Chapter 9 - THE JANITOR'S TESTIMONY
Vance scoffed, turning to the judge. "Your Honor, please instruct the witness to avoid philosophical grandstanding."
"The witness will answer the question directly," the judge said, though she looked at me with mild curiosity.
"Let me rephrase," Vance said, leaning on the podium. "Mr. Brennan, you encouraged Mrs. Cole to stop behavioral correction. You told her to let the child 'stim,' to let him hide from the world. Are you not just indulging a broken child's tantrums?"
I leaned forward. The nervousness vanished. I was in my element now. I was a father defending his tribe.
"With all due respect, Mr. Vance," I said, my voice steady and echoing in the quiet courtroom. "Eli is not broken. And he does not throw tantrums. A tantrum is a child crying because he wants a toy. A meltdown is a neurological crisis. It is a human being's nervous system collapsing under the weight of a world that is too loud, too bright, and too aggressive."
I looked directly at Richard.
"The experts," I gestured to the gallery, "try to force Eli to act 'normal.' They want him to look them in the eye, which physically hurts him. They want him to stop flapping his hands, which is how he regulates his heartbeat. They are treating him like a defective machine that needs to be reprogrammed. I fix machines for a living. I know what a machine is. Eli is a boy."
The courtroom was dead silent. Even the court reporter had paused for a fraction of a second.
"My qualification, Mr. Vance, is that I have a twenty-two-year-old autistic son. And I spent the first ten years of his life listening to men in expensive suits tell me how to fix him. It wasn't until I stopped trying to fix him, and started trying to understand him, that my son began to thrive. Vivian Cole loves her son enough to listen to him, even when he doesn't use words. Richard Sterling engineered a sensory attack at a corporate gala to trigger his own son's nervous system, just to win a board seat."
"Objection! Speculation! Defamation!" Vance roared, his face turning red.
"I have the severed bypass cable from the main breaker," I said calmly. "And an affidavit from the AV tech Richard bribed to lock out the soundboard. I submitted it to Mrs. Cole's legal team this morning."
Vivian’s lead attorney stood up with a crisp manila folder. "Your Honor, we have just entered Exhibit G into evidence. It proves Mr. Sterling orchestrated the incident at the gala."
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Richard’s face drained of color. He looked like a man who had just stepped off a cliff and realized there was no safety net.
The judge banged her gavel, staring daggers at Richard. "I am calling a recess. Mr. Sterling, you and your counsel will meet me in my chambers. Now."
