Page 115 of Cut Off
“Let’s begin with February, three seasons ago—Denver, Colorado. Mr. Holt was involved in an altercation at a bar with three other professional athletes. This resulted in a two-game suspension—official NHL records, Your Honor.”
He names the game. He names the day. He gives the highlight reel version, listing blows landed, not the fact that the guy grabbed my sister’s ass, and I paid his ER bills and wrote an apology statement. None of that matters. Just the violence.
Fitch passes the file to the clerk, who gives it to the judge. The motherfucker even highlighted my name in yellow.
He glances at me, cold. “And now, most notably, Mr. Holt came to know of his son’s existence not through a voluntary relationship with Ms. Anders, but only after her untimely death forced the issue. Mr. Holt’s only been in contact withEli for a matter of weeks. A child who, in the wake of profound trauma, is in need of—above all—stability. Consistency. Safety.”
He lets the notebook drop shut, then leans in. “It’s not that Mr. Holt has a past, Your Honor—but that he has a pattern. His first instinct, under pressure, is aggression. He has never demonstrated any sustained ability to care for a child—until, very recently, when it was foisted upon him by tragedy. That’s not the foundation of a healthy home.”
He sits.
My hands fist in my lap, and the only thing keeping a lid on the rage spike is the numbness crawling up my arms. I stare at the table, the blood roaring in my ears.
The judge looks bored. He nods to Gardner. Her move.
“Your Honor, I’d like to call Ms. Anders to the stand.”
Gwen blanches, and her hand jumps to her pearls, twisting them.
Gardner leans in, voice low. “Ms. Anders, I’d like to revisit some statements you made regarding your relationship with your daughter, Ms. Rosemary Anders. You indicated the two of you were close. Was that your testimony during deposition?”
“Yes.” Gwen’s eyes flicker.
“And yet—” Gardner produces a stack of pages, each one yellow-highlighted and lethal. “—we have multiple letters, emails, and text messages in which Rosie describes you as—and I quote—‘controlling, manipulative, and the reason she left Dickens.’” Gardner reads that last one slow.
Fitch starts to object, but Gardner’s already shuffling the papers to the bailiff. “Exhibit 14A, your honor. Unredacted.”
The judge hardly blinks. “Admitted.”
Gardner’s relentless. She walks Gwen through the timeline—every year, every scab. “Did youknow in 2017, your daughter wrote her therapist that she would ‘never let her own child feel scared of her the way I was always scared of mine?’”
Gwen tries to dodge. “She had a tendency to—”
“Please answer the question.”
Color’s rising now, all the way to the tips of her ears. “No. I wasn’t aware of that.”
“And would you also agree that Rosie left this town to get away from you? Not Mr. Holt—not the other side of this courtroom—but you.”
Fitch objects. Gardner expected it, nods in a way that says yeah, yeah, do your job.
The judge overrules. “She can answer.”
Gwen’s voice is a raw scrape. “I—yes, I suppose that’s what she wrote.”
“Thank you.” Gardner pivots. She’s not even winded. “Ms. Anders, you stated that Rosie was afraid of Mr. Holt’s temper. Can you point to anything she wrote, texted, or told you which specifically said she feared Mr. Holt as a person—and not simply the volatility of his hockey career?”
Gwen’s pause is brutal. If she says no, she’s toast. If she fakes it, this judge will smell it.
“No,” she finally says, barely audible.
Gardner’s mouth ticks up—one side, predatory. “So, in fact, your daughter stated repeatedly that she was afraid of you—and her decision to leave Eli’s father was driven by her fear of being in the spotlight not a fear of Mr. Holt himself.”
“I—”
“Answer, please.”
Gwen’s knuckles go white. “Yes.”
