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

Not from the beginning and not now. Well, guess what, darlin’? It works both ways.” His throat is bone-dry, and he lifts the bottle to his lips again, drinking deeply.

There is silence then, the ticking of the clock so loud Will feels its emanating like a metronome placed next to his eardrum. All the while, Abby continues to rock Cal, who had started up the mewling noises when Will had raised his voice, but has quieted. Finally, she says, almost casually, “Meredith called me last night, looking for you.”

“What?” Beads of sweat are sliding down his back now and his throat closes up again.

“You were more than an hour late coming home. She called to see if I knew where you were.”

Will trains his eyes on the windowpanes. There are six of them, three on top, three on the bottom, the edges bordered by a coppery-looking metal. The beer that had pooled in his stomach is roiling, and he is afraid he will be sick.

“What did you tell her?”

“That Luz had been late to your meeting. That you were on your way home and she had nothing to worry about.”

He feels his body go limp with relief and straightens up, careful to keep his eyes on the window. “That’s the right answer.”

“Is it?”

There is a scraping sound; startled, Will turns to look at Abby, who is attempting, gingerly, to set herself and the bundle down in the chair across from him. The pouch opens slightly and he can see inside: a halo of corn-silk hair, violet eyelids opening and closing on two startlingly blue eyes. The baby regards him seriously with his father’s probing expression.

“Do I have anything to worry about, Will?”

Will finishes off his beer and stands so that he is towering over her; it feels important right now, that he be the one in the higher position to drive home his point. “You want to worry about something, Abby? Why don’t you focus on your own relationship. People in glass houses.”

“This isn’t about me and you know it,” she says, and the quiet in her voice unnerves him, though he does his best to pretend it does not.

“No?”

“Listen to me, Will. If we do this right, we can win. We can walk Luz right out of that courtroom.”

Will blinks, the realization setting in. That’s what she wants more than anything. A walk, which in federal court, is nearly impossible. Some lawyers go their entire careers without a single acquittal. Abby has had her big win, but it has only made her hungrier. He looks at her glassy eyes and realizes he’s looking at an addict. How has it taken him so long to see it—and to understand that it’s the surest way to get what he wants: to have Luz to himself.

He takes care to keep his voice neutral. “You do your part, I’ll do mine.” He sets his beer down. “I’ll deliver, okay? She and I will deliver. But we need more time. She’s fragile. Raking her over the coals is going to ruin all the hard work we’ve done up to this point.”

As he says the words, Will can almost believe they are true. In fact, Will is the fragile one, the tiny cracks spreading wider and deeper every day. It is Will who wouldn’t survive five minutes of coal raking.

Cal has started crying. Abby stands up, tries rocking him again, but the mewls are screams now, and she soon gives up and begins unfastening an endless series of straps. Will crosses to the kitchen sink and sets the second empty bottle beside the first. Abby has Cal under one arm now, still tangled up in the harness.

“I’m leaving,” he says in the second of quiet that comes with one of Cal’s freighted inhales.

“No,” Abby says. As she struggles to unwind herself, Cal lets out a series of staccato wails, the sound stabbing Will someplace deep behind his eyes. “Wait,” she yells, “let me just feed him and we can finish talking.”

“We are finished talking,” Will says as the baby pauses to suck in another breath. When he shuts the door behind him, Cal is screaming again.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

9:30 a.m.

United States District Court

for the Central District of California

In full dress uniform, Captain James Aronson walks to the witness stand with his shoulders straight back, standing at attention as the clerk administers the oath. He looks younger than his fifty-one years, his skin unlined except around the eyes and mouth, his small toothbrush mustache and close-cropped hair with just a few glints of silver.

Abby listens as Shauna spends the first ten minutes establishing Aronson’s not-insignificant biography and credentials. He enlisted in the air force in 1989, was honorably discharged in 1994, graduated college, and was a happily married civilian father of three managing a Walmart store in St. Louis when 9/11 happened. He joined up again immediately afterward, this time as an officer. After taking a series of exams and obtaining a series of promotions, he was deployed to Germany in 2003. Two tours in Iraq and one Purple Heart later, he became the first African American soldier to be named security forces flight commander at Ramstein Air Base, in charge of hundreds of military personnel and their families.

“As Sergeant Hollis’s supervising officer, have you had the opportunity to review his personnel file?” Shauna asks.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Based on your review of that file, can you tell the jury about Sergeant Hollis’s military career?”

“Before Sergeant Hollis’s deployment to Germany in 2005, he served on an air force base, Fort Irwin, in Barstow, California, as a member of the tactical security fire team. I brought the file with me. May I—”

Shauna smiles, gives an encouraging nod. Aronson takes out a manila folder and removes several stapled sheets of paper.

“The job was to find and neutralize security breaches along the perimeter of the base and to provide—let’s see here—brief postings to leadership and distinguished visitors.” Aronson looks up, sees that Shauna is waiting, and continues, “After serving in that