Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Feed the Ducks

Mikelah POV:

I slumped down over myself. "I can't do it." I choked out, through a closing-up throat. Meggie sat on the edge of my seat and put an arm around me.

"Of course you can." she said. "You can do anything."

But of course, she just said that to be encouraging. I really couldn't do it. The lawyer, a tall, small-framed lady who was all dressed up in navy blue today, took the seat in front of me.

"Darling, I understand if you don't want to do it all today." she said, "But remember, the court date is coming soon, and ideally, we want you to have the story well practiced by then. It makes things easier."

To be honest, I still wasn't sure if I really, really wanted to do this. I would never say so, of course, because I already knew what everyone would say; that I don't deserve this and that man is horrible and he deserves to be locked up for life for what he did. But... I'm not so sure. I mean, he's not a bad father. He was never a bad father. It was just when Mom died, he went a little... off. He can't be blamed for his wife dying, can he? I mean, if what I hear is right, then I'm the one who should be blamed for Mom dying, and... that makes this whole mess my fault, really. But then, even if his wife died, even if it was my fault, what he did was illegal. It was wrong, and I know I would be outraged if it had happened to somebody else. That's how I convinced myself to keep going, you know. I told myself to imagine it wasn't me, that it was someone else. I focused on the plain facts, and not the emotions that came with them. It brought on the sense of justice that was somehow eluding me... it erased the guilt, I guess. I straightened up, took a deep breath.

"Okay. I'm ready to go again." I announced. Meggie clapped me on the back, a little harder than I would've liked, but I smiled up at her anyway. I took another deep breath to prepare myself, and then launched right into it.

"The man on trial is my father. I've been living with him since I was born." I sighed, something that always happened right before I began the story of it. "My mother, Marlene Grace, died almost 4 years ago, in April 2007. I was only 14 years old at the time. After that, my father changed. He became distant, and started to drink. He quit his job and... he has been b-beating me regularly since December of that year. He... he raped me, m-more than once. Right now, I'm... I'm pregnant with his child- his children. Twins. He... I've... They... I've been.. been kicked out of school... and... Oh, I can't! I can't do this! I just can't!" I buried my face in my hands.

"That was better," said the lawyer, Miss Boswell, encouragingly. "You got further this time. Good."

I looked up at her. "Is there anything else we can do today?" I asked.

"Not that I can think of." she replied, and then took pity on me. "You can go home if you'd like, darling. We've spent enough time on this for today."     

I passed a hand over my face and smiled at her. "Thank you."

Meggie decided to go and buy a gigantic container of ice cream on the way home. She owned the car, so I didn't complain. And anyway, I didn't really mind. I mean, if she was willing to come here and waste so many hours watching me cry and lose my nerve, then who was I to complain about a 5 minute detour to Ben and Jerry's?

Well, anyway, we reached back home. (Meggie's, this time. I really needed a permanent place of residence, but it was too busy now. When I'd finished with the lawsuits, and education, and stuff, I'd look into an apartment.) Meggie went straight to the kitchen to get a spoon and attack her ice cream, but I.. I was drained. I would usually call Mervyn, tell him how things went, ask him to come over... but today I didn't. I just couldn't. I couldn't even reach upstairs. I just fell asleep right on the couch...