Chapter 11 - IONE’S CASE
Ione eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor child-endangerment-related offense.
The exact plea reflected the limited restraint, humiliation, and withholding of a meal in a disciplinary context without serious physical injury.
No felony kidnapping.
No torture charge.
No absurd prison sentence.
Probation.
Mandatory counseling.
Community service.
No unsupervised contact with Oren.
No disciplinary authority over minors at Villa Halbrook.
The last condition sounded ridiculous because she had never possessed lawful authority anyway.
Sometimes courts put obvious things into writing because families have spent too long pretending obvious things are negotiable.
Merritt was not charged.
He had not restrained Oren.
Had not taken the plate.
Had not instructed staff.
His failure was moral and cultural, not automatically criminal.
That distinction frustrated me emotionally.
It remained correct.
Then my diversion.
I completed it.
No excuse for the bin.
At one session the counselor asked:
“What did you want Ione to feel?”
“Humiliated.”
“Why?”
“Because she humiliated him.”
“And that makes you different how?”
I hated the question.
Eventually:
“It didn’t.”
Good.
Then I apologized to Ione for the physical retaliation.
Not for removing Oren.
Not for ending the title.
For driving the bin into her.
May you like
She accepted without using the apology to minimize her own conduct.
Progress begins in unpleasantly specific sentences.
