Because I promise you it does not sound the way it sounds in your head.

In your head, you were a stressed man who deserved a break.

Out loud, to a judge, it is a man who walked out on infants.

Choose carefully.” And I watched him understand that this was not a bluff, that every piece of it was real and prepared and waiting, that the woman across the counter was not going to cry, or relent, or be talked down, because she was operating from somewhere he had never seen her operate from before.

Chapter 18 — Who I Was Before