Their Settlement Offer Asked Me To Hand Over The Blue Box

I sent Lydia's message to Miriam.

"The box stays with you," she said. "Any offer comes here."

At nine the next morning, I was tuning a church piano in Bow. Owen called twice. I let both calls go to voicemail.

His lawyer sent the proposal after lunch.

Nine thousand dollars. I would release any claim to the fleet, accept Lydia's account of the transfer, and surrender my original maintenance files with the instruments.

"They're calling the files company property," Miriam said.

"They can have service copies when the company has its pianos."

"That's a reasonable position. They can't make the evidence vanish by putting it in a settlement clause."

The proposal had not come from the court. It was just something they wanted me to sign.

I read it twice anyway. Nine thousand dollars could buy tires, cover bills, and let me sleep without adding legal fees in my head.

Then I looked at the line accepting the transfer as valid.

I had spent enough years saying yes because Lydia had made no feel expensive.

"Please decline," I said.

Then I called three customers who had left messages about tuning. I booked their jobs myself, read back the dates, and sent written prices. One visit would bring $135. Another, with a small action repair, would bring $210.

It wasn't enough to settle a court case. It was work I understood, entered on a calendar I could read. For the first time in weeks, I thought about next Tuesday without seeing a bill of sale.

The sworn questioning in the civil case took place the next week. A court reporter sat at the end of a long table. Water glasses stood on paper coasters. My blue box rested beside Miriam's chair.

Owen's lawyer asked about my training, my records, and whether I sometimes forgot appointments.

"I have forgotten appointments," I said. "That's why we used a calendar."

"You relied on Mrs. Fenwick for administration?"

"For bookings and bills. I kept the instrument records."

He asked whether Lydia had warned me that the fleet needed costly work.

"She knew about the casters," I said. "Those estimates were $780 altogether."

"And other repairs?"

"Normal maintenance. The service sheets show them."

They thought I carried twelve sounds in my head. I held twelve histories in a blue box, along with the signed agreement that required my consent to sell them.

The box had never been hidden from Lydia. She had simply decided it contained nothing worth her time.

When Owen took the chair, Miriam placed the bill of sale in front of him.

"What did you review before paying twelve dollars for these instruments?"

"Lydia's figures."

"Did you obtain Mr. Bekele's written approval?"

"She said he left the business decisions to her."

Miriam handed him an email produced from North Lantern's records. She had sent us both copies the night before.

In it, Lydia had attached our company agreement.

Owen's reply read, "He won't sign a fleet sale. Can we call it disposal?"

He watched the page for a long time.

"I wasn't giving legal advice," he said.

"I'm asking whether you knew he had not agreed."

His lawyer leaned toward him. Then Owen answered.

"Yes."

At Lydia's questioning, Miriam asked when she and Owen had begun a personal relationship.

"Last November," Lydia said.

That was three months before our standing bookings began moving.

"Did you disclose that relationship when you told your husband this was an ordinary business transfer?"

"No."

I looked at the little water ring beneath my glass. I had suspected the answer. Hearing her give it under oath still hurt.

"I wanted a different life," she said, looking at me.

Miriam waited until Lydia turned back.

"You could seek a divorce. What was the business reason for reporting no assets?"

"The figures were from the tax books."

"Did you tell the insurer the fleet had a substantial replacement value?"

"Yes."

"Did you continue taking money from its rentals?"

Lydia rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her red glasses lay on the table.

"Yes."

There was no shouting. The reporter's keys clicked while my wife answered questions she could once have ended by leaving a room.

During a break, she found me by the window.

"You could have talked to me," she said.

"I asked where the pianos were."

"You know what I mean."

"I don't think I do anymore."

I took out the velvet pouch, rolled the fork between my fingers, and put it away without sounding it. I no longer needed to fill every silence for her.

The questioning ended after four. Outside, the afternoon light had already begun to fade.

Before I reached my van, Miriam called me back.

Her phone was in her hand.

"Their lawyer wants an inventory attached to a consent judgment," she said. "They're offering to return all twelve."