If Not For You

Chapter 49

On the day of the court hearing everyone showed up.  Jenna reluctantly got Jackie to forge her an excuse slip from school.  Jenna reasoned with her.  She told Jackie she was going regardless and without the excuse slip she'd get in trouble with her grandmother.  Jackie caved.  She blamed it on hormones but everyone knew she would have done it anyway.

David was standing outside the courthouse when they pulled up.  Ben and Jackie went to hug him.  He smiled at their embrace.  To anyone else it would seem normal but to them it was all new.  It had been a long time since they had all come together for something other than violence.  Lucas put out his hand to receive David's.  "So how's the new life going?"  Lucas asked first but they had all wanted to know.  David had left for his new job a week after the incident and between the work and the adjusting to his new home he hadn't been available for conversation too often.

He smiled.  He barely looked like the man he once had been.  He looked better.  "I love it.  I can't help to wonder though if I would have been just as content staying here.  I mean staying here but getting out of that house."  Ben was happy to hear that he was doing well. The few times they had spoken to David he had said depending on what may happen today he wasn't sure if he could turn their mother down if she asked him to come back.  But he looked good.  He looked happy and young.  Living in a household that they grew up in, you tend to age faster.  "How's my niece or nephew doing?"  He motioned towards Jackie's barely visible belly.

Jackie smiled rubbing her tiny bump.  "Amazing."  There were mornings when the boys heard her in the bathroom throwing up and she was tired quite often, but she would never complain.  If the doctor told her she had to walk on her hands for the whole pregnancy she would have done it with a smile.  She just felt blessed that the pregnancy was going so well.  Ben prayed every night before he went to bed for this child to be born.  He wasn't sure to whom he was praying to or if he really believed in it, but he knew that it couldn't hurt and maybe someday he would be able to believe.

"Alright, Ladies, enough of this mushiness, let's go face the firing squad."  Lucas spoke as if he was disgusted with all this outpouring of emotions but he was smiling and held Jackie's hand.

Jenna reached out and grabbed Ben's hand.   She wasn't sure what kind of family they had been before but here and now they seemed like a strong unit.  She just hoped that whatever was going to happen here and now wasn't going to rip them apart.  "You ready Benny."

He smiled down at Jenna.  "There is nothing that can happen today that's worse than what I have already been through."  Jenna was pleased to hear it.  She was glad to know that Ben was ready for today but saddened by it at the same time.  Knowing the whole truth only made her love him more.  What he had endured and still could be a gentle soul was nothing short of amazing.

Ben's mom came out first.  It was just a hearing.  There was a prosecutor and their parent’s defense lawyer.  Lucky for them there wasn't anyone who had to testify.  There was enough evidence of what the police saw alone that they didn't need Ben.  As a family they decided that they weren't going to press charges.  They just wanted it to be over.  Although their father had made their lives hell they didn't want to see him in jail.  Or at least not a jail sentence that they were responsible for.  Their dad had never been a threat to anyone but his family.  As long as he stayed away from them, he could go on with his life.  As far as their mother went she had to make her own decision.  And they were fine with that.               

The state was charging her with assault of a minor.  She stood before the judge and her lawyer pled guilty.  She could've pled innocent.  She could've fought the case.  If she would’ve just admitted to what her husband had done to her to provoke these events she could have been released.  But she refused to go against him.  She refused to make him responsible.  She had made a plea deal.  She accepted full responsibility not to save herself but to save him.  She will always be a victim not by circumstance but by choice.  The attorney pressing the charges pretty much gave up, without prior complaints of abuse nor anyone willing to press any charges, there wasn't anything that he could fight, it was pretty much a done deal.  The judge sentenced her time served in jail and 3 months in a treatment program for battered women.  The judge tried to speak to her as a female.  The judge had commented on the pictures the police had taken of their mother’s injuries.   The judge tried speaking of respecting herself and being worth more than a punching bag but their mother just sat there.  Her sons knew that it was all wasted breath.