Ongoing Story\Go to sleep
From Create Your Own Story
Chapter 18: Trial
You go to bed, and let Julie sleep with you. You hug each other hard, and all through the night, your kid sister sobs and cries. You feel like crying, yourself, but you're strong for Julie.
The next few days pass in a blur. The police ask you more questions. A social worker comes by, but is satisfied that Rob takes care of you and Julie. You visit Tracy in hospital, and although the doctors and nurses are shocked at her hurts, they say she will be fine, eventually. You meet the lawyer who will prosecute Mom and Dad, and you don't like him. You plead with him to go easy on Mom, but he says she's a criminal and must be punished. Rob dismisses Nina from her job, saying you can't afford to pay her any more. A judge grants Rob temporary custody of you and your sisters. Julie cries herself to sleep every night.
Finally, the trial of Mom and Dad starts. They've got seperate lawyers. The list of crimes they're accused of is staggering. Most center on their horrible abuse of Tracy, of course, but there's more, including their treatment of you and Julie. You realize why you didn't like the prosecutor - he seems to be far more interested in his publicity and popularity than justice. You learn from Rob that he's up for election this year. The prosecutor demonizes you parents, telling the court and jury they are evil incarnated. While this may be true for Dad, you cry when you hear him talk like that about your poor, misguided mother. The prosecutor also happily gives interviews and appears in talkshows, and soon an incredible media-circus is starting around the case.
The media is like vultures, descending on every sordid detail they can find. The story of your family is exposed in every newscast, newspaper and talkshow. One tabloid shows the faces of your parents, retouched to look truly diabolical, with the header "American Monsters!". Tracy soon gets the moniker "That Poor Girl", repeated endlessly on talk-shows, news, and in the papers. You're not too displeased at being called "The Bravest Little Girl in America", like a newspaper did, but you're soon unable to show yourself outside without being beset by the journalists that have set up camp outside your house and outside Tracy's hospital. Apparently, you're a hero, America's latest sweetheart. You don't feel like one. You can't stop thinking about Mom.
To the distress of your mother's lawyer, Mom confesses to everything, even a few things you know she's inncoent of. She goes on and on about how she should be punished for her crimes. Dad has a good lawyer, who tries to convince the jury that Dad's insane and should be committed to psychiatric treatment rather than jail.
Your dislike for the prosecutor increases even further when he comes to detailing the rape and torture of poor Tracy. Police technicians and medics have made a very extensive list of what actually took place in the pool-room. The prosecutor goes through this list in its entirety, detailing every whip-lash, every awful torture, every rape and penetration, and you can tell that he not only does it for publicity, he's turned on by it as well. At one point you could swear he has a hard-on, when describing a particularly sickening torture. The man's a pervert - but the media loves it!
The court has to take several recesses, when jurors become violently ill at the gruesome descriptions. You're glad Tracy isn't with you to hear the full description -- psychologists say she still has memory lapses, and you think that's a mercy. You send Julie home so that she doesn't have to hear it. Everyone is impressed that you manage to sit through the whole thing, but you know you must learn exactly what happened. What do you do now?
