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Authors: Cathy Lamb

The First Day of the Rest of My Life (38 page)

BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
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Annie snuggled closer to me.
“She,” Terrence said, flushed and blotchy while pointing at Momma as she tossed back her hair, “in hot blood, I mean, in cold blood, shot three men naked! No, that’s not what I meant! She shot three men and they died and they were angry they died!”
Maybe they were angry they died. I didn’t care. Was I supposed to care?
Everyone laughed.
“Are you all right, Mr. Walters?” the judge droned.
“Yes! Yes!” He wiped his sweaty forehead. “But I want to remind everyone that this pinkish woman is remorseless and wears a bra! No, no! She keeps a gun in her bra! Look there, no, don’t look. There’s a gun! No guns!”
Terrence the Ferret was done and he knew it. He covered his eyes.
“Anything else, Mr. Walters?” the judge asked.
My momma grinned.
“No.” He glared, sweating, at my momma. “She’s a bad, bad, nasty bad woman who shoots men in the hard groins!”
More laughter. Terrence the Ferret looked pale and sickly, but he had one more argument.
“
Women
should not shoot men they’re mad at.
Women
should not have the guns to do that. They should not have their racks up and shooting. They can’t take the law”—he turned and stared at my momma and pointed a finger as my momma drew a finger down her cleavage—“into their breasts!”
Laughter filled that courtroom, even the jury box, but I could tell, even as a kid, that this attorney had ticked that jury off. Especially the
women
on the jury.
 
It was my momma’s head attorney’s turn to talk.
Dale O’Conner had been raised in the south before moving to Boston and used his drawl to his advantage, through and through. Elegant, but a homebody type. Smart but not snobby. He opened with some down-home information about himself.
“Hello, everyone. My name is Dale O’Conner. My whole family worked in the mines.” He smiled softly. “My father couldn’t believe I wanted to be an attorney but, folks, there was something about the law I couldn’t step away from. I believe in the law, you see. I believe in justice. I believe that people should face the consequences of their actions, but I also believe that the law shouldn’t be too punitive. I believe all that. When my dad was working in the mines he sometimes called a dangerous spot the ‘dark zone.’ ”
He paused, pushed his hands in his pockets. “That’s what we got here, folks. A dark zone. You’ve met my client, Mrs. Marie Elise O’Shea. Her husband, Big Luke O’Shea, who owned O’Shea’s Fisheries, was the father of their two girls, Madeline and Annie. He died in that ferocious storm a few years back in the Atlantic. That loss ’bout crushed my client. She loved her husband very much. But she kept working at her beauty parlor, kept taking care of her girls, and when she thought love came along a couple of years later, she took a chance on it. She took a chance on love. Who among us hasn’t? We’re humans, we take a chance on love.”
I saw the women in the jury smile wistfully. A man wiped an eye.
“That ended disastrously. Her daughters, Madeline and Annie, were horribly abused by Mr. Barnes and Mr. Gyrt and Mr. Samson. Monsters all of them. I cannot begin to describe the . . .” Here Dale stopped, as if to control his feelings. “I cannot describe, as a parent, how it would be to know the terror, the grief, the desolation that Marie Elise felt when she found out what had happened to her sweet, innocent daughters, what crimes had been committed that those men were rightly convicted of.” Dale cleared his throat, then told the jurors, in short, quick form, what had happened to Annie and me in the shack and showed the photos to the jury.
We bent our heads, so humiliated, so hurt, ashamed.
Our momma didn’t want us in court, but our grandparents, and their attorneys, knew the impact we would have on that jury. Free the mother! She shot those men for her two daughters ! Here they are! In pink!
“I have daughters. Two of them. And I have three sons. You all probably have kids, too—nieces and nephews. Maybe grandkids. How would you feel if this happened to your children, your grandchildren?” He waited that one out, so the jury could build their own graphic images. “Why, it’s unimaginable, and if it did, I can guarantee you, you’d feel rage and pain cracking your mind wide open, like a split watermelon.”
Most of the jurors nodded.
“I’m telling you, folks, we parents and grandparents lose our cotton-pickin’ minds when our kids are threatened, if we think their health, their safety, even their emotional health is in jeopardy. We fly into Papa or Mama Bear mode, don’t we? Nothing matters except our kids when we get right down to it. We don’t love anyone more than we love our kids, do we? We might love our spouses mighty hard, and our parents, our brothers and sisters, but any parent, when you get right down to it, they love their kids the most, they love those kids to distraction. They love them
completely.
”
He had those jurors; those heads were bopping.
“And after all the trauma the girls had been through, the crimes, when Sherwinn, Gavin, and Pauly were being held in jail before their trial, she started getting letters.” He read the letters where Sherwinn threatened to kill us, and the jury blanched. “Here’s another sad fact, folks. Marie Elise has got a brain tumor. Her days are numbered, sadly enough.”
“Oh, no!” a woman on the jury declared, shaking her head.
“That’s a damn shame,” another said.
“Objection!” Terrence the Ferret snapped.
“Overruled and be quiet,” the judge said.
“Marie Elise knew she wouldn’t be around to protect her girls. She knew with those monsters out of jail in a few years, her girls would never be able to grow up and become mommas themselves, become grandmas, so she shot them, killed them, right here, by golly. You could call it self-defense. I would.”
“Objection!” Terrence the Ferret yelled, on what grounds I don’t know.
“Overruled,” the judge said.
Dale rocked back on his heels, blinked his eyes to get those tears out of there! “What happened is not in dispute, folks. You’re gonna get the details of the shooting, I’m sorry to say. I’m not arguin’ it, not at all. I won’t lie to you, I’ve got nothing but honest words for all of you, but Marie Elsie isn’t guilty, no sirs, no ma’ams, she’s not.” He stuck his hands in pockets. “The prosecuting attorney, Mr. Walters, will tell you that Marie Elise was as clear as a bell that day, smart as a tack, that it was all coldly calculated. Premeditated. Planned. And you know what, folks?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“He’s wrong. My client—” He turned to look at my momma in her white dress. “My client, Marie Elise, was temporarily insane. Why, she plumb lost her mind. Just plumb lost it.” He leaned toward the jurors. “Now y’all tell me something, and be honest with yourselves right here, right now. If monsters like Sherwinn, Pauly, or Gavin had come after your kids, wouldn’t you have lost your mind, too?”
The jury nodded.
“Yep,” a rangy, muscled man in a red plaid shirt said, slow like honey.
“I would have!” a female juror announced, huffy and puffy. “I would have!”
Terrence the Ferret audibly groaned. “Objection,” he said, but it was rote, defeated.
 
I know for a fact that if my grandparents weren’t fighting for the very life of their daughter, they never would have let me testify again. Annie was not speaking. It was determined that we would not even try to put her on the stand.
“You can do this, kiddo,” Dale told me privately. “Just tell the truth. Do it for your mom. Keep your eyes on me, don’t look away. Pretend it’s just you and me. Don’t be scared. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
Over my momma’s vehement objections and pleadings, out loud, in court, I testified into that packed courtroom.
I did what Dale told me to do because I wanted to save my momma.
I told about how Sherwinn, Pauly, and Gavin put blue sheets over our heads so we couldn’t see then put ropes around our necks and giggled and called us the Blue Ghosts.
I had to stop because one of the jurors said, “Aw, shit and hell,” blunt and loud, and I got distracted, but Dale told me to look right at him and answer another question and I did because I wanted to save my momma.
I told how I was embarrassed to be naked and having men touch me and it made me cry.
I had to stop again when two women on the jury made gasping sounds and they distracted me. Dale told me to look right at him, and I did even though I had to keep wiping my face. I did it to save my momma.
I told how the cigarettes burned my bottom and how I didn’t like seeing Annie thrown against walls.
I had to stop when Carman said, “For God’s sakes, that’s enough! That’s enough!”
And Shell Dee moaned, “Lord help her, Lord!”
I told everything. I did it for my momma.
“Madeline, what did you tell your momma about a week before Sherwinn’s, Pauly’s, and Gavin’s trial?”
I sucked in my breath as a whole pile of nasty memories sunk down on my head. I closed my eyes. I wrapped my arms around my body. I heard a moan slink out of my mouth.
The judge waited.
The jury waited.
The news reporters waited to scribble.
Everyone in the room held their breath.
“Madeline?” Dale said, gentle.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear.
For one second, I looked up and gathered my hellfire, as my momma would have said. Annie, my sister, my best friend, was standing in the courtroom. The one who wore tutus with me, grizzly bear outfits and kimonos. She held up her wrist and pointed at it. She was wearing a bracelet like our momma’s with puca shells and pink and yellow plastic flowers just like I was.
I put my hand over my bracelet and took the deepest breath of my life.
“Before my momma shot Sherwinn and Pauly and Gavin, I told her what they did to me in that room with no windows. I whispered it to her.” I rocked back and forth again.
Dale took a deep breath. “And what was that?”
“They did the ice-cream truck with me.”
No one moved an iota, but the tension flared sky high.
“The ice-cream truck?” Dale said.
I saw my granddad sag in his seat.
My grandma bit down hard on her lip.
My momma kept her eyes right on mine, but that didn’t stop her anguish.
“He did something bad to me. It hurt. When I screamed he hit me in the face. He said, ‘How do you like the chocolate ice cream?’ ”
Sobbing was audible.
I heard someone swear.
“He did other bad things with me with ice cream. Vanilla and strawberry.” I detailed the bad things and the photography.
Click, click, click.
“Why is Marie Elise on trial at all?” someone from the back yelled. There was general agreement.
Somebody else called out, “Marie Elise ain’t guilty. She ain’t guilty.”
I heard someone yell, “This trial is a travesty.”
“Quiet down.” The judge rapped his gavel. “Quiet.”
My grandma’s whole body was vibrating, as if someone were right inside her, wringing her around.
The Rubensteins were pale white.
“I told my momma everything. Everything. I told her about the ice-cream truck.”
“What did she say to you, Madeline?” Dale asked.
I stared straight at my momma.
“My momma.” I had to stop because I was crying, memories of the ice-cream truck, and Sherwinn and not being able to help Annie, mixing in with how much I loved my momma and how much I missed her, how alone and lonely I felt without her every single day.
“My momma told me that she loved me!” My voice rung around that courtroom. “My momma told me that I’m a beautiful girl! She said she was proud of me.” I heard my words pitch high. “She said I’m smart and a good girl. She said I’m special to her and my dad loves me, too.” I thought of my dad, his hug and his smile. “My momma told me that nothing was my fault and she hated Sherwinn and Pauly and Gavin and she hated herself for bringing them into our lives, but Momma,” I said to her, my voice crackling, “you didn’t know.
You didn’t know.
They told us they would kill us if we told.”
“What did your momma do next?” Dale asked.
“My momma hugged me.” I shook my head back and forth, back and forth, so exposed, so lost. “I didn’t want to play ice-cream truck. I didn’t want to be in the room with no windows. I didn’t like them taking photos. But my momma loves me. I love you, too, Momma, I love you, too, Momma.” I stood up in the witness stand. I wanted to hug my momma so much I ached, my whole body a radiating mass of pain. “I miss you, Momma, I want to be with you. I want you to come home, please, Momma, come home.” I leaned over at the waist and yelled at her, “
Come home!
”
BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
8.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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