Catalina's (a pseudonym) hands move across the table as if it were a piano. Sometimes her fingers drum; other times they hang still in the air, searching for keys that don't exist. "It helps me calm down," she says before beginning her story, which follows. She learned to play the instrument when she was a child. Since then, mentally tracing staircases or imagining music helps her to organize her inner turmoil. Even now, as she awaits a trial she never thought she would have to face.