Mother Load (17 page)

Sandy unzipped her lunch cooler and drew out a diet shake.

“I can’t believe you’re still drinking those things. How much weight have you lost?”

“Very funny. I’ll have you know thanks to guzzling these shakes off and on for twenty-some years, I’ve lost about nine thousand pounds. Unfortunately I’ve gained about nine thousand-fifteen.”

“Don’t even tell me about weight. I’ve already gained twenty-four pounds and I’m not even in the third trimester yet. At this rate I’m going to look like an olive on a couple of toothpicks.”

“Yeah, well you’re having twins. You’re supposed to gain weight. I’ve been on a diet for half my life and all I get is bigger.” She eyed Lily’s lunch bag with envy. “What have you got?”

Lily extracted the items one by one. “Turkey with sprouts on whole wheat…a tangerine…two cheese sticks…carrots, snap peas and cherry tomatoes…and three vanilla crème cookies.”

Sandy looked up at the sky. “Can I please get pregnant?”

“Just don’t let me be standing anywhere near Suzanne when you tell her.”

“Come on, you wouldn’t miss that scene for the world. Have you been back to the doctor?”

“Just for the usual. We decided to skip the sonogram that would have told us the sex.” She opened the bag of veggies between them and gestured for Sandy to help herself.

“The suspense would kill me. You guys got a list of names yet?”

“Ruby and Ralph,” she mumbled through a bite of sandwich. “Actually, that’s our running joke. We’ve decided Anna gets to name the first girl and I get to name the first boy. And we’re not telling each other what we’ve picked until they’re born.”

“Aren’t you brave! I wouldn’t trust Suzanne as far as I could throw her. We’d end up with a kid named after some alien on TV.”

“I wanted to pick the boy’s name because I had this nightmare she’d name him after her father. That’s all I need, another George in my life.”

Sandy’s straw gurgled as she hit the bottom of her shake. “I could drink three of these and still not be full.”

“Have some more of these veggies. I eat so many I feel like I could turn into a produce stand.”

“I think there’s something to that ‘glow’ thing. You look terrific. Your cheeks are all rosy and your hair’s shiny.” Sandy leaned closer to study her face. “If you have a wrinkle, I sure can’t see it. Your skin’s perfect. I think it’s because you eat all that crap that’s good for you…which means I could potentially look as good as you and not even have to be pregnant.”

“Anna’s taken over almost everything at home—even dinner—so besides all the good food, I’m relaxing a whole lot more. Not enough, if you listen to her and the doctor, though. Now that I’m going into the home stretch, Beth said I should consider taking an early leave from work.”

“Sounds like a no-brainer to me.”

Lily broke off half of her tangerine and gave it to her starving friend without comment. “I told her I wanted to hang on as long as I could so I’d have all of my maternity leave after the babies were born, but she put the fear of God into me. She said twins are almost always early, and I’d do them a favor if I took it easy and let them cook a little longer.”

Sandy snapped a carrot in two and examined the ends. “Thanks for that visual while I’m eating raw food.”

“I’ve got to hand it to Anna, though. She’s wanted me to quit work from day one, and she didn’t even gloat. Not one single ‘I told you so.’”

“So you’re out the door the second this trial wraps up?”

Lily nodded emphatically. “A woman of leisure.”

Anna released Alice’s car seat from the seat belt, pausing as usual to inhale her glorious scent. Little boys were delightful in their own way, but she secretly hoped for one of these. The odds were good—three out of four—they would have at least one girl. She had even settled on a name.

As she fussed with the hooks and straps of the baby carrier, Andy helped Jonah with his car seat and both boys scooted out the other door, eager for the fun awaiting them on the Santa Monica Pier. “Can Jonah and me drive the cars?”

“You both can do everything if you’re good listeners,” Lily said gently. When the boys were together, it was especially important to set the rules early. They could be out of control in no time.

“And what happens if you’re not?” Anna asked.

“Andy gets a whipping,” Jonah said with a snicker.

“I do not!”

Lily shot her an incredulous look and turned back to Jonah. “What do you know about whippings?”

“Marcus—he’s my friend—he gets them when he’s bad.”

“We don’t give whippings. But if you aren’t good listeners, you don’t get to ride on the rides. Is that clear?” Lily pressed both boys to answer that they understood.

Anna situated the car seat onto the stroller and pushed it through the parking lot as Lily held hands with the boys. This would be their life soon, except one of them would walk with Andy while the other pushed a double stroller. Every single errand or trip to see family and friends would be like today, a gigantic production in which she had to double-check that everyone was secure, and that everything they could possibly need to raise children was loaded into the diaper bag.

First stop was the carousel, where Lily stood watch over Alice while Anna got the boys situated.

“Take the blue one, Mom,” Andy shouted, pointing to the brightly painted horse closest to Jonah’s. “I can ride by myself.”

Had it been only Andy, she would have stepped off altogether and let him ride alone, but she didn’t trust her nephew to stay put once the ride started. She loved Jonah dearly, all the while thanking her lucky stars for Andy’s calm and quiet demeanor. At least Kim’s puppy ploy had worked, according to Hal. Jonah was sleeping better, and so was everyone else…everyone but Peanut, who was getting a much needed break today.

Andy insisted on two rides so he could try a different horse, but then they moved on to the arcade. With all the bells and sirens of the video games blaring, Lily pushed the sleeping Alice on through to the rear exit. Anna herded the boys toward the age-appropriate games, but they lost interest the second Andy glimpsed the bumper cars through the open rear door.

She leaned over the rail and watched as Andy carefully selected his car, one exactly like all the others but for its blazing orange paint. Jonah was less discriminating, choosing the closest, which he used to ram Andy as soon as the power engaged. No matter how Andy maneuvered he could not escape his cousin’s attacks, and when the ride finished he was in tears.

“It’s part of the game, pal. That’s why they call it bumper cars.”

“But I wanted to drive.”

She explained to Jonah that Andy enjoyed the cars for a different reason and sent them back for another, more peaceful turn. Behind her, Lily had struck up a conversation with another woman, obviously pregnant, whose small daughter was driving a bumper car as well. She felt a pang of envy—not jealousy—just a wish that she could share the kinship between the two women, even though they were total strangers to one another. Lily waved in her direction and in a matter of seconds the woman left her to stand at the rail.

With the boys engrossed in their ride, she joined Lily on the bench. “You made a friend.”

“Not exactly.” She kicked off her slip-on sneakers and shifted the stroller so that Alice’s face was shaded. “We started talking about our due dates and I told her that Alice was actually my niece, and then I pointed to you and the boys. She asked if you were Alice’s mother and I told her no, that you were my wife. Things went downhill from there.”

Anna glared at the woman, who had plucked her daughter from the ride and was heading back through the arcade. “She actually said something about us?”

“No, she didn’t say jack shit,” she huffed, lowering her voice for the curse word. “She just got up and walked off.”

“Wish I’d known. I would have blown you a kiss.”

“And if you’d come over here, I would have shoved my tongue down your throat.”

“Now you tell me.” Lily had taught her not to waste energy on the bigotry of others, just to laugh it off and move on. “Say, did you happen to notice how nicely the X3 handled two car seats? Pretty nifty, huh?”

“Maybe that’s what you should borrow when it’s your turn to pick up all the kids.”

Anna had to hand it to her. Her mind was made up and she wasn’t taking no for an answer, so it was no longer a question of if they would get a minivan, but when. Just this morning, Lily had cut out an ad for a Honda Odyssey from the LA Times and left it on her placemat at breakfast. “What’s so special about the Odyssey?”

“I like the seat configuration. Andy can have the whole backseat to himself, or if he feels left out he can move up and sit between the babies.”

“He turns six this summer. He can ride in the front seat then.”

“Hmm…I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Have you seen the Routan?”

“No, who makes it?”

“D’oh! I do. There’s probably one in the showroom down at the VW lot right now.”

Lily’s face brightened as Andy and Jonah emerged from the ride. She slipped on her shoes, and with a barely perceptible grunt, pushed herself off the bench. “As long as it has the SEL Premium package with running boards…I’m not particular about the color.”

Anna took exactly four steps behind them before realizing she had been set up.

Lily gritted her teeth and rode out the contraction in her lower abdomen.

“All rise!”

The change in position was just what she needed, and her cramping dissipated. Braxton Hicks contractions they were called, perfectly normal for someone entering the third trimester. In her office she managed the pain by walking around for a few minutes, and at home she stretched out on her side. Neither of those were options in the courtroom.

Rod Samuels was wearing a new suit today. She knew—and so did everyone else in the courtroom—because the price tag bobbed from the armpit every time he raised his hand to make a point. Two of the women on the jury had traded smirks, which Lily chalked up in her column of intangibles. It wasn’t something they would consider in deliberations, but every tiny detail left an impression, and this one would take him down a notch.

Though Maria had refused Samuels’s offer of a guilty plea in exchange for a shorter sentence, the state had nonetheless reduced the charges to second-degree murder, and thus its burden of proof. No longer was Maria accused of luring Miguel to his death. Instead Samuels hoped to prove she had purchased the gun in anticipation of the opportunity to use it. He followed that conjecture with the trite charge she had “taken the law into her own hands” instead of calling the police.

The more she had reviewed the prosecution’s case leading up to trial, the more irritated she had become that the state had filed any charges at all. Scuttlebutt around the courthouse was that Samuels had an uncle somewhere in the system who might have hastened his nephew’s promotion to felonies. Rod was therefore anxious to prove himself, but in this case had clearly overreached with a first-degree murder charge. Someone in the DA’s office had persuaded him to dial it back, but not far enough. She predicted he would come to her soon with a manslaughter offer, and if their first few days went well, she would advise Maria to decline that too.

His remarks were mercifully brief—in line with his evidence, she thought. Now it was her turn to stand in judgment before the jury. They likely wouldn’t notice much about her suit, a dark brown jacket and skirt with a crème-colored top underneath. A mother-of-pearl sea horse, a Christmas gift from Andy, was pinned to her lapel, the only jewelry other than her wedding ring and gold post earrings. The only odd pieces to her ensemble were her shoes, sturdy black slip-on flats that clashed horribly with her otherwise professional look, but she wasn’t worried it would cost her any points. The women on the jury would understand, and the men probably wouldn’t notice.

“There is no instinct in nature stronger than a mother’s need to protect her children, and nothing she won’t do. Mr. Samuels would have you believe that’s a crime, but you know better. He would have you believe Mrs. Esperanza intentionally exaggerated the risk to her children in order to fabricate an excuse to kill her former husband, but our evidence will show that she understood the risk all too well.”

Lily paced before the jury box with her fingertips pressed together as if praying. It was a trick she had learned from Tony to keep from pointing or wagging her finger, something the jury might find condescending. “Undeniably…”—she lingered on the word to underscore her concession—“Mrs. Esperanza has made mistakes in judgment in her life, chief among them marrying Miguel Esperanza not once but twice. Their life together was punctuated with four domestic violence calls to the police. Four. That’s a lot of experience to know what to expect from a police dispatcher and a responding officer. Mr. Samuels says she took the law into her own hands. I say she took her children’s safety into her hands…like any good mother would do.”

Point by point she named Miguel’s violent offenses against Maria, which spanned seven years and concluded with his jail sentence. “While he was incarcerated, his children flourished. For the first time in their lives they were safe from the threat of his violence, and from watching that violence perpetrated against their mother. All that changed when he was paroled and reappeared at their home brandishing a gun and threatening to make his ex-wife sorry—think about that—to make her sorry for all the trouble she’d caused him.” She paused for dramatic effect. “What would make a mother sorry? Simple…you harm her children.”

She walked to the table to glance at notes she had made during Samuels’s opening remarks. It was important to head off his evidence in advance so the jurors would view it with skepticism. “Mr. Samuels intends to call police witnesses who will testify that Mrs. Esperanza reported recent threats by her ex-husband, threats that involved a handgun. He’ll tell you they searched for a gun in Mr. Esperanza’s home and car, but never found it. He will ask you to conclude that it didn’t exist, that she cunningly concocted her story in order to set up a justification for one day killing him. But the fact that no gun was found didn’t change her perspective because she had seen it with her own eyes. If it wasn’t in his possession, then he had access to it through an acquaintance or he had hidden it very well from police. Either way it made her vulnerable…so vulnerable she sought and was granted a permanent restraining order, one that Miguel Esperanza blatantly violated on the day he was killed. He had subsequently lost visitation privileges with his children and was desperate to reassert his control…to make her sorry.”