I Was Ready to Pass Sentence When I Realized the Woman in the Dock Was My Carbon Copy

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.

I finally understood the commitment order with Christal’s name on it.