A Good Mother by Lara Bazelon (different ereaders txt) 📗

wide open. Then, as best he could, he had reconstructed the layout of the Germany apartment with blue tape, referring repeatedly to the bird’s-eye floor plan and measurements provided by the government as part of their reconstruction of the crime scene. Will had gotten so absorbed that he had forgotten to be irritated when Luz had arrived late, yet again, wearing a sundress rather than the sweatpants and tee shirt like he’d told her, to mimic the clothes she was wearing that night.

“This isn’t who I am,” he says, a note of desperation in his voice.

“It’s who he was,” she says.

Now that they’ve broken out of role, Will is having a hard time looking at her directly. She is too close to him. He smells her perfume and beneath it, sweat. He takes another step back. “Let’s take a five-minute break. Get some air.” He points to the sliding glass doors that lead to the concrete terrace outside the conference room.

She shakes her head, crosses her arms over her chest. He averts his eyes from her cleavage.

“You said everything rides on my testimony. You said it was the—” she reaches for his word “—centerpiece of the case.” Her eyes search his. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says reluctantly.

“If the jury doesn’t believe that I thought I was going to die when this was happening,” she says, and motions with her hand back and forth between them, “then I’m convicted.”

Will presses his fingers to his cheek. They come away bloody. “Yes,” he says again.

That, in essence, was about all he had been able to get across. At the beginning, Will had tried to talk it through with Luz: to get her to tell the story of that night, to share her feelings with him about what had happened. But Luz had not been interested in talking and sharing. She had shut him down, saying, You’ll only understand if I show you. And Will had backed off. He wasn’t one for long talks and feelings-sharing, either. It wasn’t what Meredith would have called his strong suit. But it was necessary, he thought, to establish control over the situation—control over her. The lack of information feeds his unease. He had pictured a movie where he was the director and she was his star. She followed his instructions to carry out his vision. She let him save her. It wasn’t working out that way.

“If they don’t believe that story, I’ll go away.” Luz’s voice catches and she shakes her head. Tears form, then run down her face, black with mascara. “I will not be separated from Cristina. I will die first.”

To Will’s horror, his eyes start to fill. He can’t remember the last time that happened—it’s been years. Crying, Will’s father liked to say, was for funerals. He braces his forearms against the wall, his head between them, and shuts his eyes. But the tears come anyway. “I understand,” he says trying to get his voice under control, “these are high stakes, I know—”

“No, you don’t.” Beside him, he hears her let out a long, ragged breath. “You have no idea. What’s it like to be a mother and have your baby taken away from you.”

“You’re right,” he says, holding his hot, wet face against the cool, dry surface of the wall. “I have no idea. But I am going to do everything I can to stop that from happening.”

When she doesn’t answer, he looks over at her in profile beside him: her wild hair, the dark lines on her cheeks, the smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. Her hoop earring has twisted sideways and he reaches over to fix it. She takes his hand and raises it to her mouth. He tries to jerk away and she tightens her grip.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

She turns to look at him, her face inches away. She opens her mouth, slides his index and middle finger inside.

“Don’t,” he says, hearing the panic in his voice as his body responds. “No.”

With her other hand, she reaches for his belt and pulls him closer until he is right up against her, hard. Then she takes his free hand and guides it under her dress.

Feeling the heat between her legs, and the smooth, perfect curve of her ass under the silky material of her underwear makes him groan. “No,” he says again, but he doesn’t move his hand away. She sucks each of his fingers in turn, runs them down the line of her throat. Will stands frozen, the tears drying on his face, his heart hammering in his chest.

“This is how it ended,” she says softly, putting her cheek against his so that her lips are against his ear. “Except for that night, this is how it always ended. This is how I made it stop. It’s the part that’s missing. We need to do this part or we won’t get the rest of it right.”

“No,” he repeats, but the refusal, even to his own ears, is tinny and unconvincing.

She bites down on his earlobe hard. “I want to go again,” she says. “Throw me up against the wall.”

“I can’t,” he says. And then he does.

Monday, March 12, 2007

4:27 p.m.

United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Dars Ducey’s perpetually harried clerk calls Luz’s case last, at which point it is nearly 4:30 p.m. The courtroom, emptied out except for the reporters, is deadly quiet. The only other person in the gallery is Jorge Estrada.

As Abby and Will walk with Luz over to the counsel table, Abby notices that Luz looks pale. Luz had spoken with Estrada during one of the breaks in the endless afternoon cattle call, off to the side in the hallway. From what Abby could see, it appeared that Estrada had done most of the talking. She whispers to Luz, “This is a crazy move by the prosecution and it’s not going to work, so don’t worry.” She turns to Will, trying not to look irritated. “Could you