Order in the Court (18 page)

“I’m not likable when I’m me?”

Haywood sat back in his chair and shook his head. His eyes looked sad, and maybe lonely.

“You are an intensely likable person when you’re you. I like you a lot. But the jury gets to see you for only a few minutes, talking about how your friends were murdered and you want Dustin Adams to spend the rest of his life in prison. No one wants to sentence a young man to life in prison. No one. That’s a lot of responsibility for a juror. They have to be able to feel like they’re making the best possible decision, that there is
no way
they can let this man back on the streets.”

“I’m the person ruining Dustin’s life,” I said, feeling slightly in awe of this realization. “That’s how they’ll see me. The girl who wants to ruin his life.” I tried to imagine what they’d see when they looked at him: Dustin Adams, the tall, athletic boy with a bright future. A future I hoped to ruin. Haywood seemed to concur.

“Good-looking, young, white, intelligent Dustin Adams will take the stand at some point after you. He will tell them a sob story. He will do everything in his power to convince them that he is not guilty, and his counsel will do everything in their power to undermine your credibility so that his story sounds more plausible.”

A heavy stone settled in my intestines, a weight of fear and disgust. “I still hate it. I hate that I have to assume that the first thing the jury will notice about me is the color of my skin and the shape of my eyes, and that those things will impact how they feel about my testimony. It makes me sick to even think it.”

It was the same feeling I got, to a lesser extent, when people expected me to be a natural in math class, or good at chess, or to know a language I rarely even heard spoken. It was a gross feeling, a bone-deep aversion, like the feeling of having a bug on your skin but being unable to swat it away.

Haywood stood up from his chair and walked around his desk to crouch in front of me, sitting back on his haunches. Up close, there was color in his cheeks, flecks of blue in his eyes. And his hair, underneath the silver wisps, had a reddish undertone.

“Don’t you ever, ever lose that feeling,” he said. His voice was soft but authoritative, and I looked at him and saw him more clearly than I ever had before. “Don’t ever forget what it feels like. Not for one second. It should make you feel sick and angry and tired. That’s what makes you human, and what will make you
extraordinary
at whatever you choose to do with your life after this.”

“I’m not extraordinary. I’m just a girl.”

Haywood put his hands on both my knees. “You are a bright, passionate young woman with unlimited potential to do good in this world. This trial is just one tiny piece of what will be the absolutely
epic
story of your life.”

Sometimes someone says something that you don’t believe right away. The words sit on your skin like perfume, pleasant but external to you. And then, after a long time, it begins to sink in, and those words become a part of you. You internalize the words, and they fundamentally change you, change who you’ll become.

Haywood’s words would lie on my skin through the trial, a superficial comfort. Over time, they would seep into my bloodstream and put fire behind my words. But when he said them, I didn’t believe him.

I said, “Yeah, okay,” and I said, “Thanks,” and Haywood took his hands off my knees and apologized for the invasion of my personal space. And he gave me a few last-minute tips on how to act, and I listened and agreed. But I had the sickening feeling, in some deep, unreachable part of me, that even if we won the battle, we’d already lost the war.

THERE WAS
a small part of me that got it, now, having seen another side to our attorney. Haywood was a gentle, kind man with a seed of passion buried deep in the core of his being. He was a rational, dependable, and persuasive person with charisma and good looks on his side.

He was a lot like my father.

It was no wonder my mother, who never seemed satisfied with what she had, had chosen him to cheat on my father with.

My mother, who was French-braiding her own hair in the reflection of her computer monitor when I approached her. She held up one finger for me to wait, and I spotted the wireless earpiece hooked over her ear.

“Absolutely,” she said. “I understand completely.”

She tied off her braid neatly with a pink elastic and motioned for me to sit in Dad’s chair. I did so, trying not to wring my hands. My palms were sweaty.

“No, thank you. I can take it from here. I’m not distracted!”

I wanted to bite my nails so badly, needed too. I put my hands under my thighs to stop myself.

“Yes, thank you, Jeffery. Leave it to me. I have it.” My mother always sounded like she knew best. She had this
tone
, this certain way of speaking, which you couldn’t help but listen to. “Good-bye, Jeffery.” She popped out her earpiece and dropped it onto the desk, sighing dramatically.

“Will you believe the day I’ve had!” she said, barely glancing at me before pulling a stack of papers over to her. Her desk was a mess—piles of paperwork that had gone uncompleted in favor of working on my case with Haywood. It had been slowly stacking up.

“Mom,” I said. She didn’t seem to hear me.

“Jeffery acts like a complete moron when I leave him to do anything on his own. Interns these days—when
I
interned, I did more than my share without being asked.
That’s
how to show initiative!”

“
Mom
,” I said a little more forcefully. I clenched my jaw. My temples were throbbing. “I know what’s going on.”
Oh God oh God.

My mother looked up sharply and then narrowed her eyes at me. “You do?” she asked. There was no inflection in her voice, no surprise or embarrassment.

“I do,” I agreed. I swallowed back bile. “Your big secret is out.”

She folded her hands in front of her and looked at me. “It was never supposed to be a big secret,” she said. “It just happened, and by that point, we didn’t know how to tell you. It was never the right time.” Finally, there was an ounce of sincerity in her voice.

“When could there have been a right time?” I asked, feeling defensive. Then, something about her words struck me. “Does Dad know?”

“Of course he does.”

“And he’s just… okay with it?”

The sharp, startled laugh out of my mother’s mouth was the last thing I was expecting. I felt as if I’d been slapped.

“Of course he is!” She shook her head, her new braid swinging. “I never thought it would happen at my age, but the world works in mysterious ways.”

“How could you?” I asked, feeling like I wanted to throw up or cry, or maybe both at the same time. “What made now the right time?”

“Oh, Corey, it really is just bad timing.” She looked sympathetic, which only fueled my anger. “It has nothing to do with you, or what’s been going on.”

Dad took that exact moment to enter the room, drowning in one of his woolen sweaters. “You guys getting hungry? I thought we could order a pizza.” He saw the look on my face, and my mother’s, and stopped in the doorway. “Uh-oh, looks like a bomb just dropped in here.”

“She knows,” my mother said. “And she’s upset.”

“Oh, Kitten, it’s okay. Nothing’s going to change!” My dad hurried over and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“How is any of this okay?” I yelled, pushing my father’s arms off me and standing up. “You’re just letting this happen?” I stared at my father now, willing him to be less of a doormat.

My mother blinked. “There’s no reason for you to be this upset,” she said. “I’m starting to think I overestimated your maturity.”

“Honey,” my dad cut in, looking between me and my mother like a deer caught in headlights. “I think the two of you might be talking about different things.”

My mother turned to me and said, “I’m pregnant. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“That depends on who the father is.” The words fell out, hard and rude, before I could even think about them. It took me a second to realize what she had actually said. My mother, my forty-two-year-old mother, was having a baby.

“Corinna!” my mother said at the same time my father said, “Kitten!”

“How could you think that I—”

“Why would you accuse your mother of—?”

“Mom is sleeping with Haywood,” I said when they’d stopped yelling. “Dad, Mom is cheating on you.” My voice was smaller than I expected, more even. I wasn’t even angry anymore, just disappointed. And now, to bring a
baby
into this mess?

“I’m not,” my mother said, and I waited for more, but there was just silence.

“You’re not?”

“No.” She stood up from her desk and walked around it, holding eye contact. She looked like a predator stalking her prey. “I am not cheating on your father. Not with Harry, not with anyone. I don’t know how or why you believe that, but that is the truth.”

“Then why all the… secrecy! The ‘we need to talk’ and then never talking! Why do you call him by his first name, and go to see him all the time, and—” Nothing was making sense. The trial was in two days, and my life was crumbling, pieces falling, and I couldn’t
catch
them—

“Honey, breathe. Sit down, hey.” My dad took me by the arm and pushed me back into the chair. I hadn’t even realized I’d been hyperventilating.

“I lied to you, about seeing Haywood some of the time. Recently, there have been doctor’s visits that I didn’t want you to know about. I didn’t want you to worry.” My mother’s voice was calm and soft. “We’ve had three other pregnancies since we had you. Three miscarriages.”

I stared at my mother, her words not sinking in. “Why wouldn’t you have told me that?”

“When you were six, we told you about your little brother who was coming. And when he never did, and you kept… asking, about him. About when he was coming home.” Her voice cracked. “We didn’t want to tell you the other times until we knew for sure that there was going to be a baby. And it never got to that point. We stopped trying when you were ten or eleven.”

“I would have understood if you told me. I’m not a child anymore.” It felt surreal, like everything I knew about my family was wrong. I felt lied to, and embarrassed for jumping to the wrong conclusion.

“We were protecting you,” my dad said, and his warm hand settled on my shoulder. “Just because you’re not a child doesn’t mean you’re not
our
child.”

“Harry is my friend,” my mother continued. “For the most part, my friends have always been the parents of your friends, your classmates. Other moms I saw at the PTA. Ever since the girls were killed, I haven’t been able to talk to them anymore. I can’t talk to Daniela, after she lost Jessa, and I—”

“You didn’t lose me.” I got it, then. How lonely my mother might have gotten, without Daniela Fuentes or Amanda Barrett to talk to. I had taken it for granted that when I had lost my friends, my mom had lost hers too.

“Harry and I have a lot in common, but we don’t work together. So we talk, sometimes. He’s a very nice man. But I am not sleeping with him.”

I felt embarrassed. Shame crept up my neck. I’d accused my mother of cheating, when she’d just wanted to have a friend.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” The hurt and anger I’d been feeling erupted in a mess of tears and snot. My dad handed me a tissue, and I blew my nose.

I looked my mother up and down. She didn’t look pregnant. “How far along are you?”

“Thirteen weeks tomorrow,” she said, placing a hand on her still-flat belly. She was so tiny, I would have thought you’d be able to tell by thirteen weeks. “Tomorrow is the last day of my first trimester.”

“Does that mean that you’re not going to miscarry?” I asked, staring at where my mother’s hand rested over her loose-fitting shirt. “Is it safe for you to be pregnant?”

“I’m at increased risk of complications,” my mother said matter-of-factly, clearly parroting somebody. “But our obstetrician is hopeful this time around.”

Hope.

I stood on shaky legs and put my arms awkwardly around my mother. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d
hugged
her. She reciprocated the hug carefully, as though I were the one who was fragile.

“We really could use a little hope in this house,” I said. My mother laughed, and I felt it run through my whole body.

FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS
ringed both wrists. I could name which birthday party each one had been made at, and by whom. I was wearing my most comfortable Batman tee and the bracelets went up almost to my elbows.

Brandon was sitting on my right, my dad on my left. My mother, on his other side, was twisting her wedding ring around her finger. I hadn’t wanted to come, but I knew I’d never forgive myself if I weren’t here for this moment, no matter how unprepared I was for it.

Dr. Wagner was sitting in the back row of the gallery. I’d had to pass her to make it to my seat closer to the front. I didn’t meet her eyes when I walked by.

“All rise for the Honorable Judge William Gillis.”

Brandon put out his elbow as he stood and I took it gratefully as I pulled myself up onto shaky legs. Instinctually, as our arms fell, I slid my hand into his. He closed his fingers over mine and held them, not tightly, but securely, in his massive hand. I focused on my breathing, the in-out of it, counting breaths in my head.

“Please be seated,” Judge Gillis boomed. We sat. “Let the record reflect that we have been rejoined by all the members of our jury panel. Good afternoon again, ladies and gentlemen.”

The first juror echoed the greeting. I was sweating. The formality of the exchange was strange and forced.

“Has the jury reached a verdict at this time?”

“We have, Your Honor,” the first juror answered. He was an older black man with gold horn-rimmed glasses.

We wouldn’t have been called back if they hadn’t reached a decision. My skin was crawling. Couldn’t they just get it over with?

“Will the defendant please rise?” Dustin stood to hear the verdict. I could see his legs shaking.