Claire Dorotik M.A.
Excerpt
“Claire Dorotik, did you kill your father?” The words rang in my ears, turning my blood cold. My vision blurred. The lights from the news reporter’s cameras blinded me. I couldn’t see the way out of the court room hallway. I was surrounded by them, hounding me, “What do know about your father’s murder?” “Where were you on the night of February 13th?” My lawyer told me there might be media here, but he didn’t prepare me for this. He instructed me to say nothing as it would only be used against me. Maybe he could have told me to take all the rage I felt about my father’s murder, my mother’s arrest and possible indictment, and now her attorney trying to shift the blame, and hold it in. Looking back now, I know I was in a haze. Becoming numb was the only protection I had. I don’t think I could have even allowed myself to recognize the loss of my father. I was afraid to. Not in front of the reporters for sure. He was a part of me, and in many ways, indescribable even now, larger than life. His habit of taking off running ten miles on a whim, always seemed an untouchable ideal to me. Or the fact that he took notes of every ride at every horse show he attended. Nobody does that. But he took to the role of supporting his daughter with an intensity that was unmatchable. He was the one who insisted that I go to the hospital when he found me on the kitchen floor passed out with pneumonia. I don’t even know where me mom was. But he took the day off work to make sure I was ok. He never knew what that meant to me. Neither did I until years later. The fact that my mother’s attorney was blaming me for his murder was beyond comprehension to me.
It wasn’t that I was being targeted by my mother’s attorney, and now the media, that sent ice down my veins, it was the fact that at that moment, I felt like nothing mattered. Saying nothing made me look guilty, and maybe then I would lose even more people around me. I felt completely helpless, the sensationalism of the case had led me to mistrust anything that came out of my mouth because it wasn’t what appeared in the paper. In fact, when I read the paper, I felt like someone else. I even started to think I was guilty, and question my own sanity. I imagined people who knew me struggling with what they thought they knew, and what they were reading. I remember wearing glasses on that day. I never really wear glasses, as I only really need them to drive, but I wore them that day, because I think I was very confused about who I was. The thought never even crossed my mind that my own two brothers would ever question me too. Yet they did.
I wanted to disappear, but I couldn’t. What would the horses do? There were eighteen of them back at home, the subjects of the business my mother and I started. But even with the thought of them running through my mind, I struggled with the reality of what was happening to my life. Was my mother really being tried for the murder of my father? Even worse, was I really being questioned about my involvement? That poisoned version of my life threatened what I had known of my family, my home, myself. This can’t be real. Was everything good in my life just an illusion? I questioned everything, and felt like I was going crazy. The only thing I didn’t question was the horses.