“Let them talk first, Cassidy,” Gwen whispered to me while touching the manila folder on the table to keep me from standing up. I watched as my mother pulled in neighbors and old church friends to testify that I had been seen in town during the years I was actually overseas.
She scattered old family photos across the table like clutter in an attempt to prove that I had never truly left the state of Arizona. “She was just hiding out in a different city and pretending to be a hero,” one of the neighbors told the judge while avoiding my gaze.
The worst part was hearing my mother tell the court that she had carried the burden of my grandfather’s care alone while I was off pretending to matter. “I was the one who changed his bandages and drove him to the clinic while she was playing soldier,” she said with a sob that sounded practiced.
For one ugly second I actually understood the bitterness that was pouring out of her because she had been the one driving him to every single appointment. She was the one who fought with insurance companies and cleaned him up when his hands shook too hard for him to hold a spoon at dinner.
The room went completely quiet when the judge looked in my direction and asked if I had anything concrete to offer the court today. “Miss Miller, do you have any response to these allegations of fraud regarding your military history?” the judge asked while peering over his spectacles.
Gwen looked at me just once and I knew that this entire moment had been carefully planned before we ever stepped inside the Tucson courthouse. I stood up and slid off my blazer before pressing my fingers to the tight ridge of skin above my collarbone where the scars still pull.
“I have plenty to say, Your Honor, but I would rather show you the physical evidence first,” I said while moving the fabric of my shirt just enough. I revealed the pale and hard line where a piece of shrapnel had entered my body before the field surgeons had to dig it back out.
My mother actually laughed at the sight of it and leaned forward to address the bench without waiting for her turn to speak. “That scar could have come from a car accident or a fall in the kitchen, and it proves absolutely nothing about her service,” she claimed.