Being Composed while being Deposed

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t know what to expect going into any of this. I did know I had to step up and a lot would be asked of me. After a million hours of fact-finding and serving the papers it was time to get into the deep end. I was already exhausted but truly we hadn’t started yet.

Depositions…

Imagine sitting across the table from someone you have come to have actual hatred for. Actual hatred.

I would sit in a bare office across the table from Bear’s bio Mom and her lawyer with my Lawyer sitting to my left. Always to my left. Bio Mom’s lawyer looked a lot like the Monopoly man but scummier. (That is a word, I swear) He actually looked a lot like someone who was a loan shark in some nasty, back alley, strip club.

Being deposed meant I had to sit for hours being questioned by the scum lawyer and I had to answer with as little information as possible, even better, with a simple yes or no. A woman about my age sat at the end of the table recording everything and I used to wonder how simple her life must be compared to mine when we would walk out the doors at night.

The point of a deposition is to gather information to build a case to use in court. I had to build a case against bio Mom saying she was worthless and they in turn were building a case against Dustin and I saying we were more worthless. You can see how this would get fucking annoying after some time. They would nit pick apart every penny we made, our bills, degrees, our families and parents incomes. Everything was laid on the table. Naked and exposed. Me against her. Then my Lawyer would hit bio Mom repeatedly with questions and she would inevitably have some sort of anxiety attack and we would have to quit early.

Wuss.

It was at one of these depositions I learned bio Mom had at one time gone to the police with Bear and demanded to file a report that Dustin had done something to Bear. Sexual abuse. We had never heard of this prior to that moment because, thank God, they realized bio Mom was fucking psycho and there was no case. If you ever want to practice self-restraint this would be it. This is where I learned composure, this is where I learned to not forget to breathe. This is where I learned not to reach across a table and strangle someone with my bare hands. Fucking bitch.

Bio Mom would act like Janelle on Teen Mom claiming how great of a fucking Mom she was because she change a diaper once last week AND managed to not be high that day. You would think all of this would be pretty black and white to a judge. Apparently it isn’t.

These depositions were draining. Let me say that once more, DRAINING. We would walk out and Lawyer and I would stand in the parking lot discussing what just happened and what the first step would be. I always needed details on the next step so I wouldn’t dwell on the step that just happened.

Then I was on my own.

Losing my composure in the truck.

These weren’t times when I could bring a friend for support. Dustin and I had roles to play and he was working his ass off to pay for this debacle and I worked my ass off to make it not a fiasco. We did what each of us could do. I would call Dustin when they were over and he would hide in some back office at work while I replayed every minute and he would stop and ask me questions as I went. They were often questions I wished I had asked Lawyer but Dustin’s head could always think clearer than mine. He always took it well, never acted like I could have done better. When we were both home at night we would replay it all once again.

Those depositions were typed up and page after page is tucked away in a box 10 feet away from me in the closet. I don’t know if I could stomach reading them. I don’t know if I could stomach all over again the things bio Mom put against Dustin. Things that were hardly touched on in court because they had no merit but they were never the less said and for a man who chose to raise a baby without questions, well, he didn’t fucking deserve any of that.

This was all just laying a foundation for court though. We were no where near done.