Page 96 of After Anna

Noah cringed inwardly, remembering the awful scene. Not many people know exactly the moment their marriage ended, but he did. “My wife was upstairs with Caleb, and Anna and I had been in the bathroom—”

“Please answer the question. Did Anna inform your wife of the alleged incident in your presence or outside of it?”

“I was there. It was in my presence.”

“Where did the conversation take place?”

“In the hallway outside the powder room. Anna left the bathroom and as soon as she got into the hallway, she started crying. My wife had just come downstairs and saw Anna there, crying.”

Linda snorted. “Are you saying that Anna left the bathroom and burst into tears, all of a sudden?”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying Annafakedspontaneous tears?”

“Yes.”

“Anna didn’t have acting lessons before she came to live with you, did she?”

“Not that I know of.” Noah heard the jury shifting in their seats.

“Dr. Alderman, please direct your attention to Commonwealth Exhibit 52.” Linda signaled her paralegal, and another portion of the transcript came onto the screen. The gallery craned their necks, and Noah read about the worst night of his life:

Mr. Carter:Anna, tell us what happened after you left the bathroom.

Ms. Desroches:I just started crying, and then my mom came down the stairs. I ran to her and she hugged me and I said, “Noah won’t leave me alone and he grabbed me and kissed me and said this horrible thing to me, and you have to help me because this has to stop.”

Mr. Carter:What did she say or do?

Ms. Desroches:She looked totally shocked and she went white in the face. I thought she was going to faint. She was just, like, stunned. I felt so bad for her because I knew she didn’t suspect anything and I never told her about what he did on the driving lesson.

Mr. Carter:What did she say or do?

Ms. Desroches:My mother looked at Noah and she said, “Noah, is this true?” And he said I was lying, making the whole thing up. Then she asked him if he had been drinking and he said yes but he wasn’t drunk or anything. And she was really shocked and upset, but she was trying not to cry and she said, “Anna, go upstairs, I want to talk to Noah.”

Mr. Carter:And what happened next?

Ms. Desroches:I ran upstairs, but when I got in my room I thought to myself that I couldn’t havehim do that to me anymore. I really wanted to stay living with my mother, but he has her totally fooled. And I didn’t want to have to move out and I had nowhere to go. So I figured that I needed to help myself.

Mr. Carter:What do you mean by “help myself”?

Ms. Desroches:I went online and it was really easy and you could download the Protection From Abuse form, and they had a FAQ and all. I filled the form out and here we are. I know that he didn’t want the truth to come out. But I had to stand up for myself. I’m just really glad that there’s courts like this where you can go if you’re a girl and you want to protect yourself from abusers.

“Dr. Alderman, have you read this testimony?”

“Yes.” Noah tried to find his emotional footing. He remembered everything about that night so vividly. Maggie had been so hurt, her eyes widening with shock and betrayal.

“Isn’t it true that Anna’s testimony was exactly what happened that night?”

“No.”

“What did Anna say that wasn’t true?”

“It’s true that’s what she told Maggie, but what she told Maggie wasn’t true.”

“Pardon me?” Linda made a face of exaggerated confusion. On the dais, Judge Gardner frowned as if he hadn’t understood either. Noah sensed that the judge’s demeanor had changed toward him after the sexually explicit testimony.

“Anna lied about what happened in the bathroom.”