Mai Asked Me To Take Back The Truth Before Her Plea

I did not return Mai's call.

I worked late instead. The new belts had arrived, and I checked their fit with the power locked off. There was comfort in a task with a clear end. A belt was either seated in its groove or it wasn't. When I finished, I washed my hands twice and still found a dark line beneath one nail.

Two days later, she came to the mill during lunch. The civil order still barred her from handling its property and records. It did not bar her from speaking to me.

I met her outside and closed the office door behind me.

"You could have answered," she said.

"You could have sent it through Ruth."

She looked past me at the loading door. Bea had hung clean mesh drying racks in the sunlight. The place smelled of washed fiber and damp wood.

"You changed the sign."

I had taken down the board that said Sales By Appointment With Mai. A new board listed our hours and the office number.

"Customers need to know who answers."

She folded her arms.

"My lawyer says the records are bad."

I waited.

"If you told them we misunderstood each other, it could help."

"We didn't misunderstand each other."

"I was going to put it back."

"You told Gideon his buyer hadn't paid."

"I needed time."

"You told thirty people I was worthless."

She looked down at the gravel.

"I said the machines were worthless."

For a moment, that small correction hurt more than the whole speech at the supper. Even now, she wanted me to accept the version that cost her least.

"The machines don't need an apology," I said.

She rubbed a thumb along the edge of her glasses.

"Do you want me in jail?"

I watched a strand of loose fiber catch on a fence staple.

"I wanted to pay Bea. I wanted the growers to get what was theirs. I wanted to know which pages had my real name on them."

"That's not an answer."

"It's what I wanted. The court will decide your sentence."

She asked whether I still loved her.

I had no tidy answer for that. There were years in our marriage I could remember without anger. There were also things I now knew she had done while I was remembering those years.

"I won't change my statement," I said.

She left without saying goodbye.

That afternoon, I wrote down the conversation and sent it to Ruth. I did not need to make Mai sound worse. Her own words were enough.

In September, we finished the divorce hearing.

The appraiser valued the working mill at $74,000. Its old machines were useful, though they were neither new nor pretty. Records from before our marriage supported my separate interest; later improvements had value the court treated as marital property.

Our house was sold. Its proceeds, our remaining savings, and the legitimate $11,720 in Mai's brokerage account were included in the property accounting. The mill was assigned to me, with her share of its marital value included in the equalization figures.

Nothing was decided by the speech she had made at supper.

The court also ordered $9,450 of my legal and accounting costs paid from the property allotted to her because of the false documents and the work needed to uncover them.

I moved into a small rental ten minutes from the mill. The kitchen window faced a wooden fence. I bought two plates at a thrift shop and discovered that a quiet room could feel different from an empty one.

My sister called from Spokane.

"You eating something green?"

"Pickles count?"

"I'm mailing you a cookbook with pictures."

For the first time in months, I laughed without feeling surprised by it.

The cooperative's outside review finished that fall. It found no missing cooperative money. Gideon's books balanced. The board restored his full payment duties and placed the review in its minutes.

Mai lost her showcase position and all access to cooperative accounts. The board gave the role to two members who would approve expenses together.

Gideon brought me a copy of the minutes.

"You could frame the clean review," I said.

"I'd have to dust it."

In October, Mai entered guilty pleas to theft and forgery. I sat behind the prosecutor as she admitted directing the payments and using my signature without permission on the loan guaranty and the later authorization.

The judge asked whether anyone had promised her that returning the money would erase the charges.

"No," Mai said.

Her voice was so low the judge asked her to repeat it.

She did.

Back at the mill, I found an envelope waiting in the locked mailbox.

It held the sentencing notice and a form asking what the loss had done to me.