The Court Conference Made Him Price Each Promise He Broke

The conference was three weeks away. I spent those weeks sewing in daylight and checking records after supper.

By the time we went to court, Ruth had her collars. Marla's wall sets hung on my rack, ready for their last tension check. The two customers waiting on refunds had agreed to later dates in writing.

I had work. I still wanted the account settled.

Ellen met me at the courthouse door.

"You don't have to accept an offer today," she said.

"I know."

"And the mediator won't decide who's right."

"The papers can do their part."

We sat in a plain room with a clock above a water cooler. Cora and her lawyer waited down the hall. Her separate claim would be discussed that day with everyone's consent, since Heath wanted one plan for paying what he owed.

The mediator was a woman with reading glasses on a cord. She asked me what I needed.

"Payment for the listed losses. A signed end to the work agreement. A correction sent to the people who got the false story. And no more use of my name."

"Anything else?"

"The settlement can't say I took a vacation."

She wrote that down.

Heath arrived wearing the coat he used for sales calls. He smiled at the mediator, then at me.

"I'd like to get back to being neighbors," he said.

I had not seen him at my new shop. He had not asked whether the wet collars dried properly.

Ellen opened our folder.

We had the purchase agreement, escrow completion notice, original release, and filing acknowledgment. We had the lock photograph and the text I had sent at 7:12. We had the signed inventory, approved work sheets, receipts, and customer instructions.

The documents fitted in one binder. The things he had told people did not fit together at all.

His lawyer no longer disputed my title. The argument was over the cost of the move and the accounting bill.

"She chose to move," Heath said.

Ellen set his message about collecting my scissors beside the signed handover.

"She was denied access to the equipment she owned."

Heath looked at the clock.

The mediator took us into separate rooms. Offers came on a yellow sheet. First $3,500. Then $4,700, with a statement saying neither side had ever misled customers.

"That last sentence is false," I said.

Ellen crossed it out.

The next draft left out the inventory. I asked for it to be attached again. A phrase like "the equipment" was too loose after what had happened. Ellen numbered each page, and I checked that the cutter's serial number had not lost its final digit.

At lunch, I ate a cheese sandwich from my bag. Cora sat beside me on a bench.

"He wants to repay me from future shop income," she said.

"What shop?"

"That's what I asked."

Her mover deposit had already been returned. Her building was empty, but it was hers. She had ended Heath's right to use it under their failed agreement.

"I can wait to start," she said. "I won't start this way."

In the afternoon, the plan changed. Heath would sell his pickup and a travel trailer. His lawyer would hold the proceeds for the agreed payments. His savings would cover any gap.

The customer refunds came first under their existing agreements. Cora's $12,600 advance would be returned in full. My claim would settle for the full documented $5,490. No one promised that those sums would also cover every hour or worry.

I would pay my own lawyer. It was a cost I understood.

The settlement required separate court judgments in my case and Cora's, entered by agreement. Payment would satisfy them. Missing the deadline would leave the judgments available for collection.

Heath also agreed to end our work arrangement, stop using my name and photo, and send a correction to the eight customers, both suppliers, and Cora. He would remove the brochures and the second-location notice.

"Can we just say we had different views?" he asked when we met again.

"You called me temporary help using your machinery," I said. "Please correct that."

His lawyer put a pen beside him.

Heath signed.

I read every page before I signed mine. The title papers stayed attached as exhibits, so nobody would have to ask later which machines we meant.

We left as the courthouse lights came on. The sidewalks had narrow paths of sand across the ice. Ellen walked with me to my truck.

"Keep working," she said. "I'll track the deadline."

At 4:16, before I started the engine, my phone lit up with Heath's correction. The first line read, Pualani Aiona was my workshop partner and the purchaser and owner of the cutting line.