You send the video you were recording the whole time

It was easy enough, with all the evidence she’d sent you, herself. The recording you made when she forced you to sit and watch was just the clincher.

Her public defender argued she was able to make her decisions and you were free to delete any messages and go no contact. Even they were only arguing because it was their job, though. In the middle of the courtroom she tried flirting with the judge and saying they should talk in his office, where he could show how big his gavel was.

She was held in contempt and told not to try it again. She smiled at me, and made a comment about real men.

I sighed, and the bailiff escorted her out of the courtroom. My attorney called up the first psychiatrist to have evaluated her.

Dr. Syndowski droned on about cluster personality disorders, narcissism, schizophrenia, textbook abusive cycles, the works. She painted a picture of my life raised by my mother in clinical terminology that left little room to argue, even if my mother’s lawyer had been so inclined… which he was not as inclined to do, having been fending off unwanted advances ever since he was assigned to the case. I think he looked relieved more than anything. The testimony was so brutally all encompassing no one could say he didn’t give it a fair try.

My mother was, unsurprisingly, deemed unfit to stand trial, and sent to a state psychiatric institution for long term treatment.

I tried to visit regularly. Some part of me wanted her to get better. Instead every time she saw me, she would regale me with tales of how the president visited her at night and pounded her with his big, democratic cock.

I did my due diligence to make sure another patient, or worse an employee, wasn’t taking advantage of her, and thankfully there was no truth to it. We had security camera footage showing her play acting out lewd scene after scene with only the figures in her mind.

My visits diminished. Once a week to once a month, then once every other month. I filed the paperwork as diligently as ever, I kept up with the doctors overseeing her care, but it had become apparent she wasn’t going to get better, and she wasn’t ever going to be the mother I lost when this started so many years ago.

They were never able to answer why it had happened when it did. A combination of stress over my father’s death, preexisting but undiagnosed conditions becoming more pronounced, bad luck, all of the above?

I remember, as a small child, hearing her argue with my aunt during my first time meeting her. I knew it was my aunt because my mom kept saying “please, you’re my sister, you have to take him.” My aunt slammed the door in her face and my mom took me home in a huff. I never saw my aunt again after that, and had put it out of my mind.

Going through my mother’s records during and after the trial, I found out she never had a sister.

Years passed, and I was healing, thanks to a buttload of therapy (CPTSD is a bitch), and a support group of people who had rallied to me after finding out what had really been going on in our house behind closed doors.

My former best friend had been ostracized by his family and friends. The coach had been fired for inappropriate actions on school grounds and was being investigated for a host of allegation made by former students. My boss was similarly fired. The so-called son, Harry, who’d filmed them, had actually been an intern, pressured into pretending for fear he’d lose his placement, and promised a job once he graduated.

The settlement I received from my company by way of apology for the harassment kept me comfortable for long enough to get through the aftermath of the trial.

I had a new job, a date later in the week, and for the first time in a lifetime, I thought maybe I was okay.

The phone call I received didn’t even phase me. A journalist, more a writer, really, had heard about my case, and wanted to see if there was a book in it. I thought I was in a position to talk about it in depth, and arranged a lunch meeting to start with introductions. I was warned there might be a small film crew, just to get some shots for the book if we went that way.

I sat down, chuckling awkwardly as they situated a microphone on my shirt, and was told my interviewer would be there soon.

That’s when I saw her. Walking slowly up the sidewalk with a man I couldn’t even register. It was Her. My mother smiled when she saw me, waving. I froze as she and the man sat down at the table, my head spinning, a dull ringing filling my ears, blocking out all other sound as the heat rose in my chest, and my heart began pounding.

This was impossible. She was in the hospital. I would have been informed if she was released. How did she know I was here? How… the cameras!

I finally jerked my eyes to the man who’d sat with her, smiling at me in a friendly way. He had a healthy tan to his brown skin, with dark hair showing more grey than the last time I’d seen him, years ago. He leaned forward and spoke into the camera.

“Hi. I’m John Quiñones, and this is a very special, decades in the making, episode of ‘What Would You Do?’”