Perfect Match (41 page)

I turn toward the gallery and look, in turn, at Caleb and Patrick. "For each of you sitting there, condemning me for my actions: How can you know th at you wouldn't have done the same thing, if put to the test? Every day, we do little things to keep the people we love from being hurt-tell a white lie , buckle a seat belt, take away car keys from a buddy who's had one drink to o many. But I've also heard of mothers who find the strength to lift cars of f trapped toddlers; I've read of men who jump in front of bullets to save wo men they can't live without. Does that make them insane ... or is that the m oment when they are painfully, 100 percent lucid?“ I raise my brows. ”It's n ot for me to say. But in that courtroom, the morning I shot Father Szyszynsk i, I knew exactly what I was doing. And at the same time, I was crazy.“ I sp read my hands, a supplicant. ”Love will do that to you.“ Quentin stands up to rebut. ”Unfortunately for Mrs. Frost, there are not two systems of justice in this country-one for people who think they know every thing, and one for everyone else.“ He glances at the jury. ”You heard her-sh e's not sorry that she killed a man . . . she's sorry she killed the wrong m an.

“Enough mistakes have been made lately,” the prosecutor says wearily. “Ple ase don't make another one.”

When the doorbell rings, I think it might be Fisher. He hasn't spoken to me since we left court, and the three hours the jury deliberated after closin g arguments does tend to support his belief that I shouldn't have gotten up to speak my mind. But when I open it, ready to defend myself-again-Nathan iel pitches into me. “Mom!” he yells, squeezing me so tightly I stumble bac k. “Mom, we checkered out!”

“Did you?” I say, and then repeat it over his head to Caleb. “Did you?” He sets down his small duffel bag, and Nathaniels. “I thought it might be a good time to come home,” he says quietly. “If that's okay?” By now Nathaniel has his arms around the barrel of our golden retriever's s tomach; while Mason, wriggling, licks every spare inch of skin he can find. His thick tail thumps on the tile, a joyous tattoo. I know how that dog fe els. Only now-in the presence of company-do I realize how lonely I have been. So I lean against Caleb, my head tucked beneath his chin, where I cannot fail t o listen to his heart. “Perfect,” I reply.

330 om?"

The dog was a pillow breathing underneath me. "What happened to Mason'

s mom?"

My mother looked up from the couch, where she was reading papers with big words printed so tiny it made my head hurt just thinking about them. "She'

s . . . somewhere."

“How come she doesn't live with us?”

“Mason's mother belonged to a breeder in Massachusetts. She had twelve puppies, and Mason was the one we took home”

“Do you think he misses her?”

“I guess he used to, at first,” she answered. “But it's been a long time, and he's happy with us. I bet he doesn't remember her anymore.” slid my finger p ast Mason's licorice gums, over his teeth. He blinked at me.

I bet she was wrong.

332

“Did you want the milk?” Nathaniel's mother asks. “I already had a bowl of ce real,” his father replies.

“Oh.” She starts to put it back in the refrigerator, but his father takes it out of her hand. “Maybe I'll have a little more.”

They look at each other, and then his mother steps back with a funny too-tigh t smile. “All right,” she says.

Nathaniel watches this the way he would watch a cartoon-knowing in the back of his head that something is not quite real or right, but attracted to the show all the same.

Last summer when he was outside with his father he'd chased an electric gre en dragonfly all the way across the garden and the pumpkin patch and into t he birdbath. There it found a bright blue dragonfly, and for a while they'd watched the two of them nip and thrust at each other, their bodies swords.

“Are they fighting?” Nathaniel had asked.

“No, they're mating.” Before Nathaniel could even ask, his father explained : It was the way animals and bugs and things made babies.

“But it looks like they're trying to kill each other,” Nathaniel pointed out. Almost as soon as he said it, the two dragonflies hitched together like a shim mering space station, their wings beating like a quartet of hearts and their l ong tails quivering.

“Sometimes it's like that,” his father had answered. Quentin had spent the night tossing on that godawful mattress, wondering wha t the hell was keeping the jury. No case was a sure thing, but for God's sak e, they had this murder on tape. It should have been pretty simple. Yet the jury had been deliberating since yesterday afternoon; and here it was nearly twenty-four hours later with no verdict.

He has walked past the jury room at least twenty times, trying ESP to will t hem toward a conviction. The bailiff posted outside the door is an older man with the ability to sleep on his feet. He snorts his way back to a deadpan position of authority as the prosecutor passes. “Anything?” Quentin asks.

“Lot of yelling. They just ordered lunch. Eleven turkey sandwiches and one roast beef.”

Frustrated, Quentin turns on his heel and heads down the hall again, only t o crash into his son coming around the corner. “Gideon?”

“What's up.”

Gideon, in court. For a moment Quentin's heart stops, like it did a year ago . “What are you doing here?”

The boy shrugs, as if he can't figure it out himself. “I didn't have basketball practice today, and I figured I'd just come over and chill out.” He drags his sneaker on the floor to make it squeak. “See what it looks like from the other side, and all.”

A slow smile itches its way across Quentin's face as he claps his son on the shoulder. And for the first time in the ten years that Quentin Brown has been in a courthouse, he is rendered speechless.

Twenty-six hours; 1,560 minutes; 93,600 seconds. Call it what you like; wai ting in any denomination takes a lifetime. I have memorized every inch of t his conference room. I have counted the linoleum tiles on the floor, marked the scars on the ceiling, measured off the width of the windows. What are they doing in there?

When the door opens, I realize that the only thing worse than waiting is th e moment that you realize a decision has been made.

A white handkerchief appears in the doorway, followed by Fisher.

“The verdict.” The words cut up my tongue. “It's in?”

“Not yet.”

Boneless, I sink back in the chair as Fisher tosses the handkerchief at me. “Is this in preparation for their finding?”

“No, it's me, surrendering. I'm sorry about yesterday.” He glances at me. “A lthough a little advance notice that you wanted to do the closing would have been nice.”

“I know.” I look up at him. “Do you think that's why the jury didn't come bac k fast with an acquittal?”

Fisher shrugs. "Maybe it's why they didn't come back fast with a conviction.

"

“Yeah, well. I've always been best at closings.”

He smiles at me. “I'm a cross-examination man, myself.” We look at each other for a moment, in complete accord. “What's the part yo u hate most about a trial?”

“Now. Waiting for the jury to come back.” Fisher exhales deeply. “I always have to calm down the client, who only wants a prediction about the outcome , and no one can predict that. You prosecutors are lucky; you just win or l ose, and you don't have to reassure someone that he's not going to go to pr ison for the rest of his life when you know perfectly well that he ...“ He breaks off, because all the color has drained from my face. ”Well. Anyway. You know that no one can guess a jury's outcome.”

When I don't look particularly encouraged, he asks, “What's the hardest part for you?”

“Right before the state rests, because that's the last chance I have to make su re I got all the evidence in and that I did it right. Once I say those three wo rds ... I know I'm going to find out whether or not I screwed up.” Fisher meets my eye. “Nina,” he says gently, “the state rests.” I lay on my side on an alphabet rug on the playroom floor, jamming the foot of a penguin into its wooden slot. “If I do this penguin puzzle one more tim e,” I say, “I will save the jury some trouble and hang myself.” Caleb looks up from where he is sitting with Nathaniel, sorting multicolored plastic teddy bears. “I want to go outside,” Nathaniel whines.

“We can't, buddy. We're waiting for some important news for Mommy.”

“But I want to!” Nathaniel kicks the table, hard.

“Maybe in a little while.” Caleb hands him a batch of bears. “Here, take so me more.”

“No!” With one arm, Nathaniel swipes the entire tray off the table. The sorti ng containers bounce and roll into the block area; the plastic bears scatter to all four corners of the room. The resulting clatter rings inside my head, in the empty spot where I am trying so hard to think of absolutely nothing. I get to my feet, grab my son by the shoulders, and shake him. “You do not t hrow toys! You will pick up every last one of these, Nathaniel, and I mean i t!”

Nathaniel, now, is sobbing at the top of his lungs. Caleb, tight-faced, turns on me too. “Just because you're at the end of your rope, Nina, doesn't mean that you-”

“ 'Scuse me.”

The voice at the door makes all three of us turn. A bailiff leans in, nods at u s. “The jury's coming in,” he says.

“It's not a verdict,” Fisher whispers to me minutes later.

“How do you know?”

“Because the bailiff would have said so ... not just that the jury was back.” I draw back, dubious. “Bailiffs never tell me anything.”

“Trust me.”

I wet my lips. “Then why are we here?”

“I don't know,” Fisher admits, and we both turn our attention to the judge. He sits at the bench, looking overjoyed to have finally reached the end of t his debacle. “Mr. Foreperson,” Judge Neal asks, “has the jury reached a verd ict?”

A man in the front row of the jury box stands up. He takes off his baseball c ap and tucks it under his arm, then clears his throat. “Your Honor, we've bee n trying, but we can't seem to get together on this. There's some of us that”

“Hold on, Mr. Foreperson, don't say any more. Have you deliberated about thi s case and have you taken a vote to see what every juror's position is on th e issue of guilt or innocence?”

“We've done it a bunch of times, but it keeps coming back to a few that won 't change their minds.”

The judge looks at Fisher, and then at Quentin. “Counsel, approach.” I stand up, too, and the judge sighs. “All right, Mrs. Frost, you too.” At t he bench, he murmurs, “I'm going to give them an Allen charge. Any objection s?”

“No objection,” Quentin says, and Fisher agrees. As we walk back to the def ense table, I meet Caleb's eye, and silently mouth, “They're hung.” The judge begins to speak. “Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard all the facts, and you've heard all the evidence. I am aware it's been a long haul, and tha t you have a difficult decision to make. But I also know that you can reach c losure . . . and that you're the best jury to do it. If the case has to be tr ied again, another group of jurors will not necessarily do a better job than you are doing.” He glances soberly at the group. “I urge you to go back to th e jury room, to respectfully consider each other's opinions, and to see if so me progress can't be made. At the end of the afternoon, I'm going to ask you to come back and let me know how you're doing.”

“Now what?” Caleb whispers, from behind me.

I watch the newly energized jury file out again. Now we wait. Watching someone tie themselves in a knot makes you squirm in your own seat , or so Caleb discovers after spending two and a half more hours with Nina while the jury is deliberating. She sits hunched forward on a tiny chair in the playroom, completely ignorant of Nathaniel making airplane sounds as h e zooms around with his arms extended. Her eyes stare intensely at absolute ly nothing; her chin rests on her fist.

“Hey,” Caleb says softly.

She blinks, comes back to him. “Oh . . . hey.”

“You okay?”

“Yes.” A smile stretches her lips thin. “Yes!” she repeats. It reminds Caleb of the time years ago that he attempted to teach her to wate r-ski: She is trying too hard, instead of just letting it happen. “Why don't we all go down to the vending machines?” he suggests. “Nathaniel can get some hot chocolate, and I'll treat you to the dishwater that passes for soup.”

“Sounds great.”

Caleb turns to Nathaniel and tells him they are going to get a snack. He ru ns to the door, and Caleb walks up behind him. “Come on,” he says to Nina.

“We're ready.”

She stares at him as if they have never had a conversation, much less one th irty seconds ago. “To do what?” she asks.

Patrick sits on a bench behind the courthouse, freezing his ass off, and wa tching Nathaniel whoop his way across a field. Why this child has so much e nergy at four-thirty in the afternoon is beyond him, but then he can rememb er back to when he and Nina used to spend entire days playing pond hockey w ithout tiring or getting frostbite. Maybe time is only something you notice when you get old and have less of it at your disposal.

The boy collapses beside Patrick, his cheeks a fiery red, his nose running. “G ot a tissue, Patrick?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry, Weed. Use your sleeve.” Nathaniel laughs, and then does just that. He ducks his head beneath Patrick 's arm, and it makes Patrick want to shout. If only Nina could see this, her son seeking out someone's touch-oh, God, what it would do for her morale ri ght now. He hugs Nathaniel close, drops a kiss on the top of his head.

“I like playing with you,” Nathaniel says.

“Well, I like playing with you too.”

“You don't yell.”

Patrick glances down at him. “Your mom been doing that?” Nathaniel shrugs, then nods. “It's like she got stolen and they left someone mean in her place who looks just like her. Someone who can't sit still and who doesn't hear me when I talk and when I do talk it's always giving her a headache.” He looks into his lap. “I want my old mom back.”

“She wants that too, Weed.” Patrick looks to the west, where the sun has be gun to draw blood from the horizon. “Truth is, she's pretty nervous right n ow. She isn't sure what kind of news she's going to hear.” When Nathaniel s hrugs, he adds, “You know she loves you.”

“Well,” the boy says defensively. “I love her too.” Patrick nods. You're not the only one, he thinks.

“A mistrial?” I say, shaking my head. “No. Fisher, I can't go through this ag ain. You know trials don't get any better with age.”

“You're thinking like a prosecutor,” Fisher admonishes, “except this time, you're right.” He turns around from the window where he is standing. “I wan t you to chew on something tonight.”

“What?”

“Waiving the jury. I'll talk to Quentin in the morning, if you agree, and see if he's willing to let the judge decide the verdict.”

I stare at him. “You know that we were trying this case on the emotion, not the law. A jury might acquit based on emotion. But a judge is always going to rule based on the law. Are you crazy?”

“No, Nina,” Fisher answers soberly. “But neither were you.” We lie in bed that night with the weight of a full moon pressing down on us. I have told Caleb about my conversation with Fisher, and now we both stare at the ceiling, as if the answer might appear, skywritten with stars. I want Caleb to take my hand across the great expanse of this bed. I need that, to believe we are not miles apart.

“What do you think?” he asks.

I turn to him. In the moonlight his profile is edged in gold, the color of c ourage. “I'm not making decisions by myself anymore,” I answer. He comes up on an elbow, turning to me. “What would happen?” I swallow, and try to keep my voice from shaking. “Well, a judge is going to convict me, because legally, I committed murder. But the upside is ... I pr obably won't be sentenced as long as I would have been with a jury verdict.” Suddenly Caleb's face looms over mine. “Nina . . . you can't go to jail.” I turn away, so that the tear slips down the side of my face he cannot see. “I knew I was taking this chance when I did it.”

His hands tighten on my shoulders. “You can't. You just can't.”

“I'll be back.”

“When?”

“I don't know.”

Caleb buries his face in my neck, drawing in great draughts of air. And the n suddenly I am clutching at him, too, as if there cannot be any distance b etween us today, because tomorrow there will be so much. I feel the rough p ads of his hands mark my back; and the heat of his grief is searing. When h e comes inside me I dig my nails into his shoulders, trying to leave behind a trace of myself. We make love with near violence, with so much emotion t hat the atmosphere around us hums. And then, like all things, it is over.

“But I love you,” Caleb says, his voice breaking, because in a perfect world, this should be all the excuse one needs.

That night I dream I am walking into an ocean, the waves soaking the hem o f my cotton nightgown. The water is cold, but not nearly as cold as it usu ally is in Maine, and the beach beneath is a smooth lip of sand. I keep wa lking, even when the water reaches my knees, even when it brushes my hips and my nightgown sticks to my body like a second skin. I keep walking, and the water comes up to my neck, my chin. By the time I go under I realize I am going to drown.