Page 49 of Buddy System

He interrupts her quickly, “When you were hired to work for Mr. Colfax, you were made aware, were you not, that he was seriously injured in Afghanistan and that injury has left him with only partial strength in his right arm and hand?”

“Well, I…uh….”

“Can you explain how someone so grievously injured while heroically serving our country could do the things you claim he did to you?”

“Objection!” Schroeder bellows. “My client isn’t a physician!”

“Sustained,” says the judge in a bored voice. “Please stick to the facts, Mr. Hamilton, and don’t ask the plaintiff to make assumptions.”

“Sorry, your honor.” He looks at Mrs. Henshaw closely and asks, “When he allegedly forced his way into your house, was Mr. Colfax wearing a pair of gloves or was he barehanded?”

“Oh, um…he wasn’t wearing anything.” People in the courtroom start to laugh, and she raises her voice to add, “On hishands, not the rest of him.”

“I see, and while you were in his employ, what kinds of things was Mr. Colfax having you do around his house because he couldn’t?”

“Oh, laundry, vacuuming, changing bed linens, taking out the trash, reaching for things he couldn’t get to. That kind of thing…besides cooking, of course.”

“So you contend that someone who can’t toss laundry into a washing machine or pick up a wastebasket was able to beat you to a pulp?”

“He was lots better! Just look at him! He’s a big, strong man!”

“You were on vacation for several days before the day Mr. Colfax fired you, were you not?”

“Yes.”

“So you really had no idea how he was doing, did you?”

“I have eyes!”

“What did he do on July the sixth that made you think he was fully recovered? You said yourself just a moment ago that he didn’t look at all well. Shall I have your statement read back to you?”

“No. He looked terrible. He just lookedstrongand terrible.”

“Did you see him actually use his right hand or arm for anything before he fired you?’

“He was drinking from a bottle.”

“An alcoholic bottle?”

“No. It was one of those awful yellow sports drinks.”

“One of the quart bottles or the smaller kind?”

“It was a smaller one,” she says in a wobbly voice.

“Anything else? Possibly more strenuous than lifting a ten-ounce drink all the way to his mouth?”

She squints her eyes and looks deflated. “No.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Henshaw. I have no more questions for you at this time, but we may have to talk again later.”

She begins the slow process once again of climbing out of her seat and, with the help of her lawyer, shuffling back to the plaintiff’s chair. I wonder how much of this is an act.

Then it’s my turn on the stand. After establishing that she did work for me, Schroeder asks, “Did Mrs. Henshaw come to work for you on the sixth of July?”

“No. She came to my house that day.”

He has a perplexed look when he asks, “So you contend that she came for a social visit?”

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