Page 183 of Edge of Unbroken

My dad emerges from the living room, Steve and Penny right behind him. “Hey.” He’s still dressed in his court clothes—slacks and a fitted navy polo—while Steve and Penny still don their clothes from earlier this morning.

“I didn’t think you guys would be home so soon,” I say, creasing my brow.

He smiles at me. “The trial is over.”

That catches me off guard. “What?”

“Rica changed her plea this morning.”

I just stand there, finding myself unable to process exactly what he’s saying. “What did she change it to?”

“She pleaded guilty to everything,” he says, his voice steady, deep, warm.

“To everything?”

“Yeah.”

This doesn’t make sense to me. “Why?” Why would she go through this whole thing, have me testify, have the prosecutor painstakingly go through the surveillance footage of the last year, only to change her plea to guilty? Unless it was just another way for her to torment me, to revictimize me.

“Because of how incredibly powerful your testimony was yesterday, Ran,” my dad says, taking another step toward me, his eyes full of emotion. “Darren told me this morning that Rica’s attorney reached out to him last night about negotiating a new deal because he had realized that Rica didn’t stand a chance in hell after you testified yesterday. But Darren wasn’t willing to give even the slightest bit, so Rica just decided to plead guilty to everything instead of the defense putting on the case today.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling uncertain. “So, now what?”

“There’s going to be a sentencing hearing in a couple of weeks. Rica’s attorney is going to argue for the lowest sentence possible. But you get a chance to say something to the judge,” my dad tells me softly, putting both hands on my shoulders.

Ugh, I really don’t want to have to go back to court. “Do I have to?” I don’t want to have to face my mother again, don’t want to reinjure myself by talking about the shit she did to me.

My dad studies me. “No,” he says. “You could write something down and have Darren read it to the judge if you’d like. But you aren’t required to do anything at all, Ran. You did your job. Hell, you did more than your job.”

“I’m going to write something,” Steve says from behind my dad, and my eyes find him. “If that’s alright with you,” he says, studying me.

I shrug. “Sure. Do what you need to do, Stevie.”

My dad exhales deeply, then pulls me into his arms. I think he’s hugged me more in the last eight months than he ever has in my entire life. “Ran, you did so well. I’m so proud of you. I…” He trails off, at a loss for words as he’s overcome by emotion. He abandons his attempt at expressing himself verbally and simply holds me against him.

Thursday, July 14th

Cat

Life has been good. Really good, actually. After the trial, things slowed down and it felt like the first time in eight months that we all could breathe deeply. Especially Ronan. He’s been easing back into a new normal, taking things slow. He’s been resting a lot, way more than I’ve ever known him to take time to just sleep, or read, or just be in the moment.

Rica’s sentencing took place two days after Steve’s nineteenth birthday. It was quite the dog-and-pony show, according to the prosecutor. Rica’s attorney put on all the evidence of mitigating circumstances, arguing why Rica’s sentence should be minimal despite abusing her youngest son his entire life and nearly beating him to death, leaving him not only physically but emotionally scarred. Ronan declined to be present, declined to give a victim impact statement, or to even write anything for the prosecutor to read to the judge, which could be considered in sentencing. As far as Ronan was concerned, he did what he had to do when he testified and wanted to focus on healing.

“If me sitting there for nine hours straight and going into painful fucking detail about what my mom did to me isn’t enough, then I don’t think a piece of paper is going to make any difference,” he told me when I asked him why he didn’t want to at least write out a statement about how his mother’s abuse had affected him. I had to admit that he made a good point, and neither Frank, Steve, Shane, nor I wanted to pressure Ronan into anything that would inflict even more pain on him.

In the end, Rica was sentenced to a mere three years in prison. When my friends and I got the news of the short time Rica would be deprived of her freedom, compared to the lifelong torment she inflicted on her son, we were all so angry. Each of us had strong opinions on the matter.

It feels like an injustice, like the system let Ronan down, and we were hurt and upset for him. But Ronan put it into perspective on graduation night when we were all together and hanging out at Shane’s beach house.

“Man, you’re cool as a fucking cucumber about this shit,” Shane said to Ronan. He fell back onto the rattan outdoor sectional sofa on the deck of his mother’s beach house after finishing a passionate recital of all the reasons why three years in prison seemed like a complete slap in the face.

“Because it doesn’t matter,” Ronan said.

Shane frowned at him. “Why not?”

“Because it’s over. The only thing that matters is that it’s over,” Ronan said, but Shane still didn’t seem satisfied. “Shay, what difference does it make whether she gets two days or twenty years? None at all. She did what she did. Her being locked up doesn’t change that for me. It doesn’t take away the nightmares, it doesn’t erase my anxiety, it doesn’t somehow make me unlearn all the bullshit she beat into my head.”

“Okay, I get that,” Shane sighed, looking at his best friend warmly. “But don’t you think she’d deserve to spend more time rotting away in a cell?”

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