“Ready and eager, Your Honor,” Garrison replied, his voice a smooth, baritone purr.
Then, the judge’s eyes shifted to me. The silence that followed was deafening. He looked at the empty chairs beside me, then back at his notes, his frown deepening into a jagged ravine. “Mrs. Simmons. I see you are currently without counsel. Are you intending to represent yourself pro se in a matter involving forensic accounting and complex corporate holdings?”
“I… I am expecting my attorney, Your Honor,” I said. My voice was a thin, wavering thread, barely audible over the hum of the air conditioning. I felt Keith’s gaze on the side of my face—a hot, mocking weight. “She was delayed. The FDR is… there’s an accident.”
Keith didn’t even try to hide the snort of derision. “Your Honor,” Garrison interjected, rising slowly and adjustng his cufflinks as if he were preparing for a light stroll rather than a legal execution. “With all due respect to the court’s time, my client has been under extraordinary emotional and financial strain due to Mrs. Simmons’ continued… shall we say, eccentricities. We have a signed, notarized prenuptial agreement. We have clear documentation of the separate nature of the primary assets. Every minute we wait for a ‘ghost’ attorney is a minute my client is being denied his right to move forward with his life.”
Garrison leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, lethal whisper. “Under the precedent of Vargas v. State of New York, we move for an immediate default judgment. Mrs. Simmons has had six months. The absence of counsel today is not a tragedy, Your Honor—it is a choice. A choice to disrespect this court and my client’s future.”
Judge Henderson looked at me, and for a fleeting second, I saw a flicker of something that might have been pity, or perhaps just the weary frustration of a man who hated to see a slaughter masquerading as a trial.
“Mrs. Simmons,” Henderson said, his voice heavy. “The law is a structure of deadlines and requirements. It does not pause for traffic. If your counsel is not through those doors in sixty seconds, I will be forced to grant Mr. Ford’s motion. I cannot hold this docket for a person who may not exist.”
