Local Facebook Court

Vivian's poll went live before Mara reached Ruth's kitchen. The first version used the phone-grab clip, trimmed so Paige's hand looked like a defensive reach and Mara's voice, "Benefit Pathway is trying to take my phone," landed without the binder cover, without Darlene's complaint form, without April's preservation request. The caption read: Should Booth Seven donors demand repayment before Mara Whitcomb does more damage? By the time Mara parked, three hundred and twelve people had voted. She sat in the driveway with her hand on the ignition key, watching the numbers move. Yes, repay the fund had seventy-one percent. Let investigators handle it had twenty-nine. Vivian had added a smiling photo of Booth Seven from opening day, Mara half visible behind the pie case, Ruth's white sunhat bright in the corner. Mara zoomed in, then stopped herself. Ruth was not the evidence. Ruth was not the bait. The gas needle sat just above a quarter tank, and the thought of the supper shift at Larkspur Diner felt less like extra money than the thin bridge between the electric bill and Ruth's next prescription copay. Her phone rang before she could get out. LARKSPUR DINER. Mara closed her eyes once. "This is Mara." "Honey, it's Denise." The diner's owner sounded like she had already apologized to herself and decided it counted. Plates clattered behind her, and the lunch rush noise made Mara's empty car feel smaller. "Don't come in for the supper shift tonight." "I was on prep and counter." "I know." "Denise." Mara kept her voice low because if it cracked, Denise would call it emotion instead of math. The shift was forty-two dollars before tips if the supper crowd was kind, and the supper crowd had just been asked whether she owed them money. "I got three calls asking if you still handle the register," Denise said. "One woman said she would not leave cash near the tip jar if you were there. I told her that was ugly. I did. But I cannot turn supper into a town meeting." Mara looked at the dashboard. "So I lose the shift because Vivian made a poll." "You lose tonight because people are acting foolish and I need it quiet. We will talk tomorrow." Tomorrow was not a shift. Tomorrow was a maybe wearing an apron. Mara thanked Denise because anger would not put her back on the schedule. When she stepped inside, Ruth had the local Facebook page open on Ben's old tablet. The screen light made her face look thinner. Ben stood behind her chair with both hands on the handle as if he could wheel her away from the internet if he found the right direction. "I was going to hide it," Ben said. Ruth did not look away from the poll. "I am not a child." "No," Mara said, putting her bag down. "You're a person whose picture should not be used to make strangers vote on whether I owe money." Ruth enlarged the photo with one careful finger. "That is my hat." "I know." "They cropped my cane out." Ruth's mouth tightened. "So I look like a sweet old witness instead of a woman who can hit somebody's shin." Mara laughed despite herself, and the laugh broke before it became anything useful. Ruth tapped the tablet again. "What are you going to say?" "Nothing yet." Ben made a wounded sound. "Nothing is how people fill the blank." "A rant is how Vivian gets a cleaner clip." Mara took the tablet and scrolled past the comments with her thumb held high, not letting herself stop on names she knew. Stolen money pays electric bills. Payroll people know tricks. My aunt got pushed out too but don't drag her into this. The last one made Mara pause. She tapped it, then released it. The profile was a cartoon crawfish wearing sunglasses. No town name, no workplace. The comment disappeared under three fresh replies calling Mara guilty, greedy, unstable. Ben saw her face. "What?" "Someone said their aunt got pushed out too." "That could be anybody." "Exactly." Mara opened a blank reply box and typed three sentences at speed: I did not steal from Booth Seven. Benefit Pathway and Redbud are using older workers and caregiver families. HR corridor badge logs prove I was framed. Ruth watched the words appear. "Is every sentence provable where Vivian cannot twist it?" Mara's thumb hovered. Ben leaned over Ruth's chair. "The first one is true." "True is not the same as useful," Ruth said. Mara deleted the second and third sentences. Then she deleted the first, because it sounded like begging a room that had already voted. She opened the fair-board website instead, copied the preservation request number Darlene had texted after April filed it, and wrote one line under Vivian's poll. Fair-board preservation request FB-7-214 is open for Booth Seven timestamp, cash-count, and badge-reader location records; I will not post private worker, donor, or family information here. She read it twice. No names. No accusation. No HR-C. No Leona. No Ruth. No private screenshots. She posted before courage could rot into explanation. The replies came fast enough to blur. Boring. Lawyer talk. Show the proof. If you won't post it, it doesn't exist. Vivian pinned her own comment over Mara's: Notice she still won't answer whether donors deserve repayment. Mara put the tablet facedown. Ruth turned it faceup again. "We do not let her be the last voice in my kitchen." "Mama." "No private details," Ruth said. "No names. I listened." She picked up the tablet with both hands and typed slowly, one finger at a time. Mara reached to stop her, but Ben caught Mara's wrist, gentle and firm. Ruth posted: I am Mara Whitcomb's mother. My care is not a leash. If you want answers, ask why records need preserving. For ten seconds nobody spoke. Then the poll froze, refreshed, and added forty new votes. A new comment appeared under Ruth's, from the crawfish profile: Ask about Exit Group 19. Mara felt the kitchen tilt a degree. Ben read it aloud before he could stop himself. "Exit Group 19?" The comment vanished. Ruth's finger stayed on the edge of the screen, steady as a ruler. "Well," she said. "Somebody heard me."