“All rise!”
The bailiff’s bellow cut through the tension of the federal courtroom. My mother and sister, Brenda, lazily stood up from the defendant’s table. They still wore their masks of arrogance, treating this arrest as a nuisance, a “joke” taken too far by the family failure, Sophia.
“Defendants Brenda Tate and Beatrice Tate,” Judge Harrison rumbled. “You are charged with Aggravated Child Abuse and Assault on a Federal Officer.”
