Chapter 8
The criminal trial started three weeks before Liam was due.
It lasted five days.
The prosecution showed the footage.
They showed the receipts.
They showed the hospital records.
They called Gwen to the stand.
She was terrified.
Her hands shook as she walked up.
But she sat down.
She looked Brenda dead in the eye.
And she told the truth.
Every last bit of it.
The hunger.
The slaps.
The fear.
The nights she lay awake wondering if she and the baby would survive until I came home.
She did not cry.
She did not yell.
She was calm.
She was steady.
She was brave.
I had never been more proud of anyone in my entire life.
Gavin testified next.
He told the jury everything.
About the plans to take the baby.
About the plans to ruin me.
About standing in that hallway and walking away.
He did not make excuses.
He did not try to minimize it.
He just told the truth.
Brenda did not take the stand.
Her lawyer tried.
He tried to say she was a grieving widow.
That she was stressed.
That the footage was taken out of context.
That Gwen was a liar.
That Gavin was a disgruntled ex-employee with an axe to grind.
No one believed him.
The jury deliberated for less than three hours.
Guilty.
On all six counts.
The judge sentenced her to five years of probation, three hundred days of community service with domestic violence victims, full restitution, and a permanent no-contact order extended to cover Liam for the next eighteen years, until he was a legal adult.
And then the judge looked directly at Brenda.
“I have been on this bench for twenty-two years,” she said. “And I have never seen a more calculated, cruel, selfish abuse of trust than what you did to this family. You used your own son’s love and gratitude as a weapon to hurt the people he loved most. You almost killed an innocent woman and an unborn child, all because you felt entitled to money and power you had not earned. If I could give you more time behind bars, I would. Consider yourself lucky. And if you ever, ever violate that restraining order? You will spend the next ten years in a maximum-security prison. Do we understand each other?”
Brenda did not say a word.
She just stared straight ahead.
Empty.
Broken.
Defeated.
As we walked out of the courthouse, the sun was shining.
Gwen leaned against me, her huge belly pressing into my side.
She smiled.
“It’s really over,” she said.
I kissed the top of her head.
“It’s really over,” I said.
That night, her water broke.
Two weeks early.
Right on schedule, as far as I was concerned.
I got her to the hospital in twelve minutes flat.
I held her hand through every contraction.
I told her she was the strongest woman who had ever lived.
I told her I loved her.
And twelve hours later, at 3:14 in the morning, Liam Andrew Dawson was born.
Seven pounds, two ounces.
Ten fingers.
Ten toes.
Perfectly healthy.
Perfectly whole.
They laid him on Gwen’s chest.
She cried.
I cried.
The nurse cried.
He was here.
Our son.
The baby we had spent six years praying for.
The baby Brenda had almost destroyed.
May you like
He was perfect.
And he was ours.
