“I—that’s not a bad idea,” Marlin said, her frown dissolving. She eyed the others.

“I’ll ask Jeff,” Tyler said to her. He turned back to me, looking carefully into my eyes. “And—it’s undeveloped. You want us to give undeveloped film to the judge.”

“Sure. Why not? I didn’t develop it. I’m not a filmmaker. It’s as it would have been when it came out of the lake. I mean: Do whatever you want with it. But I think you need it.”

They looked at each other, exchanging information without speaking, and then when one of them nodded, so did the rest. Tyler walked to the bar, pulled a number from his phone, and dialed.

“Jeff, hi, it’s Tyler. Yeah…I know it’s late. I’m sorry. We have—we have a better solution. We’re willing to hand the film to the judge, but it’s not been developed…” There was a long pause. “She would order it to be developed. Are we supposed to?…No. The plaintiff will? Okay. That’s fine. No. Can we ask them to submit a proposal for the development? Can we approve it? Okay. Let’s draw that out as long as we can. Okay…And the other thing is that—it cannot be valued. That’s right. It does not have a value. No, it can’t be sold…Uh, sure, it can be loaned. But right, yes, exactly…it has no value…That has to be the condition…You’re the lawyer…Good…We don’t—okay.”

He came back and sat at the table. “She bought us ten months. Maybe a year. What do you want to do?”

“That doesn’t change anything—” Jes wasn’t finishing any of her sentences.

“I know,” Tyler said, throwing his hands in the air. “I know.”

“We’re still split,” Jack said. “I won’t change my mind. I’ll lose my job. I’ll lose my family.”

“I know,” Tyler said, wearily. From the look on his face, they’d had this discussion one or two million times. “I know we are.”

“Jack, it’s going to come out. You have to see that by now,” Jes said.

“Shut up, Jes,” Marlin growled, and she was that different Marlin again, someone angry, someone new.

“What did you guys do?” I asked.

Nobody answered.

Tyler shook his head and turned to me, genuine concern sunk in every fine line of his face. “Why did you do this? Why did you make this for us?”

“Me?”

“You.”