Chapter 12 - MY SLAP IS THE EASY PART
Serena’s cheek bruised.
Her shoulder hurt after the fall.
No fracture.
No head injury.
Hospital security footage captured my slap.
No ambiguity.
Police asked:
“Was Serena threatening an infant at that moment?”
“No.”
“Did she have a weapon?”
“No.”
“Had you already stopped her from reaching the purse?”
“Yes.”
“Then why strike her?”
“Anger.”
Again.
The prosecutor offered misdemeanor diversion.
Anger-management.
Restitution.
No unlawful direct contact.
Completion required.
Dismissal afterward.
I accepted.
My attorney asked whether I wanted to argue defense of evidence preservation.
“No.”
Because the purse was not a person.
Because I had already stopped her hand.
Because I knew exactly why I hit her.
Then Gianna.
She said:
“I’m glad you stopped her.”
“Before or after the slap?”
“Before.”
I looked at her.
She continued:
“The slap scared me.”
That hurt.
Good.
It should.
Then:
“I had just watched your mother dump water on me and found out one of our babies might not be ours. Then you hit your sister.”
“I know.”
“You looked like them.”
That sentence stayed.
Not because I believed I was the same as Lucia.
I was not.
But fear does not care about moral categories when a large angry person is moving fast.
I completed every class.
No family privilege.
No private certificate.
No hidden arrangement.
At the first session, the instructor asked:
“What do you want your sons to learn about being powerful?”
I almost laughed.
They were newborns.
Then I realized that was exactly the time to answer.
May you like
“Nothing that requires someone else to be afraid.”
I wrote it down.
