My sister Elaine looked like a dwarf sitting in the towering witness stand under the watchful gaze of the judge, lawyers, and spectators. Tears welled in my eyes, and I had to look away.

The judge's flowing ravenlike robe reminded me of the stern, mysterious Franciscan nuns who taught Elaine and me for twelve years. Like the nuns, the judge seemed to hide his feelings and thoughts behind an impenetrable veil of darkness.

I had already taken my turn on the stand, careful not to appear too solicitous. My attorney had warned me against talking to "His Honor" as if he were an exalted supreme being. I knew just how intimidated Elaine must feel as she prepared to testify about the effect on me of the harassment and slander that was the issue in this trial. No one knows me better than my sister Elaine, so my attorney, Roy, recruited her to tell the judge how she thought my life had changed since my corporate nightmare began. Roy had warned me, "No topics are off-limits."

He began his examination of my sister with the basics-I'm older by thirteen months, and we are both middle children, sandwiched between an older sister and a younger one.

Elaine's long blond hair hung gently over her shoulders, blending in with her sunshine-yellow jacket. Her bright floral blouse accentuated her natural beauty.

Elaine smiled wanly as Roy gently walked her through the basics. "I have three children, two daughters and a son," she said.

"And how would you characterize the relationship between your children and your sister Margy?" Roy asked, gesturing toward me with the pen in his hand.

I looked at Elaine. As our eyes made brief contact, I felt her pain. I knew she felt mine.

Elaine's lower lip began to tremble and she looked at me with sad, pleading eyes. She burst into wracking sobs. "She's . . . she's their favorite aunt." I bowed my head and, for the first time in two years of legal insanity and countless hours of therapy, I, too, began to shake with spasms of weeping.

This was what Roy had said I needed to show. At lunch on the first day of the trial, he spoke to Elaine as if I wasn't even there. "She needs to open up. She needs to let go and show emotion. I know the emotion is there, and I need to find a way to have her let it out."

Everything was on the table now. My lawsuit against the company arose from eight years of harassment, betrayal, and slander. It had nearly cost me my sanity and inflicted deep wounds on my heart and psyche. These wounds would leave permanent scars.