Court Papers in the Locked Drawer of a Community Doctor
She turned the monitor toward me, the blue light reflecting off her silver-framed glasses and casting a pale glow over the yellow legal pads stacked between us. On the screen was the county court database, a grid of grey lines and black text that looked entirely ordinary until I saw my own name listed under the active filings.
“He did not wait for the weekend,” Karen said, her voice dropping into a flat, professional register that she usually reserved for courtroom opponents.
“What am I looking at?” I asked, my voice barely carrying across the desk.
“An initial petition for emergency interim guardianship,” she said, tapping her fountain pen on her yellow notepad. “It was filed yesterday afternoon at ten past four, just before the clerk’s office closed for the weekend.”
The room felt suddenly small, the smell of old paper and Karen’s lavender hand lotion pressing in on me. I reached for my silver wedding ring, spinning it twice around my knuckle to keep my hand from dropping onto the desk.
“How is that possible?” I asked, looking from the screen to her face. “I have not received any papers, and no one has served me with anything.”
