My attorney.
Not because I already knew what legal meaning every part of the situation had.
I did not.
Not because I had decided my father was involved in whatever issue surrounded those transfers.
I had not.
And not because I wanted someone to punish my family for being angry about the apartment.
What I needed was distance, structure, and a person who could look at what had happened without being pulled into the family story that had controlled me for years.
I needed someone who would hear the actual sequence.
The apartment.
The demand.
The reason Dad gave.
My refusal.
The assault.
The recording.
The unexplained financial pattern that was still only an unexplained financial pattern.
In that order.
No exaggeration.
No missing steps.
No accusation dressed up as certainty.
The rain kept blowing under the edge of the porch roof and darkening my jeans.
My hand still shook when I held the phone.
