Never Giving Up (Never #3)(75)

“I am anxious to put this all behind me. I have a brand new baby in the hospital waiting for me to come back to her. So if you wouldn’t mind . . .” I tilted my head to the side, hoping my snark was coming across. I happened to catch Kalli grinning from her chair, so perhaps it was working.

“Right. We all want to get back to our lives, Mrs. Masters.” He took a moment to let his comment sink in, and the meaning wasn’t lost on me. I readjusted myself in my chair while he took his pregnant pause. “Tell me, what happened after you were shot?”

“I was taken to OHSU and treated.”

“For what?”

“I had a gunshot to the shoulder and a sub-cranial bleed.”

“But you recovered.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

“But not entirely.” Again, a statement.

“Objection, Your Honor. Counsel isn’t cross examining the witness. He’d need to be asking questions to do so.” Mr. Donaldson sounded exasperated. Being a lawyer took a lot of acting ability, I was learning.

“Your Honor, I am trying to make a point and if it pleases the court, I would like to continue.”

After a few seconds the judge responded with, “Get to the point, Counselor.”

“Mrs. Masters, you had some long-lasting effects from your unfortunate accident, didn’t you?”

“A few. To which are you referring?”

“Memory loss, for one?”

“Yes. I suffered from retrograde amnesia.”

“So, for a time, you couldn’t remember the actual shooting in question or the shooter for that matter.”

“That is true. But my memory returned about two months after the accident.”

“Fully?”

“Mostly.”

“Meaning?”

“There were a few things that were still fuzzy, and even now sometimes I have a hard time recalling things that happened in the six weeks of memory that I lost, but most of it comes to me fine.”

“Was your shooter’s face and identity part of the memory that came back easily?”

“As soon as my memory returned I remembered the shooting, but part of the shooter’s face was blocked from me.”

“And then, magically, while looking at a random line up of men, your memory returned and you conveniently remembered Mr. Ramie’s face, is that true?”

“There was nothing magical or convenient about it, I assure you.”

“Do you think it’s medically possible for someone’s memory to just return to them out of the blue?”

I was primed to answer the question with a resounding YES! Because that was exactly how it had happened, both times, but I was cut off by Mr. Donaldson’s loud and angry voice.

“Your Honor, I object! Mrs. Masters is not a medical professional and can’t possibly comment on the inner workings of the human brain.”

“Sustained.” The judge sounded a little upset with the defense too. “I think we all need a break. Court will recess for thirty minutes.” She banged her gavel and everyone seemed to scatter. Jason Ramie was cuffed again and led back to wherever he had emerged from.

I pushed out a long and deep breath, releasing a lot of anxiety the last twenty minutes had created within me. I walked over to the girls to grab my pump.

“That man is a dipshit,” Megan said, glaring at the defense lawyer, not bothering to keep her voice down. I was sure he heard her, but he made no motion to indicate it.

“Megan,” I scolded. “This is not some bar where you can fling insults and get pushed out by a bouncer. In this bar, the bouncer is a bailiff and you don’t get banned from the bar, you get taken to jail. So watch yourself.”

“He’s still a dipshit.” She said, only this time much quieter. I nodded slightly, agreeing with her.

An intern working for my lawyer took the three of us to a private room that apparently was used solely for nursing moms. There was a little cartoonish sign on the door of a mom holding her baby and it only made me sad that I didn’t have my baby with me. I was grateful for the space and the privacy though. I was also grateful for the break.

Once we were all situated and Kalli and Megan were discussing the defense team a little more openly now that we weren’t in the courtroom, I pulled out my phone to check my messages.

I have not given you enough credit for how strong and incredible you are. I love you madly, and Mattie is so lucky that you are her mother.



Also, they have taken Mattie to put in her PICC line. They say she should be back in about 45 minutes. How is everything going for you?



Hey, Babe. Mattie came back sleeping peacefully, PICC line successfully implanted. It’s actually pretty cool. And no more needle pokes so that’s awesome. I hope everything is going well in court. Please text me when you get a chance. We miss you.



Reading his texts I was immediately struck by a multitude of emotions all at once. First I was panicked that she’d had the procedure done while I was away. I’d officially missed something important. The thought of not being there in case something terrible had happened made my chest ache and my breath caught in my throat.

Next came relief that everything seemed to have gone all right. Then came another wave of relief with the idea that she wouldn’t need to have any more pokes to draw blood and no more I.V. shenanigans to be dealt with. I let the tension leave me with a sigh and typed my response.