When the judge asked whether I wished to speak, I stood, with my six-month-old daughter, Wren, asleep on my shoulder, and I walked to the podium and looked at him.

“You thought being pregnant made me weak,” I said, and my voice went clear to the back of that silent room.

“You thought my loving you made me stupid.

You believed that because I trusted you, I would lie quietly in the dark while you sharpened a knife behind my back.

You mistook my quiet for helplessness.” He would not lift his eyes from the table.

“I loved you, Beckett.