Room 14's Secret novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Recordings

The bailiff wheeled a television to the front of the room and the lights dimmed.

"Take the child out," the judge said. "Mr. Teel, please."

Quinton stood with Posy and carried her through the side door.

She looked back over his shoulder the whole way.

Then the screen lit up, and there I was.

The first clip was the kitchen at night.

I was in my nightgown at the counter, with a mug in both hands and my hair loose over my face.

The date in the corner said June.

I watched myself laugh.

It was high and wrong, and it went on too long.

Then I dropped the mug and it broke on the tile.

I sank down beside it and began to cry in great heaving sobs.

"I don't know where I am," the woman on the screen said. "I don't know why I'm here. Where are my children?"

My own voice.

I had heard none of this.

I had been asleep in my own body while it happened.

The second clip was worse.

I was in the backyard in the dark with the baby on my shoulder and my feet bare on the wet grass.

Someone behind the camera said, in Quinton's voice, "Melinda? Melinda, look at me."

I walked toward the pool and did not turn.

A woman in the gallery gasped.

In the third clip, I screamed at a ceiling.

I will not say what I screamed.

When the screen went dark, the room was silent.

Judges see a great deal, but I watched this one lower her pen.

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