sworn not trveal it

On November 3, an elated Martha called to tell me that, after the many bumps in the road caused
by Ellie, she had settled with Vince. I have to admit I was more than a little hurt when she told me
she couldn’t tell me the amount because she’d sworn an oath not to reveal it. When I asked her if
she ever found out exactly what happened and who was responsible for Owen’s death, she meekly
offered up, “He just fell.”



The more we talked, the more disappointed I became, especially when I remembered what she said
in her eulogy. “There will be a day of reckoning and this is my final promise to Owen. I won’t let him
down.”



I asked her if she and the lawyers at least tried to get back my photo and video archives from Vince.
She told me Pam Fischer said the issue wasn’t important enough even to bring up. When I hung up
the phone, I called Marcy; she’d just heard the news through her media contacts that Martha settled
for $18 million.



The next morning I read Martha’s comments about the Harts in the paper. “These people worked
against me . . . I am removing myself and my children from the family. I carry the last name, but I’m
not related to them anymore. People need to know that Owen was a white sheep in a black family.”




After that, she called me again, and I told her point blank that I felt she’d completely used me and I
didn’t appreciate the way she painted us all with the same brush. I couldn’t see why Martha had to
hurt my whole family. While she’d been quick to praise me, she was quite venomous to my mother,
who’d stood by her throughout all the family struggles. It didn’t seem to matter to Martha that
Owen was my mother’s son. When Martha started to cry I forgave her, because I knew she felt she
had no choice but to settle after Ellie had derailed the case, but what she had said was not about