Noah’s finger stopped on Daniel.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
My husband remained seated behind the prosecution table, one hand gripping the polished wood.
The confidence he had worn throughout the trial disappeared so quickly that it was almost frightening.
His lips parted, but no sound came out.
Noah looked directly at him.
“My dad,” he said.
“My dad framed my mom.”
The courtroom erupted.
The judge struck her gavel repeatedly while the prosecutor rose and demanded that the jury be removed.
My daughter covered her mouth.
Daniel pushed back his chair as if he intended to reach Noah, but a bailiff stepped between them.
“This is outrageous,” Daniel said.
“He has been coached.”
Noah flinched at his father’s voice, yet he did not lower his hand.
My lawyer stood beside me.
Until that moment, she had looked as defeated as I felt.
Now her attention was fixed on the blue backpack hanging from Noah’s shoulder.
“Your Honor,” she said, “the child appears to have brought something with him.”
The judge ordered the jury into the deliberation room and instructed everyone else to remain seated.
When the final juror disappeared through the side door, she turned toward Noah.
“What is inside your backpack?”
Noah lowered it carefully to the floor.
Daniel found his voice again.
“He cannot introduce evidence,” he said.
“This is a stunt designed to prejudice the jury.”
“The jury is no longer present,” the judge replied.
“Sit down.”
Noah pulled open the zipper.
From beneath a torn section of lining, he removed an old tablet wrapped in a faded green towel.
I recognized it immediately.
It had once belonged to Daniel.
We had given it to Noah when he was little because he liked recording short videos of his toys.
After my arrest, I had assumed it had been lost with everything else.
Daniel stared at it as though Noah had placed a weapon on the table.
“That device is broken,” he said.
Noah turned toward the judge.
“It wasn’t broken.
The battery was dead.”
My lawyer asked how he had found it.
Noah explained that the blue backpack had been stored in a closet at Daniel’s house.
A seam inside it had ripped, and when Noah reached through the opening, he felt something hard beneath the lining.
The tablet had been hidden between two layers of fabric.
He had charged it three nights earlier.
“There was a video on it,” Noah said.
“I didn’t understand it at first.
Then I saw Mom’s office.”
Daniel stood again.
“No,” he said.
The word came out too quickly.
The judge looked at him.
“No, what?”
Daniel swallowed.
“No child should be questioned without a parent or guardian present.”
“You are present,” the judge said.
“Although at the moment, that may be part of the problem.”
