Love them for a while

"We have been going around in circles this entire time?" Jackson asks sitting on a camp chair looking upwards wondering why they were still there but too tired to do anything about it.

"I had to give it a try, some people talk more when they are tired. Some tell the truth and others lie. I believe you're the letter and tell tall tales." Jackson ignores his jibe at him.

"I believe you were telling us about your mother somehow preventing your divorce without your signature, or consent."

Jackson decides to let his disbelief go for now only wanting to get home to his family.

"Well my mother, your wife has been hiding a couple of things from me for years now, like the fact that there is more to my father leaving than what she has told me and refuses to tell me even now."

"Robert said it's her story to tell and not his, as you all know he had to go back to Montana."

"Is that it, you haven't spoken to your mother in months for a secret that you don't even know? How much have you done to even find it out?"

" I did try to find it out and when I did, I found out new secrets that she had laid out for me to find in anticipation of me investigating her."

"She deliberately blocked all the family lawyers from helping me, using the pandemic as an excuse and I fell for it hook, line and sinker, and broke into her house."

"You mean the one I live in too, and neither one of you thought to inform me of this housebreaking!"

"I have a key. And anyway, it was a trap. She knew I was coming and led me straight into another secret to cover for the one about Robert. Turns out, me and April never got a divorce, mother put a stop to it"

"She said it was so I could keep-"

"Wait, back up a little, could you repeat what you just said, because I thought I heard you repeat the tall tale again... Your mother is capable of-"

"Believe me Richard me and April never got a divorced and..." Richard and Ben only look at him.

"I don't know about you, but son I got the whole weekend."

"Remember when we were sitting together going through me and April's marriage papers and you walked in on us. I remember because you weren't too happy about me trying to find ways to sue April."

"Yes I remember."

"I left some documents with her that day, I only left with some copies and she had some of my documents with her for a long time. I kept on asking for them and she kept on making excuses, remember you even said, Catherine give the child the documents and she snapped at you, telling you to mind your own business. From that day on I stopped asking for them?"

Richard doesn't say anything.

"Don't you remember maybe a strange meeting with a lawyer, or her acting strangely during that time?"

Richard thinks about it for a long time and his forehead smoothes out when he starts to remember.

"Well, let's go." Jackson says, standing up.

"And the trial?"

"You said we would leave after we spoke about my mother."

"Well, I lied, we are here to talk about everything, to catch up."

"This is tyranny!"

"Son, start talking. The clock is ticking."

"Let's at least talk in the car. It's 2 hours back! We can squeeze in so much with that time!"

"You're wasting time." Richard says folding his arms and looking up at him.

"Come on!"

"Sooo what is your plan for the trial, your strategy?" Ben asks getting more comfortable.

"I, I don't have any"

"What? why not?"

"You just got your family back and you're just giving up?"

"That's the problem, I just got them back and I don't know how crazy this trial will get or how long it will be. I haven't given up, I won't give up. I just know that my kids just lost their dad and I want to be there for them, besides I have been alone for so long that... Without them I feel alone and anxious. I just need them close and was just taking a few days off to be with them." Jackson sits back down again defeated by Richard's relentlessness.

"If you can promise to work with us to come up with a plan in a couple of days time... We can go home right now." Richard says after couple of minutes in thought.

"Really!" Ben and Jackson say at the same time.

"Yes, I can understand you needing some time with family, but you also need to focus on fighting for them too. It would be too cruel of you to give them a few days of yourself and just give up on them because I know you, if I don't step in, yes you'll fight, but not the way you ought to."

"Deal!" Jackson says getting up, already halfway to the car by the time everyone has registered his answer, not giving Richard time to think of another speech.

"I'll hold you to that!" Richard says shouting at his back.