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

Will and Abby like grim parents about to give away their child.

At the defense table, they let each other go. Will pulls back Luz’s chair and gently pushes it forward once she is seated. He and Abby take their places on either side of her.

The clerk calls the case and Shauna, Abby, and Will make their appearances. Will is surprised to hear how normal he sounds, but then again, all he has to say is his name.

Dars says, “We are here for the reading of the verdict.”

Hearing the words, Will feels a kind of shock, and he realizes he has been engaged in magical thinking, believing somehow that this wasn’t actually happening. Dars leans forward, his eyes on the crowd. “Now,” he says, “this case has generated a lot of emotions, a lot of interest. But let me make myself clear—I will not tolerate any outbursts. Not from the victim’s family—” he looks meaningfully at Travis’s mother and sisters, who are holding tightly to each other’s hands, then brings his eyes to Jackie, who is seated next to them, her baby in her lap “—not from counsel, and not from the defendant.” His eyes shift to Luz, then back to the gallery. “Not from anyone. If you cause a disruption in my courtroom, you will be forcibly removed.” He nods once. “Alright. Madame Clerk will bring in the jury.”

The clerk rises from her seat and disappears through the side door. Everyone waits, the silence thickening. Will and Abby retake Luz’s hands; Luz’s feels boneless. Will wishes she would look at him, but she doesn’t. He wishes there were something he could say to comfort her, but there isn’t. He looks over at Abby, who also refuses to return his gaze. She is staring down at the table, pulling her locket back and forth across the chain of her necklace.

The side door opens again and the jurors file out stone-faced. Not a single one of them looks at Luz. Will watches Abby watching them, hears her sharp, quiet intake of breath. Luz’s head is bent down, her eyes trained on the table.

Luz will not survive prison. Will knows this with a sudden terrifying clarity. She will take a metal slat from her cot and file it down to a fine point, embed a razor blade in a toothbrush, sharpen a pair of scissors on a stone in the rec yard. She will make a weapon and she will use it on herself.

Will looks at the jurors, now seated, willing them to look back at him. None do. They are about to kill her and they don’t even realize it. He wishes there was a way to make them understand, to send them back to deliberate with the weight of this knowledge.

“The foreman will rise,” Dars says, “and remain standing.”

The stay-at-home dad gets to his feet. He is wearing khakis and a light blue button-down, hands behind his back. He looks ludicrously normal.

“Has the jury has reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

Dars nods. “Alright. Please provide the verdict form to the clerk.”

The foreman brings his right hand forward, holding out a piece of white paper folded like a letter. The clerk takes it, walks back to her seat, then turns, standing on tiptoes, to pass the paper to Dars. Everyone waits while he unfolds it and scans the contents. Time slows down, stops.

Dars refolds the paper and hands it back to the clerk, who returns it to the foreman. Dars looks at Luz, his face expressionless. “The defendant will rise.”

Luz’s lips are moving. Abby whispers something to her and she stops. They stand, Will and Abby still gripping Luz’s hands as they pull her gently from her seat. Her body sways slightly, then stills.

Dars swivels in his chair to face the foreman. “What is your verdict?”

The foreman clears his throat, looks down at the piece of paper as if to double-check, and looks up again. “On the sole count of the indictment, murder in the first degree, we find the defendant, Luz Rivera Hollis, not guilty.”

There is a collective gasp from the spectators and Will raises his fist in triumph, realizes too late that he has yelled, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” like a rabid fan who has just seen his favorite player leap sky-high to pull a spiraling ball out of the thinnest of air. But his hoarse cries have been absorbed in the general uproar and no one has heard him. He puts his hand over his mouth to stifle a sob. Tears are running down his face.

Dars brings down his gavel. His face has gone red and he is yelling, but Will is no longer listening. Luz has let go of his hand, her face buried in Abby’s neck. Abby has one arm wrapped around Luz’s body, the other cradling her head, five fingers pressed like a white starfish over Luz’s dark hair. He will never forget how he feels, the wave after wave of shuddering elation and relief. His wild bet—his and Luz’s—has paid off.

Will wants to wrap his arms around both of them. But as he reaches out, Abby lifts her battered face, rests her chin on the top of Luz’s head, and gives him a look that cuts him dead.

Friday, March 23, 2007

4:30 p.m.

United States District Court

for the Central District of California

The euphoria of the verdict quickly gives way to logistical problems. Abby, Will, and Luz cannot leave the courthouse without getting mobbed, so Abby quickly confers with Jared, who hustles them out of a side entrance and back into the judge’s elevator. This time, they go all the way to the thirteenth floor to wait it out in an actual judge’s chambers. The judge and his law clerks are away hearing a case in San Francisco, and his judicial assistant kindly offers to take them in.

There they sit, waiting. Luz falls asleep almost immediately, curled in the fetal position, her hands clasped together under her chin. Abby, determined not to let Luz out of her sight,