He had grown up in that house; he had seen me disappear into that study in the weeks after the funeral.

He knew.

And he went through it anyway.

He went through his dead father’s desk, his dead father’s private papers, the last untouched space of the man who had raised him, searching for documents he could use against me, and he did it without hesitation and without shame.

I played the final video for the court, and it is the one I have the hardest time thinking about, still, because it happened in that room.

I need to say something about that study, because to understand why that particular violation cut deeper than the others, you have to understand what the room was.