Reborn: I Let My Mother Suffer the Price of Her Favoritism novel · Chapter 21 of 32
Chapter 21: The Stand
Sloane wore a gray dress that Everett's mother had bought her, and she had put her red lipstick back on.
She walked to the witness stand with her hands clasped and her back very straight.
The courtroom was full.
The pastor's wife had brought her whole guild, and the housekeeper sat next to me in her church coat with her handbag on her knees.
My mother sat at the defense table in navy blue, next to her lawyer.
She did not look at the witness stand once.
She looked at her hands and kept her face soft.
The lawyer stood and buttoned his jacket.
"Ms. Haldane," he said kindly. "You gave a written statement on Monday. Is every word of it true?"
"Yes."
"Please tell the court how long you took the tablets in your tea."
"Since I was eleven," Sloane said. "I found them in the bathroom cabinet. I thought they would make me feel less frightened."
"Did your mother know?"
"No."
"Who wrote the notebook?"
"I told her what to write. She wrote it down for the doctor."
"Thank you." He sat down. "Nothing further."
I looked at Everett, and his jaw was tight.
I had thought she might stumble.
She had not stumbled once.
The prosecutor rose with her legal pad and walked, unhurried, to the edge of the stand.
"Ms. Haldane, I'm sorry to ask you this. Do you remember the bottles the deputies took from your mother's dining room?"
"Yes."
"They were in a locked sideboard drawer. Do you recall the lock?"
"I don't. I took them from the bathroom."
"The labels say the medication was for agitation, sleeplessness and aggression. You could read that at eleven?"
"I was a good reader."
"The bottles are marked with your mother's name and a pharmacy pickup under your brother's." The prosecutor turned a page. "How did you get hold of a prescription filled for another person every month, for twelve years?"
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