02.09.09 - 1:12 am

she unraveled. stripped away of the last five years, she sat and quietly spoke her answers, just barely above a whisper. another question later, she would return to the present: passionately defending her values with arrogant contempt. collin didnt press. didnt argue. he would let sarah damage herself. she would weave in and out of truth and contradiction, lies and naivete. and all of it recorded and transcribed. and under a raised right hand and spoken oath.

i dont think she expected to see me sitting in that lobby. i remember her muttering an "oh shit" before she pulled open the doors followed by dusty and a three week old arthur. sarah would only ask me where ashton was, bitterly, as if i had left him sitting by himself at home. the secretary would lead the three of them to the conference room and then to another room down the hall, where dusty and arthur would remain.

i shook her attorneys hand, and did not echo back her complimentary "nice to meet you..." . in a few moments, sarah would be seated, facing collin and i. a court reporter would sit at the end of the massive table, and lisa martin would spend the next four hours looking over my shoulder at the north eastern skyline of portland.

it started with sudden, strongly worded legal statements. the gravity of our gathering appeared almost too abruptly. as if there should have been a prolonged pause or some cheerful banter between taking our seats and collin coldly initiating the deposition. she looked like she was seventeen again. she answered her questions so quietly i felt a sense of responsibility for her discomfort. i felt bad. like i was watching someone being tortured, personally chosen from my past. i reminded myself that she knew what she was getting into. that she brought us here. that any harm done to her from here on out was the culmination of all of her years damaging me.

arthur frobisher. arthur frobisher. arthur frobisher.

my hands were freezing. i kept them under the table, or behind my yellow notepad to keep their shaking hidden. i spent most of my time writing notes and watching the facial expressions of collin as he asked sarah his series of questions. i remember being surprised by his appearance. his voice is distinct, the quiet way he speaks with strict, even tonation. his face though always fades from memory. i hardly recognize him when i see him in pictures. he has red hair. he has featureless lips. but when i visualize him, i always see someone else. a customer of mine, an older man with those same featureless lips. he had a beard today.

he asked sarah about drugs. what had she done. she smoked weed and meth she softly replied. anything else? no, she said back almost laughing, as if he was being absurd.

"i miss memories. i remembered me and pablo driving karas car doing lines of coke off the dash while we were trying to find the hotel carmello was in." sarahs journal. may 5th, 2004.

cocaine is why we broke up the last time. you were out partying after you turned 21, and you started doing cocaine in bathrooms. you denied it up and down, until gabby told me. and remember when we ate mushrooms? and then you did them a few weeks later with kristin, only this time instead of half a bag, you ate an entire one? i seem to remember you experimented with other drugs as well up until you turned 17.

he asked her when she stopped doing meth. she said she didnt remember. he asked her if she stopped before she got pregnant. she firmly replied yes. i told collin about the tattoo, and what the date on it meant. november 20th, 2002. she was puzzled about why he would ask her arbitrarily if she had any tattoos and what they were of, but i think by the time she listed that last tattoo on the inside of her arm she realized what he was getting at.

the day she found out she was pregnant. the day she said saved her life. the day she spent doing meth at two peoples houses, trying to avoid the nagging awareness that she was infact pregnant and needed to get it confirmed at a clinic. the same day she had a five week old child inside her.

collin asked her if a judge should consider methamphetamines use when deciding on a parenting plan doing a custody dispute. she said yes.

several questions were asked in which sarah had to ask for it to be repeated. or explained. or defined. it was obvious collin was frustrated at times, annoyed that he had to dumb down his terms so that they could be understood by her. i noticed the discipline needed to rephrase questions in such a way so as to not lead sarah in anyway. to keep his questions open ended. he didnt want just yes or no answers. the more she spoke, the more she could let slip. he asked her if she had filed her uniform support affidavit. she paused, looking blankly back at him. she stuttered out an i dont think so, what is that? ill take that as a no he said. moving on.

and then came the breaks. arthur needs to nurse. arthur is crying. sarah left several times during the deposition. turning what collin had told me was an hour to an hour and forty minute discussion into the four hours it became.

sarah said i dont know alot. she said i dont remember alot. when asked if she had ever had her license suspended she said yes. when? i dont remember. for how long? i dont know. thirty days? i dont remember. sixty days? i dont know. did she ever drive with ashton while having a suspended license? no! not at all. that was a pleasant gotcha moment, because when collin gets her driving record from the dmv, it will show that yes, she had her license suspended for over a year. and during that time she drove constantly. when collin asked her if shed been arrested, she said yes. i think she said twice. she said that she was arrested for punching her mom in the arm. the second time was just because her mom called the police and demanded she go to juvenile detention. so the police report would show no other reason for your arrest? nothing, my mom just wanted me to go to juvenile. collin was particularly baffled by these answers. if i remember correctly she was arrested because she was hitting her mom and threatening to kill her.

sarah had a hard time explaining why she didnt want to split the $1000 child tax credit last year. she stated repeatedly that she didnt think i deserved any of her money. that she didnt want to give me any of her tax refund. collin tried to explain that there was a seperate amount given to people with children independant of your income and earnings. she didnt understand and kept referring to the tax return as her money.

lisa martin still looked out the window. blankly. playing with her hands. she objected once during the questioning. collin showed sarah an example of my many transcribed conversations between us. does this jog your memory? does this document reflect what you two discussed? i dont know. maybe. maybe its an example of what jordan thought we discussed. i dont remember this. well, you are aware that i asked for your phone records in my request of documents, correct? objection. this has no relevancy towards establishing a parenting plan, now if you need them you can subpoena them. there is an immense amount of information included in phone records. names and phone numbers of other people. theres an invasion of privacy issue.

collin stated he wanted to go off record. him and lisa talked about something i cant remember. but i think he was demanding the documents. did he threaten a subpoena? did he simply state the word subpoena and it was so? i dont remember. but then he said, ok back on record now.

let it be shown that the petitioner has two weeks to gather requested documents. and then he moved on.

are you aware of what the term custody means?

custody? as in what? legal or physical?

thank you! so you do infact know what im talking about, collin excitedly announced. annoyance was thick in his tone however.

later he would ask sarah to tell him what my good qualities are. her voice was back to being quiet, like a daughter being scolded by an angry father. what are mr noes good qualities as a parent? he loves ashton. and hes a good dad. anything more to add? no. what are his bad qualities as a parent? i have a few safety concerns . i dont think he gets enough sleep at his dads. he was still using a toddler car seat for ashton up until he was five. and he left ashton alone on one occasion when he went to the store to get back his wallet.

she cracked her neck. collin looked away slightly and grimaced, pausing in the middle of his question to do so.

so inspite of you describing mr noe as a good dad, you find his decisions on parenting to not be safe? expand on that distinction.

her most rapid answer came after collin asked if she had any bad qualities as a parent. no, she quickly retorted. she would say no with that same smug enthusiasm one other time during the deposition. i think it was when collin asked for her phone records and she said no, he could not.

have you discussed what religion you will be raising ashton to be with mr noe? no i have not. but i would like to raise him in cathlickism. because thats how it was in the household i grew up in. cathlickism. catholicism. semantics, really.

another break. during these times collin and lisa would discuss their respective positions. collin would try to show how flexible and reasonable we were. trying to get some of the same out of sarahs position. thats great that your client is willing to be flexible, thats really good to know, said lisa. collin would look at me in agreement as he spoke, lisa would speak to collin as if i wasnt sitting directly infront of her. she never made eye contact with me. she spoke with condescending apathy, as if we were a nuisance. as if i was. she didnt see my participation at any point in development of the child, and to a judge that "just doesnt bode well".

sarahs claim. that she has had ashton since he was born. that shes been the sole caretaker. the sole decision maker. that no initiative came from me. that i have not shared any of the cost of raising a child.

collin showed her my calendar records. from 2005 to 2008. with dates. with hours. with pick up locations. with distances driven.
2008: 2328 hours. 97 days. 30% of year. 1,872 miles of driving for pickup and drop off.
2007: 3096 hours. 129 days. 35.3% of year. 6,901 miles of driving for pickup and drop off.
2006: 2928 hours. 122 days. 43.5% of year. data not recorded.
2005: data not yet recorded.

a clear example of how much effort i was putting in. how many miles i was driving. and most importantly, how increasingly little time i was getting as the years progressed.

i noticed your hands are shaking, are you alright? collin asked as sarah looked over the extensive spread sheet julie had meticulously composed for me.
no, im fine, i just dont drink coffee ever and i just had one this morning....

if he felt like he was being shut out and it was so important to him, why didnt he come to you earlier? lisa said with a smirk and a shrug during a break. i looked at her in disbelief. how completely fucking arrogant. as if the $5,000 dollars i already had to beg from my grandfather was something easy to stumble upon. how easy and effortless a custody case is, like getting groceries. i was not pleased by her statement.

the entire experience ended at 530 pm that day. i was emotionally exhausted, and all i did was listen. watch. collin, can i speak with you a moment? i was able to say during the breaks. and he would enthusiastically oblige. id ask him questions, make sure we were on the same page, and give him more insight into things he was asking. we would come back, sit down and collin would begin again. afterwards, he would say that he feels sarah does not have alot of money to throw at this ordeal. which is why he feels i have not been deposed yet myself. they are costly. she cant afford it. were doing good. the documents helped. the records helped. her testimony was full of holes and lies.

she strikes me as a woman who cant see past the end of her nose, he said.

collin appears confident. everything that ive saved over the last five years and was able to use to counter sarahs claims makes me feel confident. some say they cant imagine how i am dealing with all of this. i am optimistic. i dont worry. i dont feel my case is bullet proof, but i feel like i still have several more options available to me, when i need them, to display how terrible sarah has been and how capable as a parent i am. sarah has no records. she has nothing. nothing but i dont knows and i dont remembers. nothing to corroborate her position in this custody case. i have a kick ass attorney. if what collin feels about sarahs attorney is true, this will become a war of attrition. who can outlast who financially.

good, well just keep throwing money at this until we win, my step father assures me.

mediation is the next step. i want it to work out and resolve all of this then. make it easy on us. on ashton. ultimately sarah and i need it to. we have to. otherwise we face trial by judge. trials are horrifically expensive. frank spent $28,000. one of mikes friends spent $50,000. and according to collin, alot of judges are very comfortable not reviewing a case and imposing 'weekend dad' status out of laziness. i dont want to have worked this hard and saved all that i have only to have it ignored by the apathy of the legal system.

in 8 hours i have to be in hillsboro. for conciliation services. something about mediation. is it just getting the date? is it a practice run? i have no idea. i need to shave and iron a shirt. im going to bed far later than i had planned. i am at the base of the mountain, approaching the top. mediation is when it will get really ugly, the hardest part. or the prehardest part.

good luck, mr frobisher.