Mad Honey: A Novel (18 page)

My head whips around to stare at my brother. He did not tell me that he’d gotten a plea offer; he did not even tell me the prosecutor had been in touch. I am about to lace into him for this when I remember, months ago, what he told me: I am not his client.

“A plea offer?” Asher says. “What does that mean?”

Jordan sits down across from him again. “You’re currently charged with first-degree murder, which carries a potential maximum penalty of life in prison. What the State has offered is for you to plead guilty to the crime of manslaughter…and in return, they’ll ask the judge for a sentence of no more than fifteen years. The judge can certainly sentence you to
less
than that after the presentence report, which will look into your background and the circumstances of the case and—”

“I might have to spend fifteen years in jail?” Asher interrupts.

“Well—”

“I might have to spent fifteen years in jail for
just finding her
?”

Jordan does not break eye contact with Asher. “I know this isn’t what you were hoping for—”

“You cannot possibly be recommending this, Jordan,” I say, finally finding my voice.

He does not even acknowledge me. “It is my job to tell you what the prosecutor is offering, and it is a limited offer. A trial is a crapshoot. You don’t know what you’re going to get when you try a case in front of twelve strangers. The State’s theory of the case is that you had a fight with Lily, it got physical, and she ended up dead at the bottom of the stairs as a result of you knocking her around.” I flinch at the words. “We don’t know the backstories of any of the members of the jury. For all we know, they’ve all been victims of abuse. Or they may have other biases against you. Getting them all to agree on something—like your innocence—is difficult. This, at least, is definite.” Jordan clears his throat. “Sometimes when the judge is aware a plea deal has been offered and a defendant doesn’t take it and a trial occurs, the judge moves to the maximum sentence if the defendant is found guilty.”

“Well, isn’t that life without parole anyway?” I counter. “What more could the judge possibly do to him?”

Jordan ignores me, looking directly at Asher. “I can’t tell you to take the AAG’s offer, but I
can
suggest you sleep on it. We have ten days to respond.”

After that, there’s really nothing left to say. Asher is taken back to his cell. Jordan and I leave the jail.

I do not speak to my brother on the drive home, or for the rest of that day.

WHAT I REMEMBER
about the night Asher was born was how Braden pulled into the fire lane outside of the emergency department, leaving the car there with the keys in it as he carried me inside. I remember my belly, tight as a drum; and the unbearable pain in my shoulder from where it was dislocated. I remember bargaining with
a God I did not believe in:
If my baby is okay, then you can let him hurt me forever.

Braden didn’t leave my side. He held my free hand as my shoulder was popped back into its socket; he brushed my hair off my face when the contractions came. I remember him demanding ice chips, Demerol, attention. Nurses and residents would jump at his command.
Yes, Dr. Fields. Anything you need, Dr. Fields.

When the baby’s heartbeat dropped precipitously and I was rushed to the OR for a C-section, I thought that I was being lied to. I was certain that I was bleeding internally; that I was dying.
Save my baby,
I thought, even as Braden insisted on paging the
head of OB/GYN
instead of one of those
butcher OB residents,
who
didn’t do real surgical training like I did
.

I was caught in an in-between world. I wasn’t a mother, but I wasn’t not one. I wasn’t a patient, I was a doctor’s wife. I was in the hospital to have a baby, but I was also there to take care of my own injuries.

When Braden slowly migrated below the drape to observe the surgery, the timbre of the room changed—everyone a little sharper, a little more precise and focused, now that a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon was holding them accountable for his wife and child.

Not a single person would ever have guessed that the reason we were in this OR, a full month before my due date, was that he’d shoved me down the stairs.

NO GOOD NEWS
comes after midnight. The last time I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, it was because of Asher’s arrest. This time, it is my phone, jarring me out of the soft sponge of sleep. I fight my way to consciousness, still groggy when I answer. But when the rushed voice on the other end starts to speak, I have never been more alert.

In Asher’s bedroom, Jordan and Selena are tangled in a quilt. Jordan leaps up as the door flies open. “It’s Asher,” I blurt out. “He tried to kill himself.”

By the time Jordan and I reach the jail, it is after 1:00
a.m
. We’ve spoken with the sheriff, and I’ve tucked away the few details he has given us. Asher broke apart a safety razor. His cellmate saved his life by calling for a CO when he saw the blood dripping from the top bunk. He’s been to the infirmary and bandaged up. He will be put on suicide watch in an individual cell—with frequent bed checks and no sharp objects allowed.

I refuse to leave until I can see him myself. Now, as we wait for Asher to be brought to us, Jordan and I sit on opposite sides of the table in the attorney-client conference room. Adversaries.

“Liv,” Jordan says gently.

“Don’t,” I bite out. “Don’t you say a goddamn thing, Jordan. This is your fault.”

“
My
fault?”

“Yes. You kept drilling at him and drilling at him like you didn’t even believe in him. His own lawyer! And then to offer him fifteen years in a plea deal—”

“Technically the prosecutor offered the plea deal.”

“Shut up,” I hiss. “Stop being a goddamn lawyer and just be his goddamn
family
.”

Before he can respond, the door opens, and Asher is led inside.

My eyes fall to the tight white bandage on his wrist, and the two thinner, red hesitation marks above it. An involuntary moan bubbles out of me and I throw myself at my son, wrapping him in my arms as he clings to me. I see, through the window in the door, a correctional officer watching us.
Do it,
I think fiercely, meeting his eye.
Dare to ask me to let go.

He turns away discreetly.

“Asher.” I draw back, settling my palms on his cheeks. I don’t even know what to say. I can’t ask him why; I know. I can’t tell him things will get better; they may not. I can’t do anything but grieve with him for what he’s already lost, and will never get back.

I settle for the truth that vibrates inside me like a tuning fork. “You are the thing that matters most to me in this world,” I whisper.

His face is streaked with tears, his eyes red and raw. Although he
is in a clean jumpsuit, pink stains remain on his neck and his arm where the blood was wiped away, like ghosts still haunting the scene of a tragedy.

For a moment, I let myself feel the full fury of how horrible the past three months have been…and the new knowledge that they could have been even worse, had Asher succeeded. Even if every jar of my honey was smashed; even if I had to leave town because of the rumors; even if I lose every cent appealing Asher’s conviction—it would still be better than moving like a wraith in a world without him in it.

If your only child dies, are you even still a mother?

As if she is standing before me, I imagine Ava Campanello at her daughter’s funeral.

I must make a sound, because suddenly Asher is the one trying to comfort
me.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he muffles against my neck.

“No, Asher,
I’m
sorry.”

“Let’s both be sorry,” he says, and to my surprise, a laugh hiccups out of me, and then out of him. It feels so terribly wrong, like a sunflower growing from scorched earth.

He sinks away from me, exhausting himself into one of the chairs. I sit beside him, still holding his hand. I need that contact, skin to skin. I need to know I can feel his pulse against mine.

Asher scrubs his bandaged hand down his face. “I felt like I was suffocating,” he confesses. “Like someone was holding a pillow over my face. I started thinking, why not just get it over with faster.” He shrugs. “If fifteen years in prison is the best-case scenario, then I’d rather be dead. If that was the only choice I still had left, I figured I’d take it.”

I hear a throat being cleared. Until this moment, I’ve completely forgotten Jordan is here. “I don’t usually advocate for making mistakes,” he says, coming closer. “But in this case, son, I’m really glad you messed up.”

Asher raises his eyes, cold. “You’re not my father.”

“No. But I should have been a better father
figure,
” Jordan admits. He looks from Asher to me. “Fuck the plea deal,” he says.

THE NEXT MORNING,
Selena is fighting off a cold. “I know this is far from the most pressing issue today,” she says, “but do you have any DayQuil?”

I shake my head and hand her a jar of honey. “This is better,” I say.

The medicinal power of honey is well documented—it’s antibacterial, so has been used in treating wounds. In dressings, it helps clean pus or dead tissue, suppresses inflammation, and promotes new skin growth. A 2007 study at Penn State suggests that it is more effective than dextromethorphan in treating a cough. Irish labs have shown that it combats MRSA infections. Manuka honey kills the bacteria that cause ulcers and is used to preserve corneas for transplants.

Just about the only thing honey can’t fix is the kind of sickness that gets into your head, robs you of hope, and lands you in the jail infirmary after you try to kill yourself.

Jordan bustles into the kitchen as Selena is swallowing a tablespoon of my honey. He is wearing a full suit, and I am taken aback until I remember that today is the dispositional conference. In New Hampshire, the parties in a lawsuit meet before the trial, in the hopes of having a meaningful discussion and resolving a case. The judge leads it, and nothing said there is admissible in court. “I’m going to refuse the plea deal and we’ll set a trial date. I also want the judge to seal my motion to suppress Lily’s unsent text and have the hearing in a closed courtroom. I already texted the prosecutor and gave her a heads-up. If there’s a trial, we want it at the Superior Court in Lancaster and not farther away, and if there’s any mention of this in the media, it taints the potential jury. If neighbors down the street read that there was an unsent text that said something important, they’ll remember it. If the judge doesn’t allow that into evidence, then the potential jurors would never have heard about it.” He peels a banana and crams it into his mouth, speaking around the bite. “Gina and the judge have one goal in common with us—we want a fair and impartial trial without having to change the venue because we can’t find jurors who are fair and impartial.”

Selena swallows another spoonful of honey. “Gina’s going to agree, because it’s in her best interests to have the trial happen in Coös County. It’s going to blow up her career as an AAG.”

As they trade information about the conference, I pour coffee into a travel mug and reach for my purse. I come around the butcher block island in the middle of the kitchen, and at the same time, both Jordan and Selena fall silent. I see them take in my pencil skirt and silk blouse, my blazer and heels. “Why do you look like a sexy librarian?” my brother asks.

“See you later,” I say, completely ignoring the question as I turn and leave.

WHEN I GET
to the parking garage for Mass General, I pull into a spot and sit in my car for fifteen minutes. My hands are shaking, and I cannot catch my breath. Even though I know I was the one to request this meeting, even though I know that I will be in a public setting, I still feel like a deer creeping into the lair of a tiger.

But this is not about me, not anymore.

I take a deep breath and get out of my car. My palms are wet and I dry them on the wool of my skirt—an outfit I pulled together from the back of my closet. I can’t remember the last time I wore something like this; my usual uniform is a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and I am usually covered in honey and propolis. But I needed armor today, and as flimsy a layer as this is, at least it’s something.

The office is on the third floor. There’s a half-moon of a desk with three secretaries behind it, and several rows of serviceable chairs in the waiting area. I clear my throat and walk up to one of the women. “I’m Olivia McAfee,” I say. “I’m here to see Dr. Fields.”

The secretary scans her computer. “What time is your appointment?”

“It’s a personal meeting, not a medical one,” I say, babbling.

She looks at me, giving nothing away. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

So I do. I leaf through a magazine so old that the model on the
cover has shoulder pads in her dress. Twice, I find myself on the edge of my chair, poised to leave and pretend I never came. And twice, I remind myself that I have spent twelve years getting stronger. That to be afraid is to give Braden power over me.

Again.

A few minutes later, the secretary calls my name. I am led past examination rooms and a nurses’ station. The secretary opens a wooden door with Braden’s name on it. “Dr. Fields,” she says, and she steps back so that I can enter.

The room has lush navy carpeting and a wall of mahogany bookshelves. A massive desk sits in front of a window that shows a crawl of traffic below. On its surface is a stack of file folders, coded with bright tabs.

Braden is sitting behind the desk, wearing a white doctor’s coat. His black hair has a few streaks of silver in it, but that only highlights the planes and angles of his fallen-angel face. His eyes are a cold, glacial blue. He is smiling.

I am shaking so hard my knees knock together.

The door closes, and I feel the room pushing in on me. Even as my heart beats at the bottom of my throat, I try to tell myself that he will not touch me, not here, not when anyone can hear us or see me leave this space in a condition different than when I entered. I remind myself that in public, Braden was unfailingly perfect.