There’s a certain amount of fear that comes with any kind of public speaking. Yet, as I walk down the aisle under the tent, surrounded by the kind people that were in my daily life for twenty-one years. I felt no fear.

None. Maybe because this was what was familiar to me for so long.

My palms were dry. My breaths were even.

I felt powerful. Strong.

And ready to face my demons head on.

Maybe because my child growing in my stomach was giving me a new sense of bravery I’ve never known before. Maybe because I was about to say words that I’ve wanted to say for so long to so many that my excitement outweighed my fear.

Critter, Maddy, and Miller were manning the entrances and exits. Josh stood next to me in her police uniform looking every bit the part of the angry cop. Her job was to also make sure that I was not interrupted until I had said all I had to say.

The tent was full. Every available seat had a body in it.

When we reached the podium, Josh leaned over and grabs the microphone “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “we have a quick public safety presentation for you before your service starts today. We apologize for the interruption. Please listen carefully and will be out of your way as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Josh nodded to me. It was my turn.

I looked over a sea of faces. Some familiar. Some not.

“My name is Sawyer Dixon,” I started. However, I pause when I saw my father standing in the back corner of the tent staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. I didn’t think I’d be able to find the words to continue because my heart was beating so loud I didn’t know if I could hear my own voice.

As I began to speak Richard pushed his way down the aisle Josh met him in the middle and shook her head blocking him from going any further.

“Like a lot of you, I grew up in this church. Just like my mother. Every single day of my life lived in fear that my father would kill my mother. I feared that he would kill me. I feared that he wouldn’t kill us and we would have to keep on living these torturous lives forever. He repeatedly beat, raped, and starved my mother, to the point where she couldn’t go on and decided to kill herself.” I took a deep calming breath.

“And for a while I was so mad. I didn’t know why I was so mad until I realized I wasn’t really mad at her at all. I was jealous. Jealous that she found a way out and I was still there.

I was now the one being beaten and told it was discipline. I was threatened and told it was God's word or God's plan. I was deprived of love because in this church a woman, a girl, we are deemed unworthy of love. We are starved affection. We are so beneath the men that we can’t eat at the same table or make eye contact. Yet, my father continued to preach family first while sucking the life force from us with each passing second.

“Liar! You have no proof!” my father called out, shaking his closed fist in the air.

“Simmer down,” Josh warned. Placing her hand on her gun holster. “She’s getting to that part.”

The audience began to speak to one another in hushed whispers. My eyes fell on a young woman in the audience standing in the back.

Bridget.

I gave her smile and she looked as though I was on suicide mission.

I strained my shoulders glanced over to Finn, then Miller, and then finally my real father.

Critter.

Who looked angry, yet proud from where he stood on the opposite end of the tent from Richard.

It felt good to have him witness this. It felt good to be up there saying the things that I’d been thinking needed to be said my entire life.

“Someone told me recently that it doesn’t matter what your religion believes in regardless of how silly or stupid it may seem to others. What matters is what you take from it. How it makes you feel. Nothing about Richard or this church has ever made me feel better or loved or wiser. Or kinder.”

Under the pretense of love Richard teaches hate.

“All lies. Don’t listen to her. She’s a deflector. She left the church. This is the devil’s work. All of it!” Richard yelled. His face turning red with his anger. And just like he’d always done with me…

I dismissed him.

In my heart. In my mind.

In my life.

He was not important enough to acknowledge. To look me in the eye.

So, I moved on.

“I’m not going to tell you again.” Josh warned, moving to stand right in front of Richard.

“I’ve never come forward before because I had no proof, nothing to back up what I’m telling you today.” I grabbed the cell phone from my back pocket and looked to Miller in the back of the room who gave me the nod to go ahead.

“But I left and found a new home. A new family. Things have changed.” I thought about the child growing my belly. “Everything has changed.”

The crowd again began to speak to one another in hushed whispers.

I pressed play on the phone.

The light from the projector Miller had installed the night before came to life on the tent wall behind me. The audience gasped as the first clip from the phone showed Bridget’s own husband pushing her head into the dining room table while yelling at her for accidentally making eye contact. The second clip was of Richard and it looked as if it was taken through the window of our house on the second story. Richard was straddling my mother on their bed. It was hard to watch. I felt helpless then and watching it made me feel just as helpless.

I turned around to face the crowd to gauge the reactions instead of watching the video. Most of them had their eyes locked on the screen, flinching with the women on the wrong end of wrath.

Clip after clip showed high ranking members of the church all doing much the same. When the video was over Josh already had Richard in cuffs and was leading him away. He screamed over his shoulder, “The devil has won this round but God WILL prevail in the end.”

“That’s the thing,” I said. “All of this was done under the guise of God and discipline. I don’t know what kind of God would look at these videos and think that is properly represented his will. And if that’s the kind of god you choose to believe in, it’s not a god I want to know.”

“I’m proud of you,” Finn said leading me away from the podium underneath the tent flap behind the podium the opposite direction of the crowd.

As soon as we were on the other side someone stepped into our path. I took a startled step back. Finn pushed me behind his body. His entire body stiffened as he readied himself to go on the offense.

“It’s just me. Bridget.” I peeked out from around Finn and he stepped aside. I approached her like I would a small child who might easily scare.

“Thank you for leaving us that phone.”

Bridget kicked at the dirt. “No, thank you for using it. I stole it years ago. Been sneaking around taking videos here and there. Never really knew what I was going to do with them or how I was going to get people to see them. It’s me who should be thanking you.”

“Do you need a place to go, Bridget?” Finn asked using the same soft tone I was.

She shook her head. “My husband was carted off as well. I think I’m gonna be okay. Gonna go back to North Carolina and ransack the house. Take anything of value and I’m going to take a page from your book and... escape.”

There was an excitement. A life in her voice that hadn’t been there before. Bridget skipped off as my heart skipped while watching her leave.

“Look what you did, baby,” Finn said, pulling he into the crook of his arm. “She’s going to have her own life now. A real life all because of you.”

I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t believe it. “No,” I shook my head. “Not because of me. Because of her.”

“You’re right,” Finn agreed. “I think Bridget was much stronger than we gave her credit for.”

Bridget had proven to be more than I’d judged her to be. I’d never make that same mistake again. Because, as we’d just witnessed, Bridget was a force to be reckoned with.

And the day of reckoning was here.