They Drank My Father’s Champagne and Toasted My Death. They Forgot Whose Daughter I Am

That is not pressure I heard on those tapes.

It is the absence of a conscience.”

She brought the gavel down.

I had testified, days earlier, in that same room.

It had been the hardest thing I did in the whole ordeal — harder than the deck, in a way, because on the deck I’d had adrenaline and a plan, and on the stand I had only the truth and the three of them watching me tell it.

I described the pills and the fog and the stairwell and the cold teak of the terrace under my cheek.