But something went wrong. I faltered. Misstepped.

Somewhere along the way, I got lost.

The courtroom is not what I expected. It is very quiet most of the time. The lawyers murmur their objections when they find something objectionable. They are almost polite in their questioning. Today is the last day of the trial. Today is the day I will be called upon to explain myself, to defend my actions. Monty is my lawyer. Thirty-five years later and I still need my brother to save me from the darkness. He leans over and whispers into my ear, “Today I am my brother’s keeper.” He stands, handsome as ever, his suit impeccable, his hair receding but still a burnished blond and freshly cut in a boyish style that makes him seem impossibly young, impossibly beautiful. He addresses the judge. “Your Honor, the defense would like to call as its last witness the defendant, Mr. Adam Lee.”

I stand. I feel awkward as I push my chair back. The area between the defense table and the witness box seems improbably open and impossibly immense, and the panic of the agoraphobic washes over me. I concentrate on not tripping over my own feet as I make my way into this vast open space. I see the witness seat ahead of me, empty and waiting for my arrival, and I know that it will be years before I can complete the journey to reach it. I glance up and to the left and see the judge watching me. I smile at him stupidly, thinking that he knows what I’m feeling, having seen this drama played out a thousand times before. I feel the twenty-four eyes of the full jury box watching me, gauging me, wondering why I am walking like the hypnotized, the drugged, the undead. Finally, I climb the two steps into the witness box and grasp the chair like an exhausted swimmer touching land.

Looking out into the gallery, I wonder if the reporters will comment on my stilted trek to the stand, my dazed appearance. Then my brother’s face fills my vision, and even now, blind from the darkness that surrounds me, I am in awe of his beauty.