Left for Garbage

who ordered her to never ask him where he was taking her child’s body. Her disobedience might seem odd to people, people who have not lived the horrible life Denise endured inside that house of lies and ugliness, and yes, perversion, but she knew of no other way to behave.
    There are many things which could never be said during the trial , and no, I am not speaking of the inevitable Monday-morning-quarterbacking which will be done by all the talking heads, people like Charlotte Hope in particular, who will say that it was the prosecution who was forced to keep out vital evidence. They were not - they had no vital evidence - but we did and we were the ones forced to keep silent because of the endless discovery motions we lost one after the other.
    For example , Keith Brown was not cleared on the DNA test for parentage of Deeley Margaret Brown, his own granddaughter. The test did not say he was her father but it did not eliminate him. There are three strands in little Deeley’s DNA which could suggest incest. Now, a person can take from this whatever they wish, but where I’m from, if you don’t pass, then you’ve failed.
    The deck was stacked so terribly against our team, against my little Denise , and despite the letter of the law which said we did not have to prove her innocence - no, the burden of proving her guilt was on the prosecution - but thanks to shows like ‘Law and Order’ and ‘CSI’, we, on the defense, were indeed expected to prove her innocence to a television-saturated jury.
    It’s hard to prove a negat ive beyond a reasonable doubt. In the end, though, we didn’t have to; Keith Brown won our case for us, well, Keith and his little girlfriend, the sad Honey Chase, aka Carmen Miranda, aka - at least to we, the defense - the Angel sent from Heaven.
    You see , it’s all so simple: they were winning, the prosecution, the dark side. They had demonized my poor little one with a handful of pictures of her out dancing. And why shouldn’t she have danced? Up until today with this God-blessed verdict, she had never had a moment of freedom from the monsters that raised her: the vicious, controlling mother who made Denise keep her father’s ugly secrets and bear them as her own; the weak brother who loved her more than he loves anything else, but who, maybe only misguidedly but maybe because of collusion with his father, chose not to tell what he knew - that Keith Brown was a pervert and a perpetrator; and then there is Keith, the animal himself. For years, for most of Denise’s young life, he forced himself on her and made her a slave to his sickness. The word for him I believe is ‘pedophile’.
    As a little girl Denise ran to her mother, “Mommy, Mommy, Daddy is doing things to me.” In return, her mother Margaret called her a whore and circled the wagons. Denise was never taken to a gynecologist, despite her mother being a nurse, and despite, too, Denise informing her mother that she was being forced to be sexually active. Indeed, wasn’t that the sole reason Margaret made sure a young Denise was never allowed to see a professional, one she might have told the truth to?
    When Denise became pregnant , she told me she began screaming inside, the only place she was ever allowed to scream, and she said she never really stopped, not until today, the day she was believed, the day she understood people had heard her silent cries after all.
    People have been speculating endlessly on TV about why Denise kept quiet about her pregnancy nearly until her delivery date. They say she was afraid of her mother. This is true, but she wasn’t afraid because she thought her mother would be shocked at her pregn ancy. After all, who knew better than Margaret Brown how inevitable such a pregnancy might be?
    No, Denise was afraid her mother would make her go through with it and carry a baby who Denise believed should never have been conceived. I understand that Denise was a legal adult and could have gone to a doctor for help, but can anyone understand that in Denise’s mind she remains a helpless little girl, that to her Margaret and Keith loom as monstrous, all-powerful figures?
    Here’s another thing: has anyone ever heard of a young woman’s father being in the delivery room? Speaking for myself, I must say no.
    Now I know that the father of a baby is always in the delivery room , if the mother agrees, but not the laboring mother’s own father. But then, what if they were one and the same ?
    Despite what