Chapter 7: The Answer in the Room
Dustin’s first attempt was a deflection. He said he had trusted his mother’s judgment, that he had not been present, and that no one could have predicted the situation would be handled “that way.” The judge did not accept the distance. She repeated the core of the question: had he authorized unrestricted action, and had he later defended it as discipline after seeing the result. Judith began to speak; the judge silenced her with a single raised hand and kept her attention on Dustin. Under the weight of the photographs and the pediatrician’s language—abuse, trauma response, mandatory report—his answers grew shorter and less polished. He had told Judith to do what she thought best. He had not intervened when he learned what she had done. He had called it discipline. He had sat beside her in the courtroom instead of beside his daughter.
