Hush Little Baby (31 page)

I always imagined if I ever confronted Gordon with the abuse, I would be fierce and angry. Instead, I’m so ashamed that I can barely lift my head to hear the questions, and my answers are so quiet, several times I need to repeat myself. I testify as though the fault is entirely my own, and Gordon was only a bit player—the executioner—while I’m the one who caused it, could have prevented it, allowed it to go on.

By the time I finish confessing the truth about my marriage, I’m completely spent.

“Ms. Kane, do you need a recess?” the judge asks.

I shake my head, determined to finish, afraid to stop for fear I’ll lose my courage to start again. I take a deep breath and try to straighten my defeated posture, though it slumps back to beaten almost immediately.

Connor takes his time before asking the next question. He shuffles papers and stares for a long time at his notes, giving me an extra minute to collect myself.

“Just a few more questions,” he says.

I nod, knowing the next questions are the most important ones.

“So you left?” Connor asks.

I nod, then realizing I need to speak up, say, “Yes.”

“Without the kids?”

For the first time, tears escape, a single vein of wetness down each cheek. Connor hands me a tissue. In the past month, I’ve realized the critical mistake I made that caused all the awful things that happened after. I left without a plan and without Addie and Drew. My impulsivity led to everything else, including Jeffrey’s death. I knew what Gordon was capable of. Yet, in a single moment of irritation, over the most banal of things, money, I made the decision to leave.

Connor continues; he tiptoes around the DUI and Jeffrey’s death to ask me about taking the kids.

“Did you kidnap your children?”

I shake my head and answer, “No.” We rehearsed this line of questioning, and it’s stronger than my other responses. “I took them because I was scared for their safety and my own. I still am.”

Connor leads me through the phone call with the insurance agent that led me to believe Gordon was going to kill me.

“I didn’t know what else I could do,” I say. “I couldn’t leave them behind, and if I stayed, he was going to kill me.”

The questions are carefully crafted not only to prove I fled because I was justifiably scared, but also to protect me. If I die, Gordon will now be the prime suspect.

I risk a glance at the defense table. For the first time, Gordon looks concerned. He wasn’t aware I knew about his attempt to extend my life insurance policy.

Connor leads me quickly through the six weeks we were on the run and Addie’s illness.

“Do you still believe you’re in danger?”

“At the moment, I’m pregnant, so I don’t think so. Gordon’s never abused me when I’ve been pregnant.” I feel Gordon’s eyes drilling into me. “I’ve also removed him as the beneficiary from my insurance so there’s no longer any financial motive.” I’m relieved to say this, to communicate to Gordon that killing me won’t benefit him other than for revenge, which judging by his expression is plenty of motivation in itself.

“Are you the reason your daughter’s sick?”

I answer, “No,” but my head is nodding. “I should have taken her in sooner,” I wail, horrified by my outburst, but unable to control it. “I thought it was the flu. Honestly, I did, but yes, I also knew it was more…never cancer…cancer never occurred to me; she’s only four. You saw her; who looks at their little girl and thinks she has cancer? But when I think about it now, I must have known. The flu doesn’t come and go for weeks. I should have taken her in sooner, and I knew it, but I also knew if I took her to the doctor, we’d be found out.” I’m fully sobbing now, and Connor is handing me tissue after tissue as he gently tells me we’re done and asks the judge for a recess before the cross-examination.

I stumble from the stand, and Connor leads me into the hallway, his arm bolstering my shaky legs.

“You did great,” he says. “The judge believes you.”

“What about the Addie part? I didn’t take her in soon enough.”

He wraps his arm around me and kisses my head. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “The judge was practically crying with you. She must be a mother.”

I nod and breathe deep, feeling slightly better about my testimony.

“Now comes the tough part,” Connor says.

Gordon stands twenty feet from us, his eyes fixed on me, the message of his glare absolute—
I will kill you for this.

Connor’s phone rings. He turns me so I’m not facing my peril as he answers it. He says a few, “craps, shits, and God damn its,” and hangs up.

“What?”

“That was your dad. Mr. Rousseau’s not coming.”

“What?”

“Claudia’s threatening to kill herself if he testifies against Gordon. He’s been on the phone with her all morning. His wife just called the Honolulu police, and they’re on their way to arrest her on a fifty-one-fifty, involuntary confinement, but until they get there, he’s afraid to hang up.”

The blood drains from my face. Everything I just did was for nothing—splaying my dirty laundry and my shame for everyone to see, signing my death warrant—none of it will matter. Without Mr. Rousseau’s testimony, Gordon’s going to win. Claudia confessed to her father, in a rage, told him she didn’t care if Gordon hurt her, that she loved him and wanted to go back. Without Mr. Rousseau, it won’t matter whether the judge believes me or not because without his testimony, it’s exactly what Gordon said, a bunch of unsubstantiated accusations—my word against his.

“Hang in there,” Connor says. “It’s not over yet.”

But it is.

71

G
ordon destroys me on the stand. I can’t look at him, and I know it looks like I’m lying, instead of what it is, which is that I’m terrified.

I see it in Connor’s face as I step from the stand; I failed. We failed.

He calls Michelle as a witness, and she paints a nice picture of me since I’ve returned, but when Gordon crosses her, the picture of the mother I was before isn’t nearly as pretty.

“Your Honor, we need more time,” Connor says.

“I’m sorry, counselor, unless you have more witnesses…”

The doors to the courtroom slam open, and two old lions, Mr. Rousseau followed by my dad, storm through.

“Your Honor, we’d like to call Mr. Frank Rousseau to the stand,” Connor says.

My eyes leak as I mouth the words “thank you” across the length of the courtroom. My dad is still my hero—my wonderful, wounded knight in shining armor. He gives me a thumbs-up and a lopsided smile, then hobbles to sit behind me as Mr. Rousseau marches to the stand.

Mr. Rousseau’s eyes fix on Gordon as he describes the wounds he witnessed on Claudia. Unlike me, he’s not intimidated, and he has no intention of backing down.

And when Gordon cross-examines him, both men’s hackles rise, and Mr. Rousseau annihilates Gordon with his own lies.

“You hit her, beat her with your fists, cracked her ribs,” he seethes. “She’s five-feet-nothing, you son of a…”

“Mr. Rousseau,” the judge admonishes.

Mr. Rousseau leans back, tight-lipped and furious.

“I did no such thing. You’re making up lies because you don’t want me with your daughter,” Gordon barks. “Claudia would never say I did those things.”

“Mr. Kane,” the judge interrupts again, “I’ll remind you, as your own attorney, it’s your job to ask questions, not to defend yourself.”

Mr. Rousseau launches forward again, right to the edge of the box, leaning over like a caged animal trying to get at a piece of raw meat. “And you think she made up the bruises. Marks so deep the blood vessels around them had burst.”

“And, Mr. Rousseau, please, constrain your answers to the questions you’re asked.”

“If I did those things, why’d you have to drag her away? She didn’t want to leave me. You forced her, sent her away, threatened her inheritance.”

“You sick bastard.” Mr. Rousseau leaps from his seat, and the bailiff quickly steps between him and the stairs that lead from the stand.

“Mr. Rousseau, please. One more outburst like that and I’ll hold you in contempt.”

Mr. Rousseau reluctantly returns to his seat, his pulse pounding in his temple.

“I have proof, Your Honor,” he says, his voice hissing through clenched teeth.

Connor looks at me quizzically, and I look back.

“Mr. Rousseau, this isn’t how it works. Either Mr. Enright or Mr. Kane needs to ask you for the evidence, but if neither side has any objections…” Her eyes are entirely on Gordon. “In the interest of expediency, perhaps we should see what you have.”

Connor is nodding as Gordon stares like a cornered cat at the iPhone Mr. Rousseau’s pulled from his breast pocket.

“Mr. Kane?”

“Whatever he has is a lie.”

“Well, perhaps we should take a look at it and then decide. Any objection?”

Gordon reluctantly shakes his head.

“You need to speak up for the record.”

“No, Your Honor. No objection,” he answers tightly.

Mr. Rousseau fiddles with a few buttons and hands it to the judge. Connor and Gordon both move to the bench, and the judge turns the device for them to see.

“There are eight photos,” Mr. Rousseau says. “I took them the day I brought Claudia home. She was extremely agitated so our doctor gave her a sedative. She doesn’t know I took them, and because of that, because I don’t have her permission, because I know she wouldn’t give me her permission, I had hoped I wouldn’t need to show them. I can only pray someday she’ll forgive me.”

“This is your daughter?” the judge asks.

“This is bullshit,” Gordon barks. “You have no proof I did that.”

“Mr. Kane, you will watch your language in my courtroom.” And something in the judge’s voice has changed. Her words are laced with disgust.

And my stomach jumps with hope.

“Those photos are doctored; they’re not real. She didn’t have those bruises when he took her from me,” Gordon says.

Mr. Rousseau stares at his hands, his chin shaking back and forth against his chest. “I wish they weren’t real, and I wish, damn me to hell, that they weren’t of my daughter.” His voice rasps with emotion. “But I swear, with God as my witness, that they’re as real as the pain I feel when I look at them and that they are of my daughter.”

Connor submits a sworn affidavit from Officer Gregg Lackey testifying that the bruises are real and were on Claudia when he and Mr. Rousseau picked her up from her home as well as an affidavit from the Rousseau family doctor testifying that Claudia had multiple contusions on her body as well as what he speculated was a cracked rib consistent with a beating.

*  *  *

It takes only fifteen minutes for the judge to return from her deliberation.

“All rise.”

When we’re seated again, she begins. “Mr. Kane, not only does this court deem you unfit as a parent, it finds your conduct reprehensible. If it were within the power of this trial to have you arrested and charged with assault and battery, I would do so and have you locked up for a very long time. As it is, all I can do is invoke the full jurisdiction of this court in order to keep you as far away as possible from your wife and your children. Therefore, sole custody is hereby granted to the petitioner, Jillian Kane, and I’m issuing a restraining order prohibiting you from any further contact with your children and your wife. Mr. Kane, I urge you to seek professional help, and perhaps with counseling, the issues of the restraining order and visitation rights can be revisited down the road. But until then, I’m ordering you to stay away from them.”

The gavel bangs against the wood, the judge leaves, and Connor is hugging me.

He thinks we’ve won. But I know the truth. We’ve just taken away the last thing that was keeping Gordon sane.

Beware of the person with nothing to lose.

72

I
t’s been a month since the hearing, and life has resumed some sense of normalcy.

Drew started school at Anneliese’s and is shocking us all with how well he’s doing. Like a light switch has been flicked, he actually tries, and in the subjects he’s interested in—science and history—he excels. His class is small, only eighteen kids, and most of the day is spent applying the ideas being taught—chemistry through experiments, anatomy through calisthenics, history through skits that reenact the past.

The school is housed in an old monastery, which gives me some peace of mind for security. Once the school day begins, the gates close, and I don’t need to be concerned about his safety.

Gordon’s constantly on my mind.

No one’s seen or heard from him, but I know he’s not gone. I live waiting for him to appear or for the kids to disappear.

Today’s a happy day. Addie finished her last chemo treatment two days ago, and this afternoon we will be leaving the fifth floor for the last time. It’s been three months since she was diagnosed.

We celebrate wearing masks because her immune system is too weak to ward off germs. Her room is crowded with balloons, stuffed animals, and people. Michelle, Max, and Bob are there. So are my parents, her nurses and doctors, and me and Drew.

The celebration is short. The chemotherapy’s left Addie with barely enough energy to smile, but this is the last one. And from here on out, the old Addie will start to return.

We made it. All that’s left is for us to be grateful, hopeful, and to pray.

*  *  *

My parents drop us at the house and continue on for a dinner out. Frank Rousseau and his wife are taking them to dinner to celebrate Addie being finished with her treatments.

I punch in the code for the alarm to the house.

My dad had a security system installed the week before I filed for the emergency custody hearing.

Addie’s in my arms, her legs awkwardly wrapped around my large belly, and Drew carries her Tinker Bell suitcase.

Drew sets Addie’s suitcase beside the door and runs into the study to play Xbox. I slide off my sneakers and freeze. Beside the door, my mom’s gardening shoes, my dad’s loafers, my mom’s sneakers, and the sandals I wore earlier in the day face me in a precise line, toes pointed out.