Chapter 25 - LUCINDA SAYS SHE SAVED ME
Lucinda testified.
Her choice.
Her lawyer did not want it.
She looked smaller in court.
Not weak.
Contained.
First:
The false paternity report.
“Yes, I created it.”
Why?
“To protect my son.”
“From what?”
“Adeline.”
I felt nothing.
Then:
“Did Adeline ever threaten Rocco physically?”
“No.”
“Financially?”
“She wanted support.”
“For children you suspected were his?”
Lucinda’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Then:
“Did you believe he would reconcile with Adeline if he knew?”
“Yes.”
“Why would that be harmful?”
“She had already proven she would leave.”
There.
Abandonment.
Her core wound.
Then money.
“I never intended children to go hungry.”
“Did you reduce payments?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To force Adeline to stop pursuing Rocco.”
Silence.
Then:
“Did you use some funds for unrelated expenses?”
“Yes.”
“Did Rocco authorize that?”
“I had broad family authority.”
“That was not the question.”
“No.”
There.
Then:
“Why keep reserve funds?”
“In case the boys were eventually confirmed as his.”
The prosecutor paused.
“So you anticipated that possibility.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you gave Rocco a report saying they were not his.”
“Yes.”
The contradiction sat in the room.
Then:
“Why review at age five?”
Lucinda looked toward me.
“Because resemblance becomes harder to dismiss.”
There.
She had planned for biology to become visible.
Then my defense attorney? No, I was witness not party. Prosecutor continued.
“Did you believe you had a right to decide whether a father knew his children?”
Lucinda answered:
“I believed I had a duty.”
That was her entire tragedy.
Power mistaken for duty.
Control mistaken for protection.
Then she looked at me.
“I saved you from being dragged back into a marriage that would have destroyed you.”
I did not respond.
Courtroom not dining room.
Then:
“And what did it cost the boys?”
May you like
The prosecutor asked.
For the first time, Lucinda had no answer.
