Chapter 12 - Beatrice's Fall
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Beatrice’s trial came months later. She did not look flawless anymore. She looked hard, diminished, furious that consequences had touched her body. Her defense argued grief-induced instability, but courtroom footage showed intent. Witnesses testified to her threats before the hearing. Elise testified about the false evidence. Dr. Raman testified about the medical danger caused by the assault. I gave a statement from behind a screen because I refused to let Beatrice’s eyes become another weapon.
“You called my son fake before he was born,” I said. “You tried to make the world question his existence. Then you tried to end it. But he is real. His father loved him. I love him. And no inheritance, no family name, no amount of money will ever matter more than the fact that he survived you.”
Beatrice was sentenced to twenty-eight years.
When the judge read the sentence, she turned back and looked at me. I held Samuel against my chest. He was still small, still medically fragile, but his eyes were open. Beatrice looked at him as though he were the final insult.
I looked away first.
Not because I was afraid.
May you like
Because she no longer deserved to be the center of the room.
Six months after Samuel came home, spring arrived like a mercy. My father’s garden filled with yellow tulips, purple salvia, and white roses he claimed were planted for my mother but watered with suspicious devotion after Samuel was born. We moved into my childhood home temporarily after the hospital discharged us, because my own house still felt too full of Gabriel’s absence and too empty for a newborn. “Temporarily” became a gentle word no one questioned. My father converted the study into a nursery himself, sanding the old shelves, painting the walls soft green, and hanging a mobile of tiny wooden birds above the crib. He said he had no idea what babies liked. Samuel proved easy to impress. He liked ceiling fans, spoons, and my father’s terrible humming.
