Linda stared down at her interlaced fingers and saw she was gripping them so tightly they’d gone white. But that memory wasn’t new. She had gotten over it, hadn’t she?

“So, let’s get down to business.” Linda hadn’t caught the name of her mother’s lawyer but in her mind he was Alligator. “A rapidly scheduled competency hearing is in everyone’s best interest.”

“How so?” Tiny Crawdad, her lawyer, did his best to sound belligerent but it wasn’t very effective.

“Because if there’s any delay, my client will press charges for the fraudulent use of her credit cards to the tune of thousands of dollars over the last three years.”

“I had permission! And if she wasn’t holding up my inheritance I wouldn’t be living off of her.” Her lawyer made a shushing gesture and Linda subsided.

Okay, she thought, that was teenaged Linda. I can’t let my mother, or her lawyer, do that to me, make me fourteen again. I don’t have to take it.

“What’s the basis for the claim my client isn’t competent to handle her financial affairs?”

“She’s itinerant and has made no attempt to learn any of the facets of its management.”

In spite of a warning gesture from her lawyer, Linda said, “I used to ask questions but I never received any answers.”

Her lawyer gave her a severe look and Linda subsided. Say nothing, she told herself. Everything they say is a lie and you’ll never change their minds.

“Finishing schooling at least through a graduate degree was agreed upon as a sign of competence when she was released from Shady Lawns. She never finished, even after my client paid for two years at Yale.”

“The loony bin, you mean. There were no lawns and it is never shady indoors.” Dr. Kirkland, Linda wailed to herself, I’m still crazy . . . she still makes me crazy. And she hasn’t said a word! Helpless to stop herself from speaking, Linda rushed on, “I didn’t finish because I had to have surgery and by the time I recovered the semester had ended and I got deferred but then Mommy Dearest withheld funds and I couldn’t afford to finish the degree the following year. Because of her assets and my supposed inheritance I couldn’t qualify for any kind of aid. And the surgery I had to have was because the remnant of one of my floating ribs pierced my spleen.”

“I don’t think this is productive.” Linda’s lawyer got abruptly to his feet. “Send your motions over and we’ll respond.”

Still speaking to her mother’s lawyer, Linda said fiercely, “If you had a daughter, would you have let someone remove her lower ribs when she was eight?”

Alligator gave her a stone-faced look in return and then held the door for her mother, still silent, to exit ahead of him.

After the door closed, Tiny Crawdad sighed heavily.

“I know, I know. I shouldn’t talk.” Linda put her head down on her folded hands. “But I’m tired of not talking. Of not being allowed to talk.”