24 December 2009

Well Catherine,

This has certainly been an interesting year. First, you refused to vacate your gratuitous legal attack of 2006, then falsely accused me of felony burglary. When the police suggested an expensive mediation to address your fear, you agreed, then failed to appear. When this required much more expensive court action on my part, you contested. But again you failed to show such that, with your appeal, your actions shall have cost me nearly $20,000. Whatever the courts may finally decide, you owe me a significant moral debt, whose cash value is no less than eighteen thousand dollars, incurring annual interest at the federal prime rate plus two, beginning 25 February 2011. Please plan to pay it in full before returning to Oregon or Washington.

In some ways I suppose I should thank you for this odd trial by ordeal. At Republic 361 Glaucon asserts that the most perfect justice is to be just but considered unjust, a situation no sane person would hope for. With no good intent or rational plan, you put me in a crucible which helped prove my temper as a matter of public record. For the rest of my life I may speak of this wrong: sure of what each did and confident of who I was and remained in the face of repeated, provocative insult.

When you left me in February of 1998 there was a clear commitment to remain amicable, to work on things so that both of us could go on to better lives. Such lives presumably did not include legal threats on your part to file for a bogus restraining order, to make up self-serving stories to tell your friends or to repeatedly bring me into court with vague claims that I wanted to hurt you in some way and for reasons you could never specify. Your cartoon narrative never matched the facts and, not well when you left me, I was confused. When I sent you a banal 2003 birthday letter, I was surprised by the force of your irrational response, but naively gave you the benefit of the doubt as you repeatedly invoked the justice system against me in 1999, 2006 and 2008. When I asked you to voluntarily resolve this at no cost to you, you refused, hence my direct legal expenses. After twelve years and thirty-thousand dollars between us, what exactly do you have? You are in precisely the legal position you had in 1998, only older, tattooed, abroad and with fewer prospects. Moral integrity cannot be purchased like a Chinese child, but recompense can be made. Please do so.

I don’t know if you ever graduated from Reed College, Cate, but I do know that you failed to become what you once wanted. How much of this was over-reach and how much moral or mental illness I shall never know. It is not my business. What is mine, though, is to wonder at the nature of your obsession with me. Are you guilty for things you falsely told me about my brother? For having left under the conditions you did? Did these betray the honor you felt you owed your mother’s memory? Have you performed some sort of secret Mormon sealing voodoo, or did you feel at some level that you deserved to die? Did you hope to taunt or frustrate me into killing you, that false  stories of persecution would bring salvation? You are on your fourth lawyer as I write this and, from what I can see, have yet to think this through. You lurch from point to point like a drunken pinball, a disappointment to us both.

The central fact of our current relationship, Catherine, is that you have used the legal system to harass and annoy me, for which you owe me nearly $20,000. Any additional emotional charge or issue you may hold is secondary: Yours entirely. Not my problem. I believe that I have shown compassion over the past fifteen years and shall, upon payment, be open to helping you address your psychological issues as you may wish. If you have a death wish, show up at my house with a weapon and I shall address it logically, lawfully and with mercy. If you do not have a death wish, pay me my money and go in peace. I do not really care much either way, but do not die with this debt unfulfilled. You are stuck, Catherine, and must resolve this.

You have outlived your mother by raw count of years, which is more than I think you ever expected. What good that has done anyone is unclear. Your life could have been so much better, Catherine, and may yet be if you resolve this.

What you did to externalize your guilt and other psychological issues is understandable, but your decision to abuse the legal system was wrong. I can forgive the psychological pain but the moral debt of verifiable legal costs is a just one. Please pay the moral debt made by Cate Carter, to go forward with my blessing.

Happy Christmas, Catherine Lynne, wherever you may be.

- Rory