan whispered to his lawyer.

I watched a loose thread on my cuff. I had spent years filling silence when he was upset. This time, I let him sit in it.

Behind us, someone coughed. The clock above the door clicked forward. I had braced for this room to feel like his room, full of people waiting for me to stop talking. Instead, the judge kept her eyes on the agreement until she had finished the page.

The judge asked whether I claimed the photos were a government grant of ownership.

"No," I said when it was my turn. "They identify what I made. The agreement names who kept the rights."

"And when were the designs made?"

"Before our marriage. The studio used them later. I understand the money and the marriage still need to be sorted out."

Ruth had told me to answer only what I knew. It turned out that was enough work.

The judge entered a temporary order blocking a transfer of the disputed mold rights and requiring the relevant records to be kept. The disputed escrow funds would stay put. The order did not give me a final money award.

We had to post a $2,500 bond for the temporary relief. Beatrice had agreed to lend it if needed.

Nolan's mouth tightened when Ruth confirmed it could be arranged.

Outside, Celia followed us toward the stairs.

"You're blowing up an income stream you need," she said.

"I need to know where it goes."

"Nolan built those relationships."

Beatrice shifted her cardboard folder to her other arm.

"Then let him sell relationships. He listed her molds."

Celia stepped back.

That evening, Theo called while I wiped frost from the freezer door.

A small lender had responded to Ruth's records request. Nolan had submitted a loan application against Prairie Lantern's claimed assets just two months earlier.

Its attached valuation put the Reyes mold rights at $320,000.

"There's a signed asset statement," Theo said. "And your name is on it again."