Cat #2
Mr. Cooley continues to elicit testimony from Ronan, who describes in excruciating detail the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother. It includes an incident in which he forgot to take out the trash before hockey practice, which resulted in his mother swinging a kitchen knife at him and cutting the palm of his hand.
The longer Ronan testifies, the more he lays out what his mother has done to him, the tighter my chest feels, and it’s obvious everyone else in the courtroom feels similarly. The expressions on the faces of Frank, Steve, Shane, Penny, my mom, and my other friends range from agony to devastation and everything in between. None of us had any idea what Ronan had to endure. We had no idea at all, and listening to it all makes me wonder how in the world it was possible for us all to fail to recognize what was going on. It’s almost unfathomable that someone can be exposed to so much fear and pain and violence, but those around him don’t recognize it. I don’t have even the slightest clue how Ronan was able to hide the abuse for so long.
“Do you recall any times your mom hit you when you lived in Montana when you were ten and before you moved back to New York when you were twelve?” the attorney asks Ronan after moving on to this next phase of Ronan’s life.
“Honestly…” Ronan pauses. “No. My mother hardly ever did anything when we lived in Montana. It was rare that she’d really hurt me there. I always hoped we’d stay and not move back to New York.”
“Do you know why your mom didn’t hurt you often when you lived in Montana?”
Ronan exhales deeply. “I think it was a combination of things. We were never really alone—she usually only hit me when it was just her and me. Things were a lot better in Montana.”
“Alright, what about when you moved back to New York when you were twelve, how long did you stay in New York?
“Not quite two years. We moved to Montana a few days before my fourteenth birthday and lived there about thirteen months before we came back to New York.”
Ronan talks about run-ins he had with his mother, how she kicked, beat, and shoved him, and how she would call him names and tell him he was less than nothing. And he tells the story of how he broke his elbow.
“It was the only time my mom took me to see a doctor for my injury,” Ronan sighs heavily.
I divert my attention away from him and seek out his mother for a moment. She has hardly moved since Ronan took the stand. She still looks tiny, her back ramrod straight now as she stares at a yellow notepad in front of her, though I haven’t noticed her write anything down. Only occasionally does she lift her eyes to look at Ronan.
“Do you know why your mother took you to the doctor that particular time?” Mr. Cooley asks.
“I’m not sure. Maybe because it wasn’t an injury she could treat at home? I had my elbow in a cast for six weeks.”
“What, if anything, did you tell the doctor about how you sustained the injury?”
“My mother told me to tell the doctor I fell down the stairs at home. So that’s what I did,” Ronan says bluntly.
“Did the doctor question your explanation at all?”
Ronan shakes his head. “No. Nobody ever really questioned my explanations.”
My heart aches in my chest. God, how I wish I had been the exception to the rule. How I wish I could turn back time and do something, anything to save Ronan.
By now, the exhaustion is etched into his face. His body is tense, shoulders heavy, but he keeps going, recalling memory after memory, time after time that his mom put a hand on him, and I’m beginning to recognize that, the older Ronan got, the more vicious and more frequent the violence became.
“When you lived in Montana for those thirteen months when you were fourteen, did your mother hurt you at all?”
I half expect Ronan to give an answer similar to the ones he had already given whenever he talked about his prior time in Montana—that, aside from the occasional slap, shove, kick, or nasty word, his mother would refrain from violently assaulting her son given the omnipresence of Ronan’s grandparents. I’m surprised, therefore, when Ronan nods.
“Yeah. One time.”
“Tell me about what you remember, Ronan.”
“I got caught drinking by the sheriff. I was out with… a friend. We were drinking in her truck and the sheriff pulled up on us. We were both underage. So, the sheriff drove me home. It’s a small town; everyone knows everyone, and the sheriff obviously knew who I was. Nothing happened to me legally, just sort of a ‘don’t do it again.’ Anyways, that night my mom woke me. Yanked me out of bed. I remember it was the dead of winter. It was snowing outside, and she made me walk barefoot through the snow all the way to the barn, which is maybe fifty yards from the house. I was only wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. It was so fucking cold.”
I listen intently and remember Steve offhandedly telling me about when Ronan got caught drinking with his girlfriend. But Steve thought Ronan didn’t get punished for his offense.
The attorney pushes Ronan to continue.
Ronan’s eyes are unfocused, gazing at nothing as he recalls this particular night. “She closed the door behind her once we were in the barn and then started to scream at me about how embarrassing it was to have the sheriff drop me off. She said I made the whole family look bad. She yelled at me like she always did. And then she told me to turn around and put my hands against the stable door, and she beat me with the broom handle.”
“Where did she hit you?”
“My back and the back of my legs.”
“Did you ask her to stop?” Mr. Cooley asks softly.
“No,” Ronan says heavily.
“Why not?”
The jury is completely invested in Ronan’s story, many sets of eyes brimming with tears, overwhelmed by the hours of painful testimony Ronan has already given with no end in sight. The suffering this boy has endured becomes more and more evident with each word he utters.
“Same reason as always; I learned early on that if I just shut up and bear it, it would be over that much faster. Begging just made her angrier. If I stayed quiet and just took it, usually it was over faster. Not always, but most of the time. I honestly just did what I could to make it through whatever she was doing to me.”
“How long did the beating last?” the attorney asks.
I can’t imagine Ronan would be able to answer that question, but he surprises me. “I don’t know how long it lasted, but she struck me seventeen times,” Ronan says, his voice strained. “She stopped hitting me that night after my knees finally buckled from the pain. And then she walked out of the barn and locked it behind her.”
“Seventeen times? How do you know that, Ronan?”
“Because I counted her hits. I always count them.”
“Why?” The attorney remains close to his wooden desk, not moving closer to Ronan, not encroaching upon his space or impeding the jury’s view of Ronan, who has everyone’s undivided attention.
“I started counting her hits when I was around twelve. It helped me… It helped me make it through the beatings. It was something to focus on other than the pain, you know? It helped me stay quiet.” There’s a tremor in Ronan’s voice, and I can tell by the slight shaking of his hands that he’s bouncing his leg behind the wooden skirt of the table.
“When your mother stopped hitting you and she walked out of the barn, where were you?” Mr. Cooley asks. He wants Ronan to paint the picture. My eyes feel dry and raw from the tears I’ve already spilled today.
“Still in the barn, kneeling on the ground.”
“Your mother locked you in the barn, at night?”
Ronan nods. “Yeah.”
“In the middle of winter in Montana?”
"Yes."
“Wearing only sweatpants and a t-shirt?”
"Yeah."
There are moments when even Darren Cooley is left speechless by the cruelty Ronan endured, and this is one of those moments. He takes a minute to compose himself. “How long did your mother leave you locked in that barn?”
“I don’t know how long I was in there before she finally came back and let me out. I just remember how damn cold it was. By the time she let me out I couldn’t feel my hands and feet.”
“Do you know whether anyone noticed you missing that night?”
“No, I don’t think so. My grandparents get up at three or three-thirty every morning. My mom led me back to the house before my grandparents got up, and then she let me sleep the majority of the day. I was in so much pain and the freezing cold took a lot out of me.”
Like he has done with each incident Ronan has already spoken about, Mr. Cooley asks Ronan whether he told anyone about the night in the barn. Once again, I’m surprised when Ronan gives an answer other than what I had expected.
“Yeah,” he says, and my eyes as well as those of our friends and families are locked on him.
“Who did you tell?”
“My girlfriend at the time,” Ronan says. “She was the one I had been caught drinking with.”
“What’s her name?”
“Miranda. Miranda Jackson.”
The attorney scribbles something onto his notepad. “Is Miranda in Montana?”
Ronan shrugs. “I have no idea where she is.”
“Okay. Why did you tell her about what your mother did when you had never told anyone before?”
“I hadn’t planned on telling her anything. She just… she figured it out. She saw the bruises and she just kept asking me about it and then I just… I told her my mom had hit me.”
“Did you tell her only about your mom hitting you with the broom?”
“At first, yeah, but she kept asking me all these questions and eventually I told her everything,” he says, almost choking on his words.
“Ronan, did you ever tell anyone else that your mother hurt you?”
“Miranda was the only one who knew the full extent, but… my best friend Shane sort of figured things out about a year ago.”
Shane shifts in my periphery.
“When exactly was it that Shane figured things out?”
“It was around February of last year. We were at the gym with my brother and our buddy Zack. The night before, my mom had beaten me with the broom. That started to be her go-to punishment for me—hitting me with the broom. I remember I had just taken a shower; I wasn’t wearing a shirt and… she called me downstairs. I could tell by her tone that she was pissed at me and she just… she told me to turn around, put my hands on the counter, and she started hitting me,” Ronan says, his face contorting at the memory.
“Did you count the hits?”
“Yep. Thirty-five. It hurt so bad.” Ronan tips his head back before running his hands over his face, trying to shed the tension.
“Do you know what she was angry about?”
“She had found a condom in the trash,” Ronan says. “She thought it was mine.”
“Was it?”
He shakes his head no. “But that didn’t matter. She kept yelling at me, calling me all kinds of names I’d rather not repeat here.”
“And how did you come to tell Shane?”
“The next morning, we went to the gym—we work out together all the time—and Shane kind of punched me in the ribs, just as a ‘good job’ after I finished a set of bench presses. My ribs were really sore from the day before, and it hurt like a mother. He didn’t even punch me hard, but my knees buckled. I just wasn’t expecting it, didn’t have time to brace for it. I obviously freaked Shane out. He kept asking me what the hell was wrong. He wouldn’t leave me alone, followed me into the locker room and made me pull up my shirt. So, I did and he just… figured it out. I didn’t have to say anything.” Ronan chokes out.
“Did you specifically tell him that your mother hit you?”
“No, but he obviously came to the right conclusion,” Ronan says with a quick nod.
“Did you ever specifically tell Shane or anyone other than Miranda that your mother was hurting you?”
“One time last year I told Shane that I’d had a run-in with my mom. Same sort of M.O.—she had beaten me with the broom handle; my back was bruised. When I got to work, I told Shane.”
“Why did you tell him then of all times?”
“No idea. It just… I don’t know. Things were starting to feel different,” Ronan says, his voice strained.
“Different how?”
Again, Ronan shakes his head, unsure of himself. “I don’t know. My mom was just… angrier. It was getting to the point where we would have a run-in every single time we were in the house alone together. She would hit me more and way harder; there was never a moment of peace. Things just kept escalating and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the hell I was doing wrong.” Ronan’s voice cracks, bringing on a fresh wave of tears for me. “My brother was set to leave for college, and once he left it was going to be just my mom and me at home. I was… I was starting to wonder if I was going to survive the next year. There wasn’t going to be anything to stop her from just… just beating me to death. And, so, maybe subconsciously I just wanted to let someone know that if something happened to me… it was probably my mom. I have no idea.”
God, I want this all to end for him. I want it to be done; I want him to have needed closure.
But still, it isn’t over. Ronan continues to testify, describing violent encounter after violent encounter, the vicious abuse becoming increasingly frequent and brutal. But what’s worse is that I know that Mr. Cooley will soon begin reviewing the surveillance footage.
Mercifully, the judge calls a lunch recess. I’m grateful for the opportunity to take a deep breath, for the brief respite this break affords Ronan before the most difficult part of the day commences. Not that any of this has been easy for Ronan, but I don’t imagine seeing the abuse replayed will do anything but devastate him.
Ronan leaves the witness stand and is met by the female attorney who leads him out of the courtroom. And finally, Ronan’s eyes find and lock on me as he passes me. The pain I see in those beautiful green eyes shatters my heart into a million pieces.
“He’s doing great,” the prosecutor tells Frank when we gather in the hallway outside the courtroom.
“This stuff is horrible to listen to,” Frank says with an audible sigh, expressing exactly how we all feel. “I’ve seen the surveillance from the last year and the things she did to him, but hearing him describe it for some reason makes it a thousand times worse. I have no words.”
Steve groans, running his hands roughly across his face. “I honestly don’t know how much more I can handle.”
“I have to warn you,” Mr. Cooley says, “it’s going to get worse. I’m going to start playing the surveillance footage when we’re back. It’s hard to watch even for an outsider, and I have a feeling it’s going to crack Ronan wide open. But we’re making great progress; hopefully we’ll be done by the end of today and I won’t have to drag him back into court tomorrow, but no guarantees.”
“I don’t know if he’d be able to handle another day of this,” Frank says, his brow creased.
“I’m doing my best to get through it as quickly as possible,” the attorney says.
“Will there be cross-examination of Ronan?” my mom asks.
I hadn’t even thought about Rica’s lawyer getting to ask Ronan questions. Immediately my heart is in a vise again.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Cooley says. “He’s certainly entitled to cross Ronan, but it would be a stupid move, if you ask me.”
“Why?” Shane asks.
“Because juries don’t appreciate lawyers tearing apart victims of child abuse,” the attorney answers matter-of-factly, his lips pressed together. “Especially when they’re as credible as Ronan.”
Darren Cooley excuses himself then, joining Ronan and the young female lawyer in the small room off the side of the courtroom while the rest of us walk across the street to get a quick bite to eat. None of us are particularly hungry, the heaviness of Ronan’s testimony leaving us without an appetite.
***
“That was my condom,” Steve confesses on our way back from lunch. Neither of us finished our sandwiches. “When Mom beat him the night before Ran told Shay… that was my condom she found. Ran never brought any girls home. Well, not until he met you,” Steve says with a smile at me.
Frank wraps his arm around his oldest son’s shoulder, pulling him toward him. “Don’t beat yourself up, bud. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Easier said than done, Dad. I can’t believe I didn’t know. Like, I knew, but I didn’t know… How is that possible?” I’ve heard him ask himself this question repeatedly these past several months.
Shane sighs, holding Tori’s hand tightly. “Dude, I’m with you. Fuck, I really did know. He told me outright, but I never expected… all of this. I had no fucking clue and, fuck, it’s tearing me apart, man.”
“I don’t want to go back in there,” Vada says quietly. She’s been more subdued today than she was even after her breakup, her small frame seemingly weighed down by thousands of pounds.
Steve takes and squeezes Vada’s hand. “I know. But he needs us.” He pulls her toward him comfortingly.
I lean against my mom, seeking comfort the moment I retake my seat on the wooden bench. I have no doubt that this second half of Ronan’s testimony will be even more jarring than the first.
I sit and glance at Rica, dressed today in navy-blue dress pants, a white blouse, and a beige jacket. Her hair falls gently down her back while she looks down at her yellow notepad, though she glances at Ronan briefly as he retakes his seat in the witness stand. Rica’s attorney whispers something into her ear, and she nods.
Mr. Cooley begins his questioning. “Hi Ronan. I just want to remind you that you’re still under oath, okay? So, just keep answering my questions as best you can.”
“Okay.” Ronan’s body and voice are as tense as they were before the hour-long break. It’s clear he didn’t get a chance to rest, to ground himself or calm his anxiety, because the word exhausted doesn’t even begin to describe how he looks. He’s fatigued—emotionally and physically—from the hours of painful testimony, from the constant barrage of triggering questions, from having to recall trauma after trauma, from being in his mother’s presence.
“Ronan, earlier this morning you testified that your mother would sometimes reset your bones or relocate your joints, is that right?”
Ronan nods. “Yeah.” His beautiful face is ashen and worn as he fights against the panic, the anxiety that’s triggered with the recollection.
“When was the last time your mother set or relocated one of your bones or joints?”
He thinks for a moment, and I’m sure I know his response. “Last July or August. I can’t remember exactly. She reset my right shoulder.”
I remember Steve telling me he had seen the surveillance footage of this particular incident. It happened the day Adam stalked me to New York, after Ronan protected me and kicked Adam’s ass, but not without sustaining his own injuries, including a split lip and a black eye.
“Ronan are you aware that your father had installed a video and audio surveillance system in your home?”
Ronan exhales sharply. “Yes, but I didn’t know it was actually recording stuff until recently,” he says, apprehension on his face. A dark terror seizes Ronan. He knows as well as the rest of us that the jury is about to see with their own eyes what violence Ronan was subjected to during the last twelve months before the cataclysmic end of the abuse.
Like he did when he played Zack’s footage, Darren Cooley moves to the computer and asks for the curtains to be drawn, darkening the courtroom before he turns off the light over the audience, leaving the lights illuminating the judge’s bench and witness stand on.
“Ronan, if I told you that the incident in which your mother dislocated your shoulder occurred on Friday, August 13th last year, would you have any reason to doubt that this date is correct?”
“Not really,” Ronan says. “That sounds right.” He lifts his eyes, letting his gaze roam the audience for a second until he finds me.
Every nerve in my body is wound tightly with the urge to get up and run to him, to hold him, comfort him, and I hold his gaze and he mine until the attorney redirects Ronan’s attention to the surveillance footage.
Mr. Cooley turns back to his computer screen and selects the August 13th footage already expertly cut and visually enhanced. I hold my breath as Mr. Cooley hits start. I don’t know what to expect. Watching Zack’s video rattled me, and that only showed the last moments of what Rica was doing to Ronan and in a shaky way to boot.
I watch, my gaze flitting between the large screen and Ronan as Rica appears on screen. She’s standing in the kitchen, the camera angle showing her from behind as she stands by the sink, apparently rinsing dishes. It takes only a minute before Ronan enters the kitchen from the garage to the right of the screen. He’s wearing jeans, his black, long-sleeve Murphy’s shirt, and his black ball cap. Rica turns her head toward Ronan, and they’re silent for a moment before Rica speaks first.
“I thought you were working,” Rica says. Then, “What happened to your face, Ronan?” She moves away from the sink and toward her son, already posturing. “Did you get in a fight? God damn it, Ronan.”
“So what if I did,” Ronan says, and I quietly applaud him for pushing back on her.
It immediately becomes clear that Ronan’s retort only angered her.
She berates him as she moves toward him, her voice becoming louder, her tone shrill as she loses her temper. She shoves Ronan. I’m surprised to see this small-framed person have such an impact on Ronan’s solid body. But that’s what fear does, and Ronan has always been vulnerable to her. There was no way he could withstand her or fight back; he was conditioned to be her victim, even though he could have probably overwhelmed her effortlessly, kicked her ass just like he did Adam’s, who had at least twenty pounds on Ronan. But Ronan knew the pain that would result from fighting back would be a thousand times worse.
“So, are you telling me you enjoy getting the shit beat out of you? Because that’s what I’m hearing right now, Ronan! That you’re asking for it.” She keeps pushing him backward toward the open garage door.
“Why do you hate me so much,” he yells back.
Rica spews toxic, venomous words at her youngest son. “Because you’re a fucking piece of shit, Ronan. Because you’re a waste of space, a fucking worthless, no-good screwup who should never have been born.” She punches him exactly where I know Adam had already injured him. I flinch, the sound of Rica’s hit audible through the speakers in the courtroom.
“Fuck,” Steve whimpers next to me.
I hold my breath when Rica pushes Ronan again and he falls down the stairs to the garage. The vantage point changes to the garage, Ronan on the concrete floor, a steel utility shelf tipped over next to him. He’s grabbing his right shoulder while getting up from the ground, his mother trying to get his attention by calling his name.
“I need a second, Mom, please,” Ronan groans in the video, clearly in pain—his teeth gritted, jaw tight as he tries to get his bearings, and he walks back into the house. The vantage point changes back to the kitchen as Ronan moves through it, then to the living room. Rica asks to examine his injury, and although Ronan tells her not to touch him, she does so nonetheless, then decides that Ronan’s shoulder is dislocated and she’ll relocate it.
The panic in Ronan’s face is obvious as he jerks out of her reach, but Rica’s tone—so sharp, so angry, so violent before—is suddenly warm and soft. She urges her youngest son—who is injured and so vulnerable in this moment—to allow her to relieve his pain. It messes with my mind. I can’t imagine what it must have done to Ronan growing up. Being abused, then having to seek help and relief from your abuser. God, it would mess with anyone’s head. Ronan finally relents, though the fear in his eyes is obvious when Rica positions herself to relocate Ronan’s shoulder.
“I’m going to count to three,” she says, but instead violently relocates Ronan’s shoulder after counting only to one. The loud crack of his right shoulder joint relocating is clearly audible, and I swear I see a smile on her face when she tells Ronan that nothing is worse than the anticipation of pain. That woman knew exactly what she was doing to him, her warfare psychological as much as it was physical, and unfiltered rage boils in my chest.
It's dead quiet in the courtroom while Darren Cooley continues to play the footage showing Ronan making his way to his room, changing shirts, then walking back into the kitchen where his mother acts like nothing happened. I’m incredulous at her apology and dumbfounded when she nonchalantly asks Ronan to take out the trash.
The attorney stops the footage, and I return my gaze to Ronan. His elbows are on the tabletop in front of him and his face is buried in his hands.
“Ronan, do you recall this particular incident?” Mr. Cooley asks.
Ronan lifts his head, and there is so much pain in his face when he answers the question in the affirmative.
“Did you tell anyone about this incident on August 13th?”
Ronan shakes his head, not looking up. “No.”
“Why not?” the attorney asks like he has so many times today.
Ronan just shrugs. “It wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened before. It was just… life,” he says, his words heavy, and I can see the effect they have on my friends, mom, Frank, and Penny sitting to the side of me. We’re all beginning to understand that the vicious abuse Ronan has been describing all day, the beatings that have garnered such strong reactions from the jury and the audience, were an everyday part of life for Ronan. A dark, hidden, and painful part of his life.
“Do you remember your mom apologizing for hurting you?”
Ronan looks at him with a frown on his face. “Not specifically, but she obviously did. She apologized all the time.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. It was always like that. She’d hurt me and then, once things had calmed down, once we had gotten some distance, she’d either pretend nothing happened at all or she’d randomly tell me she was sorry, that she didn’t want to always hurt me. And then she’d inevitably tell me what it was I did to set her off and that if only I did what she told me she wouldn’t have to keep hurting me. It was just… bullshit.”