Acts of Love (26 page)

Sandy bristled at the starchy tone. “What does that mean?”

“It means, quite simply, that she has clearly made up her mind not to engage in our discussions in any meaningful way. She seems to feel it is quite all right to sit in silence for the entire session. Or, if she does speak, to give whatever brief answer she seems to feel I'm looking for. I must strongly suggest that you find another therapist who can devote more time to her. And you might consider the same course for Ali, though she seems somewhat better adjusted.”

“Fine,” Sandy responded curtly.

“Then can I assume, Miss Leder, that you will follow through on this matter?” Mrs. Murphy persisted after giving Sandy the names and numbers of two child psychiatrists affiliated with Hardison General.

“You can assume whatever you want,” Sandy could not resist retorting before putting down the receiver.

She stared for a moment at the scrap of paper where she had dutifully scribbled down the doctors' names before stashing it in her large purse along with the unpaid speeding tickets, candy wrappers, and crumpled tissues.

 

T
ED PACED THE APARTMENT RESTLESSLY
, up to the wall, back, up to the wall, back, the very air oppressive in its stillness.

The snow was too deep for him to drive through; he could not risk getting stuck, having to call for help.

There was no place to go.

One of the things he missed most was sound within his own boundaries, sounds that belonged to him, pots clanging, his girls squabbling or laughing or singing a made-up song, someone in the shower, the rattle of family life. The phone was silent. Hardly anyone ever called him now; Carl sometimes.

The same feeling had come to him when he had first left the house on Sycamore Street for this. The silence, the cleanliness and order. How had he thought that this was what he wanted? This complete absence of family, the precise void he had somehow managed to fill. Now, through carelessness, or bad luck, they were gone once more.

The last time he had seen his mother was six years ago. He had been on a job site in Pennsylvania and decided to drive the seventy miles to see her. She and her husband were running a motel now, living in back of the check-in area in a small, rent-free apartment. Her face when he entered—
Can I help you?
—her dyed black hair pulled up in a straggly bun, her vast arms emerging from a stained cotton shift, a landscape of dimpled fat. She weighed close to three hundred pounds by then. It took her a moment to recognize him.

He sat in their small kitchen filled with receipts, messages for guests (the rooms did not have telephones), rate cards, eating dinner with her and his stepfather. They did not ask him once about his job, his family, his home, only talked of the bust in the real estate market, the motel to the right of them going out of business, their own vacancy rate up twelve percent. Afterward, he said to her, “Why don't you go to one of those diet clinics downtown?” Her feet were covered with ulcers from weight-induced diabetes, open purple lesions edging up her calves.

“A bunch of women sitting around complaining about their husbands?” his stepfather interrupted. “I'm not paying for that.”

He declined their offer of a free room for the night and left them as they settled in to watch their favorite show on TV. You don't mind, do you? We follow it every week.

She died less than a year after that, from a massive heart attack, at fifty-three, though his stepfather didn't write to tell him for three months.

“It's that asshole's fault,” Ted said angrily. But Ann had objected. “She was responsible for her own body.”

And though he knew that she was right, he never forgave his stepfather. There was some business about her will, which she had written herself from a kit she had sent away for from an ad on late-night television. It did not meet Pennsylvania's legal requirements and was found invalid. After that, he did not speak to his stepfather again.

He walked back from the window and sat on the couch.

He had shown her a picture of Julia and Ali before he had left that night, and she had held it close to her eyes, smiling dreamily, How pretty. She lingered for a moment over their faces, handing the photograph back only when her husband called out, “Bring me some coffee ice cream, will you?”

He had the photo still, its edges crinkled beneath its frame.

His girls.

 

O
NE OF THE JURORS WAS LATE
. Her car had gotten stuck in a snowbank three miles away, and the courtroom waited impatiently through the long delay, hissing and buzzing and fidgeting. Julia turned in her seat and saw Peter Gorrick watching her from two rows back. When he smiled at her, his eyes folded in, like the origami boats and birds she used to make. She had started to return his smile when she felt Sandy following her gaze disapprovingly, and she turned around to face the front. Two feet away, she saw the back of her father's head, his dark hair neatly combed, falling an inch above the top of his suit jacket, baring a stripe of his sallow skin. She hadn't seen him since the police had led him away. She stared at that inch of skin, naked and prickly, and clenched the ends of her dress in her hands.

Sandy scowled at Gorrick and turned back to Julia, now looking straight ahead at the empty judge's bench, her eyes shielded and obstinate and imperturbable. She was thankful, at least, for the decision, reached by the prosecution late yesterday, not to call Ali to testify. Reardon was worried about how she might describe the knot of Ted and Julia and the gun she had seen. “They'll call her, and we'll work with it then,” he said. But Julia, of course, was different.

When the juror, a young kindergarten teacher with yellow plastic snow boots and a frizzy perm just growing out, finally arrived, flustered and apologetic, the court settled in.

Reardon rose. “The people call Julia Waring.”

Sandy gave Julia's unresponsive hand a squeeze and watched as she progressed down the center aisle, her head held high. Ted tried to meet her eyes as she passed, taller than when he had last seen her, so sober and so lost to him; but she did not waver.

She took her seat.

Reardon stepped up to her. “Hello, Julia.”

“Hello.”

“Julia, will you please tell the court how old you are?”

“I'm thirteen.”

“Now, I know this is hard for you, so just take it as slowly as you want, okay? I'll be as brief as possible.”

“Okay.”

“Your parents were separated, weren't they, Julia?”

“Yes.”

“Which parent did you live with?”

“I lived with my mother.”

“How long had your mother and father been separated?”

“About a year.”

“And in all that time, did your mother even mention wanting to get back together with your father?”

“No.”

“She never mentioned any plans to reunite with him?”

“No. She was happier without him. I know she was.” For just an instant she looked in her father's direction, and their eyes locked. He leaned forward, opening to her, trying to reach her, to take her in, but she was irretrievable. She broke away, broke before that first inkling of softening, of entrancement—for she felt its whispery beginning—could claim her. She blinked and turned her attention back to the lawyer.

“Okay, Julia. I understand you had a long talk with your father when you and your sister went camping with him on your last weekend together. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And did he tell you he wanted to get back together with your mother?”

“Yes. He said he still loved her.”

“Fine. Now, the three of you left Fletcher's Mountain early Sunday afternoon and drove back to Hardison. Did you make any stops along the way?”

“We stopped once, at Burl's Lounge.”

“Why was that?”

“Daddy said he had to use the bathroom.” Ted wondered when her voice had gotten so severe. “But he smelled of whiskey when he got out.”

“Objection.” Fisk rose.

“Overruled.”

Reardon did not flinch. “Julia, we're going to have to talk about what happened when you got home that night. Who was carrying the rifle when you entered the house?”

“My father.”

“Did it ever leave his hands?”

“No.”

“You never held it or touched it at any time?”

“No.” Her voice had begun to quaver an inch below the surface.

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure we had that straight. Now Julia, what happened when you got home? What happened between your mother and your father?”

“They started fighting.”

“Was it a loud fight?”

“Yes. Very loud.”

“Do you remember what they were fighting about?”

The courtroom reporter, a gaunt, sallow man in a shiny brown suit, looked up at Julia while his fingers, as if disconnected from the rest of his body, continued to fly mutely over the keys of his machine.

“My mother went on a date and my father didn't like it.”

“Did it make him very angry?”

“Yes.”

“Objection. Counsel is leading the witness.”

“Sustained.”

Reardon paused, then began again. “Do you remember what your father said, Julia?”

“He said he would never let her go. He said that she was wrong if she thought he would. He said she had another thing coming.”

“And what did your mother do?”

“She asked him to calm down but he wouldn't.”

Reardon stopped before the jury, considering this. “And then what happened?” he asked quietly.

“He shot her.” Julia's eyes burned, and she blinked away the threat of tears.

“Julia, did you see your father aim the gun at your mother?”

“Yes.”

“She's lying!” Ted's deep voice pierced the room, filled it, stunned it. It was the first time the jury had heard him utter a sound, and they turned as one to face him. Julia was the only one who did not flinch, did not look.

Judge Carruthers banged her gavel fiercely. “You will have your turn, Mr. Waring. In the meantime, you will remain quiet. One more outburst like that and I will have you removed from the courtroom.” She lingered on Ted before returning to Reardon. “Continue.”

“I'm sorry to have to go over this once more, Julia, but I want to be sure that it's clear. You saw your father actually raise and aim the gun at your mother's head?”

“Yes.” She was clenching the ends of her skirt in her fists now, working the fabric until it was limp and damp.

“How far were you standing from your father when he aimed the gun at your mother? Can you show us in the courtroom?”

She looked at the three feet of space between them. “About as far as you are from me.”

“Julia, reach out your arm. That's right. As far as you can. You can't reach me, can you?” Reardon asked.

“No.” She withdrew her extended arm, which was tingling, as if it had fallen asleep.

“And this is how far you were from your father when he fired the gun?”

“Yes.”

“What happened when you saw him raise and aim the gun? Did you do anything?”

“I yelled, ‘Stop! Don't!'”

“And then what did he do?”

“He fired anyway. I tried to grab the gun but it was too late.” Her mouth contorted around the last words, so that they came out in slow motion.

“You reached for him after he had already fired?”

“Yes.”

Reardon smiled faintly at her. “I have no further questions.”

It was Fisk's turn. He'd had little experience with children and had always avoided any prolonged contact with them, especially on a witness stand, where he had found them unpredictable and stubborn. Nevertheless, in the last few weeks he had spent much time on the telephone with his fourteen-year-old niece, absorbing her rhythms and her tonalities, and he was hopeful that he would be able to control Julia.

He walked slowly over to her, smiling. “Hello, Julia.”

“Hello.”

“Julia, you were very mad at your father when your parents separated last year, weren't you?”

Julia shrugged.

“Weren't you very angry with your father for leaving?”

“No.” Her voice was suddenly tough, defiant. “I was glad he left.”

“You don't much like your father, do you, Julia? In fact, I think you are just angry enough with him to try to hurt him, aren't you?”

Julia didn't answer.

“Julia, didn't you sometimes lie to your father when he called looking for your mother by telling him she wasn't home when she was?”