Article content continued

If the judge agreed with him, it would be up to a jury to decide whether her crimes were a “direct result” of being trafficked.

If Wilk said the affirmative defence didn’t apply to cases like hers, Johnson would have to come up with an entirely new strategy for defending Chrystul.

She sat beside him, still pulling at her rosary while trying to read his notes.

“The court,” Wilk said after 40 minutes, “is not going to rule today. The court is going to come back in approximately 30 days.”

Chrystul stood and turned toward her mom. Then she shuffled across the room, out of the courthouse and back to her cell.

Two hours later, Chrystul’s mom thanked the activists who drove her to and from Kenosha and climbed out of their car. Taylor, 36, didn’t like asking for their help, but her truck was broken, and court was the only time she could see Chrystul in person.

Inside her Milwaukee apartment, Taylor looked at the notes she had taken that day. At the bottom of the page, she’d written, “Affirmative defence. Find statute.”

For a year and a half she’d been going over it all in her head. Why hadn’t she stopped Chrystul from going to live with her boyfriend? Why hadn’t she asked more questions about those new clothes? She reminded herself that she had three other kids, worked long hours and moved to Milwaukee to survive. Only sometimes did it make her feel any better.

Here, Chrystul was everywhere. Photos of her taped to the walls. Her violin in storage, gathering dust. A box of belongings from the women’s prison – where Chrystul served nine months this year for her fleeing charge – stashed where Taylor wouldn’t have to look at it.