Page 161 of Edge of Unbroken

The attorney nods, letting Ronan’s words sink in before he continues his careful questioning, his tone compassionate, empathetic, warm. I can tell he’s trying to be as gentle as possible, mindful of the fact that this, right here, is exceptionally difficult for Ronan.

“What other incidents do you recall from when you lived in New York prior to moving to Tennessee at the age of five?”

“Not a ton, to be honest. I do have a memory of my mom hitting me with her shoe when I refused to take some box down into the basement,” Ronan says, his gaze unfocused.

“Do you know whether that incident occurred before or after the time she choked you with her belt?”

“No idea.”

“But you do recall this happening when you were around four or five? Prior to you moving to Tennessee?”

“Pretty sure that’s when it happened. We didn’t have our dog yet, so, yeah.”

“Okay. Why did you refuse to take the box into the basement, Ronan?”

“Because I hated going down there. Don’t ask me why; it was just scary to me.”

“What was down in the basement?”

“My dad uses it mainly for storage, so really just boxes and random stuff.”

“Did your mom know that you were scared of going down to the basement?”

Ronan nods. “I begged her not to make me go down there because I was scared.”

My heart squeezes in my chest.

“She kept yelling at me to take the damn box to the basement, and I was just standing in front of her, that stupid box in my hands, looking up at her, crying, shaking my head, asking her to please not send me down there. I remember her telling me I was worthless and a scared piece of shit.”

“Then what did she do?”

“Eventually, when she realized I really wasn’t going to do what she told me to do, she grabbed the box from me and took it to the basement herself. I just stood in the kitchen, frozen to the spot. I knew I was in trouble. When she came back upstairs, she took one of her shoes and started hitting me with it,” Ronan says, his voice cracking.

“What type of shoe was it?”

“My mom was in nursing school then, and she started wearing these wooden clogs when she was doing her clinicals at the hospital. They hurt like a bitch,” Ronan says quietly.

“Wooden shoes?” the attorney asks, his eyes big.

“Yeah.”

“Where did she hit you with that shoe?”

“All over. My head, my face, my shoulders, my arms…” Ronan trails off, sounding utterly exhausted.

“Did she say anything to you while she was hitting you?”

“She yelled at me like she always did, telling me I was a waste of space, no good, a piece of shit, worthless, whatever.” Ronan sighs and runs his left hand over his face.

It continues like this, with the attorney slowly but steadily extracting the incriminating evidence, the painful, unbearable details about Ronan’s earliest years. Ronan readily admits that his memory of that time is blurred, partially because he was so little, but also because he finds himself with significant memory gaps that, according to his therapist, are a protective mechanism employed by Ronan’s brain.

“There are things I should be able to remember vividly, like my first kiss, for example,” Ronan says. “And, I mean, I know these things happened, obviously. But I just can’t remember when or where or any details. My therapist said there are strategies I could try to recall those things, but then I’d also risk remembering all the other things, the things that are the reason for my memory loss in the first place. So I choose to just not remember.”

I’m saddened that to protect himself, Ronan has to forego happy memories, too.

“Do you have any recollection of any occasions during that timeframe when your mom was physically hurting you and your brother, Steve, walked in and interrupted the incident?”

Ronan furrows his brow. “Um, Steve actually interrupted my mom a handful of times over the years. I don’t know if he’s even aware that he did, but…”

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