The Durgin Deposition is Michael Noonan’s questioning in the custody case over Kyra Devore, where an act of rescue is recast as a potential danger and a private telephone call becomes a contest over what can be made part of the record. Richard Durgin tries to use Michael’s account of the Fourth of July to implicate Mattie Devore, but Michael refuses to speculate or supply the statements Durgin is fishing for. The decisive turn comes when John Storrow interrupts the questioning and challenges its leading form; soon afterward, Durgin abandons the cassette player and returns to the earlier incident.

Background and Stakes

The questioning centers on Michael’s first meeting with Kyra and Mattie on the morning of the Fourth of July. Durgin asks Michael to recount the encounter, and Michael tells the story. He had been driving at thirty-five miles per hour, the posted limit near the store, and maintains that he saw Kyra in time to stop. Durgin’s questions, however, recast that encounter as a possible threat: he asks whether Michael could have run Kyra over, and later whether Mattie might have done so if Michael had not carried the child to the side of the road.

That line of inquiry matters because the testimony concerns a custody fight, not merely the details of a roadside rescue. Durgin is trying to shape the account so that Mattie’s actions appear dangerous. Michael understands the direction of the questioning, but the key inference Durgin wants him to make is speculative: whether Mattie would have hit Kyra. Michael declines to offer a prediction he cannot know.

Durgin’s Cross-Examination

Durgin builds his challenge around the speed of Mattie’s vehicle. He asks whether other cars passed while Michael spoke first with Kyra and then with Mattie. Michael confirms that vehicles did pass, and Durgin focuses on Mattie’s Scout. Michael recalls that she was going at least fifty miles per hour, but, under pressure to be more definite, tells Durgin he cannot say for sure.

Durgin then invokes claims from two witnesses, Richard Brooks, Jr., the owner of Dick’s All-Purpose Garage, and Royce Merrill, a retired carpenter. He also cites skid marks measured by Deputy Footman as indicating a speed of at least fifty miles per hour. Michael objects that the proposed version does not fit what would have happened if Mattie had braked: the vehicle would have skidded sideways and ended upside down in the ditch. Durgin’s questions turn the uncertainty into pressure, but Michael does not validate the conclusion Durgin is pressing toward.

The questioning reaches its sharpest point when Durgin asks whether, without Michael’s intervention, Mattie might have run over her own daughter. Michael answers that he cannot say. Rather than convert the possibility into testimony, he leaves it as an unanswered hypothetical. The distinction between what happened and what Durgin wants the record to imply is the central tension of this portion of the deposition.

The Cassette and the Limits of the Record

Durgin also probes Michael’s telephone conversation with Maxwell Devore, who had called on the night of the Fourth while Michael was watching fireworks. Asked whether their conversation concerned the morning’s incident, Michael says he does not recall. Durgin produces a cassette and prepares to play it, making a display of the device as though the recording will settle the matter. Michael believes Maxwell had recorded their conversation, but also recognizes Durgin’s move as a bluff; the tape’s presence does not make Michael concede what it contains.

Durgin presses him about whether he told Maxwell that Mattie and Kyra had been together picking flowers. Michael again says he does not recall. John Storrow calls a timeout, makes the referee’s T with his hands, and demands that Durgin stop leading the witness and have the picking-flowers suggestion stricken from the record. His intervention identifies the procedural issue plainly: Durgin is trying to place an answer on the record that Michael has not given.

When Durgin asks what he and Maxwell discussed, Michael says he cannot recall and invites Durgin to refresh his recollection. A silence follows. Durgin pushes the cassette player aside and goes back to the morning of the Fourth. He does not ask about Michael’s dinner with Mattie and Kyra on Tuesday night, or return to the telephone conversation in which Michael had said things that could be disproved. The attempt to use the recording has failed to produce the admission Durgin sought.

Outcome and Narrative Significance

Michael continues answering questions until eleven-thirty, but he recognizes that the interview has effectively ended when Durgin pushes away the cassette player. The deposition’s outcome is not presented as a verdict in the custody dispute; rather, the scene shows a struggle over the boundaries of testimony. Durgin tries to turn contested details into a damaging narrative, while Michael’s uncertainty and Storrow’s objection prevent the most loaded implications from becoming his sworn account.

The episode also makes Michael’s stated purpose explicit: he wants to help Kyra if he can. That intention does not make him an unguarded witness. He distinguishes what he knows from what he cannot establish, resists speculation about Mattie, and refuses to confirm the supposed contents of his call with Maxwell. After the questioning, Mattie calls to him from the picnic tables behind the town common’s bandstand, looking vibrant and happy. The shift from the deposition’s hostile pressure to this public, ordinary setting closes the scene without resolving the larger legal conflict, but restores Mattie as a person rather than merely the subject of Durgin’s insinuations.