If Patel asked something that made Elior’s voice hitch, I ended it.
No one argued with me.
We practiced questions.
Not the graphic ones. Not at first.
Just his name. His age. Where he lived now. The difference between what he was told and what he later learned. The truth, laid out clean and simple, without the defense’s poison framing it yet.
Elior was better than I expected, honestly.
He answered carefully, precisely, like he was placing each word exactly where it belonged instead of letting them all spill out onto his lap at once.
Still, some days wrecked him.
Some days he’d freeze halfway through a sentence, eyes going unfocused, fingernails biting into the skin of his palms. On those days, we stopped. We made hot chocolate and laid around. I let him sit on my lap like he needed, while I reminded him that none of this erased who he was now.
Therapy ran parallel to everything. Mark wasn’t a total fan of Elior taking the stand, but I don’t think many of us were. The U.S. Attorney’s Office sure was. But most of us understood how this all had the possibility of going so fucking wrong.
Mark was the one who finally put language to what I’d been circling around instinctively.
The lights, the echo, the shuffle of feet and coughs and whispered side conversations. The way Elior startled when too many sounds stacked on top of each other, when fabrics scratched wrong, when lights made him wince, and when the air felt too tight in his chest. He could muscle through a lot, but forcing him toendureinstead ofaccommodatingfelt like setting him up to fail.
So we started asking.
Patel did most of the official pushing with the USAO, but I was there for every conversation, arms crossed, daring anyone to tell me no.
We asked for softer lighting at the stand—no direct overhead glare. We asked for permission for him to bring a grounding object with him. A smooth stone, small enough to hide in his palm, something solid he could anchor to when his thoughts started slipping sideways.
We asked for frequent breaks. Not dramatic recesses—just pauses. Water breaks. A minute to breathe if his voice started to shake.
We asked for me to sit where he could see me.
That one caused the most resistance.
“The jury—” someone started.
“I don’t care about the jury,” I said flatly. “You want him functional or you want him dissociated?”
Mark backed me up with documentation. Patel framed it as trauma-informed practice. The judge, to his credit, listened.
Elior didn’t ask for much himself. That was the thing that got me. He’d look at me first, eyes searching, like he was checking whether something wasallowedbefore he admitted he needed it.
One afternoon, after a longer prep session, he tugged lightly on my sleeve. “Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Is it okay if I don’t wear… stiff clothes?” He grimaced a little. “They make my skin feel wrong. I’m worried about having to wear a suit like they said.”
“You can wear whatever you want, cherub,” I said immediately. “Anyone who has a problem with that can choke on it.”
The State wasn’t too pleased when I told them the same.
We practiced the walk from the door to the stand like it was choreography.
Slow steps.
Eyes forward until he found me.
