Mike Noonan Rescues Kyra on Route 68 is both an act of immediate roadside intervention and, when recounted later, a point of pressure in the custody dispute. Mike remembers finding Kyra alone on the Fourth of July, stopping safely, and carrying her to the side of the road; the deposition turns those circumstances into questions about whether his presence, or the rescue itself, could be used against him.

The encounter as later recalled

The rescue is presented through Mike’s account during questioning by Durgin, rather than as a fully staged roadside scene. Durgin establishes that the initial meeting with Kyra and her mother, Mattie Devore, took place on the morning of the Fourth of July, and that Mike met Kyra first because Mattie was not with her at that moment. Asked to describe his meeting with the child and then with Mattie, Mike tells the story. The deposition thus supplies the event’s basic sequence through retrospective testimony: Kyra was encountered first, her mother afterward, and the account is being given in a setting where each detail may acquire legal significance.

The exchange also makes clear that the names used for Kyra’s mother matter to the witness. Durgin refers to her as Mary Devore, then offers Mattie as an alternative; Mike answers that he calls her Mattie and questions how Durgin knows about their private telephone conversation. The examiner declines to explain and redirects the questioning to the Fourth of July encounter. The private call is not clarified here, but its appearance shows Durgin drawing on information beyond the immediate roadside episode as he shapes his examination.

The rescue under examination

Durgin asks whether Mike could have run Kyra over. Mike rejects the premise: he says he was traveling at thirty-five miles per hour, the posted speed limit by the store, and saw her with enough time to stop. The figure and location give his answer concrete boundaries. His account is not simply that he happened to find Kyra; it is that he noticed her in time and stopped rather than striking her.

Durgin then changes the hypothetical, asking whether Mike would have seen Kyra in time if he had been traveling in the opposite direction, north rather than south. Mike recognizes that the question has some force because a driver approaching from the other direction would have had less time to react. The questioning shifts from what Mike says happened to what might have happened under different circumstances, exposing how easily the rescue can be reframed as a test of his judgment and reliability.

After withdrawing that question, Durgin asks how many cars passed between Mike’s carrying Kyra to safety and the moment he and the Devores parted. Mike says he cannot give an exact count. He resents Durgin’s phrasing, particularly its emphasis on having carried the child to safety, but acknowledges the underlying fact: that is what he did. His uncertainty about the number of passing cars does not undo the central action, though it leaves a gap for the examiner to probe.

A rescue turned into a custody argument

The most consequential question reverses the apparent direction of danger. Durgin asks whether, if Mike had not carried Kyra to the roadside, her own mother might have run her over. The question treats the intervention not only as protection from traffic but as a possible accusation against Mattie. It invites Mike to speculate about a counterfactual involving her, even though he cannot know what would have happened.

Mike does not endorse that implication. He shrugs and declines to predict the outcome, invoking the absence of a crystal ball. His response leaves the hypothetical unresolved rather than allowing Durgin to convert it into a factual claim. The deposition records what Mike did and what he can say about the circumstances; it does not establish that Mattie would have struck Kyra.

The examiner’s use of the rescue in this setting reveals the episode’s later stakes. A straightforward account of stopping for a child becomes material to questioning connected with the Devores’ custody conflict. Durgin tests Mike’s speed, direction of travel, opportunity to react, the interval before the family parted, and the possibility that Mattie herself posed a danger. Each question attempts to widen the meaning of the original intervention, while Mike’s testimony repeatedly distinguishes the known event from conjecture.

Narrative significance

The scene’s tension comes from the distance between a concrete act and the unstable interpretations imposed on it. Mike’s account gives the rescue a clear physical outline: he was traveling at the speed limit by the store, saw Kyra in time, stopped, and carried her away from the road. In the deposition room, however, that sequence is broken into hypotheticals about direction, reaction time, passing cars, and a mother’s possible actions. The act remains protective, but its retelling is made adversarial.

Because the episode reaches the reader as testimony, it also foregrounds the limits of retrospective narration. Mike can report what he remembers doing; he cannot provide a definite count of passing cars or answer what Mattie might have done in an unrealized alternative. His refusal to speculate preserves that distinction. The rescue’s significance therefore lies not only in Kyra’s removal from immediate roadside danger, but also in how the memory is pressed into the custody proceeding, where care can be recast as evidence and uncertainty becomes something an examiner can exploit.