Adrian
The trial date arrived four months after Damien's arrest, the intervening time filled with careful legal preparation alongside the slower, steadier work of simply living our lives without the constant vigilance that had defined so much of the previous year. Micah started kindergarten that fall, healthy and thriving, and watching him walk through those school doors for the first time, backpack bouncing against his shoulders, felt like its own kind of victory separate from anything happening in a courtroom.
But the trial still mattered, still required our attention and preparation, and I found myself back in a familiar courtroom alongside Becky, watching prosecutors lay out months of accumulated evidence against my cousin with the same methodical precision that had originally expose
