Twenty-six years ago

The vaguely familiar man sitting across from me shook his head as he stared my direction. I was covered with only a hospital dressing gown. I wasn’t in the hospital but at my doctor’s appointment—my obstetrician—in an examination room smaller than my closet. The person who entered and was waiting for my reply wasn’t my doctor. Though I believed I’d seen him before, I didn’t know him.

“Judge Landers?”

I wrung my ...