It was an ugly one…
I was instantly transported back to age 15, when I saw the same eyes, mouth, and scar above the eyebrow looking up at me through a photo.
But this time, she was no longer a little girl. She was a woman in chains.
The woman met my gaze and smiled as if she had been waiting.
My heart pounded so hard I worried the microphone would pick it up.
I looked down at the file, then back at her.
She was a woman in chains.
My voice came out thin.
“Miss, can you please state your name for the record?”
She tilted her head and gave her full name.
Her first name nearly stopped my heart. It hit me low and hard, like a fist.
I whispered, without meaning to, “Christal, is it you?”
The courtroom murmured.
My clerk leaned toward me and hissed, “Judge?”
I straightened, heat flooding my face. “We will take a brief recess.”
“Christal, is it you?”
In my chambers, my clerk asked, “Are you feeling unwell?”
I said, “I need to recuse myself.”
Her eyes widened. “Because of the defendant?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“Do you want to put that on the record?”
I nodded. “I have a conflict of interest.”
That was the truth.
Just not the whole truth.
“I need to recuse myself.”
Another judge took over, and I walked out past Christal without looking at her.
I could feel her gaze burning into my back.
That afternoon, I sat alone in my office long after the staff left.
I stared at the wall and said, “You do not exist,” because that was what my parents had taught me to do when reality didn’t fit.
I didn’t go home. Instead, I walked downstairs to the records section.
I could feel her gaze burning into my back.
The night clerk frowned. “Judge? Everything okay?”
“I need archived family court records,” I said. “From the late 1970s.”
She blinked. “Those are sealed.”
“I am aware,” I said evenly. “I’ll sign whatever is required.”
She hesitated. “May I ask why?”
I lied. “Judicial review.”
She clearly didn’t believe me, but still unlocked the door.
“Those are sealed.”
The burglary case file said the victim was a retired social worker named Karen. My chest tightened.
The name scratched at memory.
I said to myself, “That can’t be a coincidence.”
The next day, I visited the address listed in the report.
It was a small brick house with a broken window already boarded up.
A neighbor watering plants eyed me. “Are you here about Karen?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am a judge.”
My chest tightened.
She snorted. “Figures. She always said the system would come back for her.”
I asked,
“Did you know her well?”
“Well, enough to know she was scared. Kept saying someone from her past was going to expose her.”
That night, I went through boxes of records until my eyes burned. Most files were mundane.
Custody disputes and foster placements.
But Karen’s name kept appearing, always attached to sealed adoptions.
I muttered, “What were you hiding?”
“She always said the system would come back for her.”
On the third night, my clerk caught me leaving late and said, “You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”
I said, “I already am.”
Eventually, I found a medical record amendment signed by my father years after my birth.
My hands shook as I read it.
A twin birth was recorded. One infant was marked deceased. Cause of death: complications.
I whispered, “No.”
The next document was a psychiatric commitment order.
My hands shook as I read it.
The patient’s name: Christal.
The reason for her commitment: juvenile dissociation, violent ideation.
The date matched the year I had broken my arm and spent two weeks in the hospital.
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