“You could have run to the nearby town.”
I closed my eyes, and sucked in my lips, willing myself to calm down—to not let his words get to me.
“No, I couldn’t have,” I muttered.
“You have two working legs, do you not? Or did you not seek help because you were complicit in your father’s crimes?”
The judge looked up sharply.
I opened my eyes slowly, their edges burning with tears, and looked at Father’s attorney.
“I do have two working legs. But never once did it occur to me that I could use them to live a better life. Never—” A quiet, strained whimper escaped my throat. “—once did it occur to me that I couldbesaved, because—because I thought thatthatwas just how life was. Every time Father was disappointed in me, frustrated that I wasn’t perfect enough—inhumanenough, I thought I… I thought nothing I ever did would ever make him love me.”
As my face scrunched up from my desperate attempt to hold in a sob, the man said, “A father not loving a son is not a crime, Mr. Ransom.”
The words landed like a slap.
For a moment, the room went very quiet. Not theheavy, respectful quiet from before—but the kind that prickles, that makes your skin feel too tight.
The State’s prosecutor was on her feet before I could even finish swallowing around the ache in my throat.
“Objection, Your Honor,” she called out. “Argumentative. Irrelevant, and designed to demean the witness.”
“Sustained,” the judge replied without hesitation. He fixed the defense attorney with a hard look. “Counsel, you will refrain from editorializing.”
The man lifted his hands in a placating gesture, though his mouth still held that thin, smarmy smile. “Of course, Your Honor. My apologies.”
He turned back to me.
I could feel my pulse in my ears. The squeeze cube was damp in my hand now, my fingers aching from how hard I’d been pressing into it. I loosened my grip and felt as it very slowly began to reform to its original shape from the mangled mess I’d turned it into.
“Mr. Ransom,” he said smoothly, “you’ve described your upbringing as restrictive, even extreme. But isn’t it true that many religious communities practice corporal punishment?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I didn’t know there were other communities like ours.”
“So you can’t say whether what happened to you was truly outside the norm.”
“I can say it hurt. And that it scared me. And that I didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s your interpretation,” he replied calmly. “You’ve also testified that you were revered within the Covenant. That people listened to you.”
“They listened to Father,” I corrected. “I never spoke tothem.”
“But you were elevated above others.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice quieter.
He paused, studying me like he was deciding which thread to pull next.
“You loved your father, didn’t you?” he asked.
The question caught me off guard.
I stared at him. At the curve of his mouth. At the way his eyes flicked briefly—just briefly—toward Father, seated at the defense table.
“I wanted him to love me,” I murmured, digging my nails into the cube.
“That’s not what I asked.”
