The legal paperwork began arriving in thick envelopes.
Every page seemed to contain a word I needed to look up.
I kept a glossary in the back of my notebook.
Affidavit.*
Exhibit.*
Service.*
Motion.*
I had handled contracts in business, but criminal procedure was different.
Nadia encouraged me to ask whenever I didn't understand.
She said a client who understood the process could participate more meaningfully in decisions.
At night I practiced explaining the next step in plain language.
If I couldn't do it, I wrote another question.
Opal listened once and asked whether I wanted a cup of tea.
I did.
She didn't ask me to predict the verdict.
On the way home from Nadia's office, I stopped at a small diner.
I ordered soup and coffee because I had been too nervous to eat breakfast.
The waitress asked whether I wanted a newspaper.
I said no.
For years newspapers had frightened me.
During my trial, a local reporter used the phrase *businesswoman betrayed her customers* under a photograph of my face.
Nobody who read it had to listen to the hours of testimony that followed.
At the diner, I watched the waitress serve a man who complained about the temperature of his toast.
She replaced it without argument.
I admired her patience.
My own patience had become complicated.
I could wait in line without trouble because prison had taught me to wait.
But I found it hard to endure uncertainty when somebody else controlled important facts.
Nadia had explained that she would need transcripts, exhibits, and parts of my former counsel's file.
Some material would have to be requested formally.
Not all of it would arrive quickly.
I worried about what might have been lost.
At home I called Denise and asked if she knew any groups for people rebuilding life after incarceration.
She recommended a weekly peer meeting at a community center.
The first session was awkward.
I sat beside a man learning to drive again and a woman trying to restore contact with her adult daughter.
Nobody asked for the worst thing on my record before letting me sit down.
We talked about applying for jobs, answering difficult questions, and resisting the urge to disappear after a rejection.
When my turn came, I said I was trying to challenge my conviction.
A woman across the circle nodded.
“That might take time. What are you doing tomorrow?”
I was startled by the question.
“I work for Opal. I have laundry to finish.”
“Good,” she said.
“Keep a tomorrow that doesn't depend on the case.”
I returned the next week.
The legal-aid intake worker warned me that post-conviction assistance was limited.
She also made a referral to a nonprofit that reviewed claims of innocence involving documented financial evidence.
I filled out twelve pages of questions.
Each question required an answer I could support.
What documents were presented at trial?
What evidence might be new?
Why had it not been available earlier?
I wrote until my wrist hurt.
Six weeks later, attorney Nadia Price agreed to meet me.
She worked in a small Columbus practice and sometimes accepted reduced-fee cases through the referral network.
She did not begin by saying she believed me.
She began by reading my judgment entry.
“You served almost four years of a five-year sentence,” she said.
I nodded.
“Your release does not cancel the conviction. We need to identify an appropriate procedural route, and deadlines can matter.”
She outlined the possibilities carefully.
Nadia's office was above a pharmacy.
The carpet had worn pale where visitors walked from the door to the conference table.
A box of tissues sat beside a stack of legal pads.
I brought every page I owned in a canvas tote.
Nadia first asked whether there had been an appeal and when the judgment became final.
I told her what I remembered.
She checked the docket rather than relying on my recollection.
“I need the precise procedural history,” she explained.
“Different kinds of claims have different requirements and deadlines.”
Then she said something nobody had said at trial.
“Tell me what you know firsthand. If someone else told you, name that person.”
For nearly an hour I went through the business transfers.
Each time I drifted toward what Trevor must have been thinking, she asked me to return to something observable.
My face grew hot.
“I know it sounds like I'm making excuses.”
“It sounds like you're trying to make sense of what happened,” she said.
“That is different from creating an admissible record.”
She described the difference between seeking post-conviction relief and pursuing a civil claim for money or property.
Even if she found grounds to challenge the conviction, she could not order a bank to give me a house.
Even if Trevor had lied, there would still be a process for testing evidence and deciding what remedy was available.
She had me sign a limited engagement agreement.
It spelled out her role, how she would communicate with me, and which expenses required approval.
I read every line.
Nadia waited without impatience.
When I reached a sentence I didn't understand, I asked her to explain it.
The old Rebecca would have signed quickly, afraid of offending a professional.
This Rebecca had already spent four years living with the consequences of paperwork.
Outside, I sat on a bench and wrote down three questions for our next meeting.
I was scared of discovering that the system had no way to correct what happened.
But I was more afraid of trying to survive on promises.
At Opal’s house, the first thing I did was put the signed agreement in its own folder.
Then I started dinner.
The potatoes needed another twenty minutes, and Opal was hungry.
No hearing date could change that.
A new trial request, post-conviction petition, or other remedy could depend on the kind of evidence discovered and Ohio law.
She needed the trial transcript and discovery material before deciding anything.
I wanted to ask whether Trevor would be arrested.
Instead, I asked when she could file.
“Not before we understand the record,” she answered.
I respected that.
Nadia asked about the allegedly forged mortgage on my Dublin house.
I told her I had seen only a statement bearing my name.
She warned me not to assume fraud until we obtained the recorded instruments and examined how title and debt were handled while I was incarcerated.
The house was a separate civil problem.
My marriage was another.
The ownership of Buckeye Medical Supply was another.
The criminal judgment was the most urgent, but they could not all be solved by one motion.
I left with a list written on yellow paper.
Order the county property records.
Request the business filings.
Preserve old correspondence.
Do not contact witnesses to pressure them.
Do not confront Trevor or Monica.
At the bus stop, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
The message contained only one sentence.
Stop digging if you want to stay free.
I photographed the screen and forwarded it to Nadia.
She advised me to preserve the original message and make a police report.
I did both.
That evening, Opal noticed my uneaten dinner.
“They’re still frightening you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then eat. They don’t get your supper, too.”
I picked up my fork.
It was not courage.
It was a beginning.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Paper Trail Led To A Payment Account Nobody Had Mentioned At Trial
The Woman Who Asked About My Sentence Offered Something More Useful Than Sympathy
Part 4 of 11
