Aunt Sarah laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“He paid for her.
That is what he did.
Ask him why a grown widower was willing to marry an eighteen-year-old girl.”
The accusation struck exactly where she intended it to.
Everyone looked at Michael.
He did not retreat from it.
“Because I was desperate,” he said.
“My children were grieving.
I was working twelve-hour days, and I believed Sarah when she said Emily wanted a home of her own.
I should have spoken to Emily alone.
I should have asked whether she was choosing any of it.
I did not.”
He looked at me rather than at the judge.
“I was wrong.”
It was not a romantic apology.
It did not erase what had happened.
That was why I believed it.
Grace lifted the cashier’s check attached to Michael’s receipt.
“The check was deposited into an account belonging to Sutton Family Holdings LLC,” she said.
“The same company named on the deed.”
The banker’s face changed.
He pulled the unsigned loan documents away from Caleb.
Caleb noticed.
“This is a family dispute,” he said.
“The deed was properly notarized and recorded.
You cannot cancel a business loan because a girl suddenly regrets helping her relatives.”
Grace turned to June, the notary.
“Did Emily sign this document in your presence?”
June’s fingers tightened around the clasp of her purse.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At Sarah’s house.”
“What time?”
“The morning of January fourteenth.”
“Be precise.”
June glanced at Aunt Sarah.
“Nine o’clock.
Perhaps a few minutes after.”
The county clerk retrieved the electronic filing receipt.
The deed had been submitted at 9:12 a.m.
June’s notarial certificate stated that I had personally appeared before her at 8:55.
Grace asked the judge for permission to call two witnesses waiting outside.
The first was Mrs.
Powell, the church seamstress who had fastened the borrowed dress around me.
The second was Pastor Helen, who had performed the hurried ceremony at Michael’s house later that morning.
Mrs.
Powell carried a small appointment book.
She had written my name beside the time she arrived at Aunt Sarah’s house: 8:40 a.m.
“I was with Emily from then until after nine-thirty,” she said.
“She never left the bedroom.
Sarah came in twice, but no notary came near the girl.”
Pastor Helen confirmed it.
“I asked whether Emily had completed the county paperwork,” she said.
“Sarah told me she had taken care of everything.”
