To Build a Home

Tanner Is Always Bad News

CHAPTER 10: THE GREAT ESCAPE

Hey, child, things are looking down

That's okay; you don't need to win anyways

Don't be afraid, just eat up all the gray

And it will fade all away

Don't let yourself fall down

From "The Great Escape" by Patrick Watson

The Wednesday after Thanksgiving was set as the date for Grammy's deposition and Mike had turned on his biggest, bluest, most innocent puppy eyes and begged Harvey to let him take the day off of school so he could come along. Harvey initially resisted, saying that Mike didn't need to miss school (which was obviously untrue because he was smarter than all of the teachers combined) and ultimately that it was unprofessional for him to bring a kid along to a deposition. He then relented shortly after because he found it hard to eat his dinner with Mike staring at him like he had just thrown the kid's beloved bicycle off the roof of Pearson Hardman and smashed it to pieces. Score—Mike's puppy eyes: 1. Harvey: 0.

Mike was wide awake early the day of the deposition and was dressed and ready to go by the time that Harvey, unshaven and still in his pajamas, meandered out of his bedroom to turn on a pot of coffee. Harvey frowned, knowing that the only things that could rouse Mike (who followed typical teenage sleeping patterns the way that Harvey followed the Yankees stats) early from his slumber was nerves or excitement.

Harvey insisted that there was nothing to be nervous about— that the depositions for George Stanopolous and Maria Santiago (who had been deposed on Monday) had gone well and that he would be there the whole time to make sure that the lawyers didn't verbally attack Grammy. Mike nodded but wasn't much reassured. He was naturally overprotective of Grammy and he had seen a lot of legal crime shows— they were always poking around the witnesses' pasts and pressing where it hurt. And Grammy was already hurt— Mike wasn't sure how much pressing she could withstand.

He sat at the kitchen table, still nodding absently in false agreement with Harvey's reassurances and nervously tearing a piece of toast into shreds.

"Would you stop that? If you didn't want that toast you didn't have to destroy it. I would've eaten it," Harvey sighed.

"What? Oh—huh. Sorry. I guess I wasn't paying attention," Mike said.

Harvey then pulled the plate of crumbs away from Mike and plopped a huge stack of paperwork in front of him.

"Work on this while I get ready. But if you shred any of these papers in a fit of hysteria, so help me God I will not be pleased," Harvey said, heading back to his room to shower and get dressed.

Mike nodded, clearly grateful for the distraction. "I'll make another piece of toast if the urge overtakes me," he called, and he got to work on the files.

When Harvey emerged from his room 45 minutes later, Mike was passed out asleep on the kitchen table, clutching a piece of paper in his hand where he had managed to highlight a loophole that would allow Harvey to win the case he was working on. He shook his head in amazement as he stared at the simple note Mike had scrawled in the margin indicating the precedent that made the loophole valid. It would have taken him and a team of associates and paralegals hours to find that. And the kid had done it in less than 45 minutes and still found time to nap. Unbelievable.

He shook Mike awake and the two of them drove to the nursing home, Mike subconsciously bouncing his leg anxiously the whole time.

"Stop that, you're shaking the car," Harvey said, staring pointedly at the offensive limb. "Trust me, Mike. It'll be fine. The head lawyer that McKinnon sent to the last two depositions was a joke. He was just a nice old man; wouldn't hurt a fly. He was actually showing George Stanopolous pictures of his grandchildren throughout the deposition. He'll probably flirt with your Grammy instead of grilling her about her past and McKinnon work experience," Harvey said thoughtfully and Mike wrinkled his nose at this disturbing thought but ceased his nervous leg bobbing, slightly mollified.