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

Captain Aronson.” Will moves swiftly to close in on her.

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Travis is the police.” Her eyes are glittering again and she takes a ragged breath. “They’re all—Those are the guys he serves with. I just thought—” She breaks off.

“Thought what?” He has turned to face her, his back to the jury.

“If I could get Captain Aronson to come over he could handle the situation. He understood about it and he was—he was Travis’s commanding officer.”

He points his finger at her, half turns to the jury. “You were sitting here in court when Captain Aronson testified about the call you made. Did it go the way he said?”

“Yes.”

“Not crying or screaming, were you?”

“No.” Her voice is lower now.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I said no.” A hard emphasis on the last word. Another ragged breath. “I was trying to stay calm, for the baby and because I didn’t want to—to escalate the situation.”

He wishes she hadn’t used that word; it isn’t hers, it’s Dr. Cartwright’s, and it rings false. “What was the situation at that point?”

“Travis was banging on the bedroom door and Cristina had started crying. Captain Aronson had to repeat himself. He told me, ‘Let me speak to Hollis,’ so I opened the door to hold out the phone and when Travis took it I kind of slid around him out of the room—”

Will, looming in the imaginary doorway, snatches the phone out of her hand.

“Then what?”

“I heard Sergeant Aronson say, ‘Hollis? Hollis? What’s going on there?’”

“And then?”

She looks at him steadily. “Travis answered the way Detective Aronson testified.”

“‘You stupid cunt.’” Will takes his time with each word, staring her down. “Then what?”

“He threw the phone against the crib.”

Will hurls the plastic phone, which hits the side railing with a satisfying crack. “Was Captain Aronson still on the line after that?”

“No.”

“Where were you at that point?”

“He was coming after me. I was running down the hallway to the front door but then I turned around because I realized I couldn’t leave—couldn’t leave Cristina there.” Luz doesn’t need to be told now. She runs the length of the hallway and Will comes after her. When she whirls around, he is right in her face.

“I told him then—” Luz is out of breath, her ponytail a tattered mess “—that I knew about Jackie and the baby. All of the lies—I knew. I told him to get out. To get out of the house.”

Will leans in, leering at her. “It’s my house,” he says. “You get out, you stupid cunt.”

Luz’s slap is open-handed, right to left, and it stings hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “I’m leaving you.” Her voice rises to a near scream. “I’m taking Cristina and we’re going back.”

“Your Honor—” Shauna’s voice is practically pleading.

“Overruled.”

Will puts his hands around Luz’s neck. No matter how many times they have practiced, it still surprises him how stem-like it is, how easy it would be to snap. “You’re not going anywhere with my baby. You are never going anywhere.” Will says the last five words like they are each separated by a period. They are nose to nose now. This close, her eyes are inky black, all pupil. “Start praying,” he says in a low voice that is meant to carry.

Shauna is on her feet again, objecting.

“There is no question pending,” Will says through gritted teeth.

“Then ask one,” Dars says tightly.

Will backs off a few inches but keeps his hands firmly around her neck. “What did you take it to mean when your husband suggested you start praying?”

“That he was going to kill me.”

Will tightens his grip.

“Could you breathe?”

“Yes, but it was getting harder.”

He feels her throat constrict as she tries to swallow and he forces himself to ease up.

“He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back—”

Will yanks hard on what is left of her ponytail. The hair tie falls out and her neck arches, her chin pointed at the ceiling, the mark on her face like a red stripe where he’s hit her. She looks terrified, eyes rolling like a colt caught out in a thunderstorm.

“What did you do?”

“I kicked him and scratched him.”

“Show me.”

Again she scratches him, leaving a parallel track beside the first one, and kicks at him in the shins with her bare feet. “Did he let go?”

“No. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see—” She tries to wrench free and he jerks her back.

“See what?”

“The flower vase on the table. I got hold of it and I hit him over the head.” Luz picks up the actual vase from the make-shift nightstand and cracks it against Will’s skull. She’s hit him hard and he actually cries out, his hand to the side of his head, and then she is running back down to the other end of the hallway and he is chasing her.

She stops as she reaches the clerk’s bench and turns to face him. Will crouches down. He is intensely present in the moment, his physical odor raw and pungent like an animal’s, and yet also outside of his body, disconnected from himself and from her, watching from a distance. There are no more questions and answers now, they are in it.

Luz picks the steak knife off the floor. She holds it out, tip first, wavering. “Stay away from me or I’ll cut you.”

“Fucking bitch,” he yells. “Whore. You ruined my life.” The last line is unscripted, and it’s the one he means the most.

“Stay away from me.” She is screaming now, her face contorted, the knife hand shaking.

Will pulls back his fist like he is about to hit the heavy bag at the gym. He lunges, putting his full weight forward and Luz shoves the knife toward him, the thick plastic encasement hitting the left side of his chest. He lets it stick under his armpit; from the jury’s vantage point it looks like it has entered his body. He waits a moment, then steps back, letting the knife fall. He’s breathing heavily as he