Elise sat at my dining table with a legal pad and said, “There are three things I want you to know before we talk logistics. One, truth told consistently matters more than sounding perfect. Two, if you don’t remember a detail, ‘I don’t remember’ is the right answer, not a weaker one. Three, defense attorneys often sound most confident when they have the least substance. Don’t mistake tone for strength.”
Brooke, whose cast was now a lighter removable brace, nodded. “Okay.”
Elise studied her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Brooke sat straighter. “Yes.”
“Why?”
And there was the question beneath all the procedural ones. The real reason a person walks into a courtroom knowing strangers will try to bend their pain into ambiguity.
Brooke looked at the table for a second, then up again.
“Because if I don’t say it,” she said, “it’s like it didn’t happen. And it happened.”
Elise was too professional to smile broadly, but something in her face shifted with respect.
“That,” she said, “is a good reason.”
After Elise left, Brooke found me in the garden trimming rose canes that had overgrown the fence.
“She thinks I’m ready,” Brooke said.
“Are you?”