The Ghost of Christmas Present (18 page)

Rebecca looked to Ted and realized she'd been followed.

“Isn't it true that you've become emotionally attached to this man?”

“I wouldn't say that.”

The attorney picked up a paper from the plaintiff's table. “Just like you became emotionally attached to a fellow colleague during your medical internship, Julia Bright, and forged her signature on a patient's chart?”

“So she could sleep. She hadn't had any sleep for two days and was bumping into carts while making decisions.”

“So you took it upon yourself to forge her signature on a chart, just as you took it upon yourself not to disclose the AMA censure to the city when you applied to be a social worker, just as you're now taking it upon yourself to decide that Mr. Guthrie is fit to take care of his child even though he can't pay for his rent, light, heat . . . Do I have to go on?”

Rebecca sat in the witness box, exposed and beaten up. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes,” Rebecca said as she looked straight at Patrick. “I'm taking it upon myself to tell you that Patrick Guthrie would do anything, and I mean anything, for his son. And if it please the court, I perjured myself earlier.”

Ramirez sat up as Rebecca kept her eyes on Patrick.

“Go ahead and hold me in contempt. I'm very emotionally attached to Mr. Guthrie.”

Chapter 26

WHERE PLAYACTING ENDS AND REAL LIFE BEGINS

T
ed Cake sat on the witness stand in his custom-cut suit and silk tie like victory itself, beautifully gift-wrapped and waiting to be opened upon the judge's eventual decision—which would certainly now go his way once this needless proceeding was over.

“So in your opinion, Mr. Cake,” his own attorney said as he crossed the floor toward Patrick, “Mr. Guthrie here is entirely incapable of caring for a child, let alone one who suffers from a life-threatening condition.”

“In my opinion, sir, Mr. Guthrie is not capable of taking care of anyone or anything, and clearly that includes himself.”

Abe rose. “Objection, Your Honor. The issue at hand is the welfare of the son, not the father.”

“We would argue those two issues go hand in hand,” said Ted's attorney.

“The court would agree. Objection overruled.”

Abe, deflated, sat back in his chair as Patrick leaned over to him. “This isn't going our way.”

“I need a drink.”

“You need to call me to the stand.”

Ramirez banged his gavel at the audible whispering. Abe and Patrick quieted.

“So, Mr. Cake,” Ted's attorney said, walking back toward the witness box. “What makes you so certain of Mr. Guthrie's ineptitude at caring for his boy?”

Ted looked straight at Patrick with a stare brimming with what Rebecca now recognized as love disappointed . . . hatred.

“I am certain Mr. Guthrie is inept at caring for the boy because he was completely inept at caring for the boy's mother. She died for lack of regular physical examinations.”

Patrick bolted up. “Linda's heart condition was asymptomatic,” he said, regurgitating word-for-word the explanations every doctor had offered. “Only three percent of people who have an enlarged heart are ever even diagnosed.”

“Sit down and silence yourself, Mr. Guthrie!” Ramirez said.

Ted continued. “She would have been part of that three percent if she'd had proper medical insurance and care, if she'd had the proper sense to stay away from a layabout thespian who couldn't tell you the difference between where playacting ends and real life begins.”

Abe sprang to his feet again. “Now this truly is conjecture and character assassination!”

Ramirez brought his gavel down again. “The court has no choice but to sustain the objection.” Ramirez turned an eye to Ted. “Mr. Cake, please confine your answers to the questions posed.”

“May it please the court,” the attorney said, “Mr. Cake's concerns are for the welfare of his grandson and it is clearly his opinion Mr. Guthrie's life in the theater is a direct obstacle to that welfare. May we pose a direct question to our client along those lines?”

Ramirez nodded. “You may.”

“Mr. Cake, is it your opinion that your ex–son-in-law's former profession as an actor not only directly led to the lack of medical care for your daughter—”

“Objection!”

“I'll allow it.”

“—but also led to his being let go as a teacher with no seniority, and finally fired from a waiter position that even the most amateur of actors can maintain?”

Ted once again stared at Patrick, who willed himself not to look away.

“It is my opinion that Mr. Guthrie's acting life has caused only loss and death. He prefers to pretend rather than face his real responsibilities as a husband and father. Nothing good has come from it, certainly not to my life.”

This last statement washed over Patrick's face, and his eyes filled with thought. He gripped the table with hands desperate to feel their way through a hard decision—whether to protect the small part of life left to him or risk it all for the large part of life he just might win.

“The plaintiff rests,” Ted's attorney said and sat down.

Patrick's eyes wandered across the room for an answer to the question that was pounding through his mind and heart. He turned the Band-Aid round and round his finger as his eyes landed on Mila, sitting behind the plaintiff's table. She was looking straight at Captain Pluton before lifting her gaze up to Patrick.

“Hello, Ghost,” she mouthed in a whisper.

Patrick saw it. His face flooded with decision as he leaned over close to Abe's ear and whispered something urgent. Abe tried to shake Patrick off for a second, but finally relented as Ted stood up to leave the witness box.

“Mr. Cake? The defense has a question of its own.”

Ted reluctantly sat back down. “I would think this court has all the answers it needs.”

“You'll answer all appropriate questions, sir,” Ramirez said.

“Of course, so long as they are just that.” Ted watched contemptuously as what he viewed as a two-bit lawyer rose and approached him.

“Mr. Cake, you stated just now that Mr. Guthrie's passion for the theater has caused you and your loved ones only heartache.”

“That's correct. In my opinion, my daughter would be here today if it weren't for that.”

“So as you've said, nothing good has come of it, certainly not in your life.”

Ted's attorney rose. “Objection. This line of questioning is leading nowhere.”

“You began this line of questioning, counsel. Sit down,” Ramirez said.

Abe continued as he paced across the floor, “So you've never attended any of Mr. Guthrie's performances?”

“Certainly not.”

“And if you did so, you would find nothing good in them—no comfort, no laughter, no joy, no self-­reflection, no balm of the soul?”

Patrick shot a look to Abe to get on with it.

“In other words, as certain as you are that Mr. Guthrie's love of the theater took your daughter from you, you are just as certain that you have never been touched by it.”

“Of course not. I don't have to put my hand on a Bible to swear to that.”

Abe turned and looked to the defendant's table. “Then the defense calls Patrick Guthrie to the stand.”

Chapter 27

TO THINE OWN SELF

A
be leaned into Patrick and whispered as low as he could. “Are you certain you want to do this thing?”

“Into the breach,” Patrick said back just as softly.

“Mr. MacManus,” Ramirez said as he leaned toward both of them. “Mr. Guthrie is in the witness box so that we all might hear what he has to say. Being a member of the New York Bar, you probably are already aware of that.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Abe drew back from Patrick and collected himself. “Mr. Guthrie, what is your profession?”

“My first calling was to the life of the theater.”

Ted rolled his eyes.

“My second calling was teaching drama to high school students.”

“And are you gainfully employed in either of those professions at the moment?”

“No.”

“Are you gainfully employed in any profession at the moment?”

“I was fired from my waiter position, though I do have a verbal promise of employment as a copywriter at an advertising firm come the New Year.”

“But that is not official yet?”

“It is not official.”

“So I ask again, are you gainfully employed at the moment?”

“No,” Patrick said as he looked at Ted, who nodded with satisfaction. Ramirez sat back.

“So you have made little to no money at all this Christmas season?”

Patrick hesitated for a second, catching Rebecca's eyes. “I have made close to three thousand dollars,” he said.

Ramirez sat up, along with Ted and the Nutcracker attorney.

“And how did you accomplish that?”

Patrick hesitated again, knowing his next answer would expose him as not only a beggar, but a man “unstable” enough to take to the streets dressed in the green velvet costume of a fictional Christmas character to perform for coin . . .

In other words, a nut job.

“I'll ask again,” Abe said, giving the suddenly silent Patrick a glower. “And how did you accomplish that?”

“I begged for money.”

The courtroom held only a dozen people, between the judge, bailiff, attorneys, and witnesses. But the gasp that went up was worthy of a packed house.

“You what?” Ramirez said, his face dropping in disbelief. Even Ted was too surprised to be pleased.

“I begged for money. I stood on the sidewalk of Broadway and 34th Street and asked people for cash, currency . . . coin of the realm. I became a panhandler.”

Ted's eyes narrowed slightly as he mouthed to himself, “Broadway and 34th?”

“And how did you panhandle—just as you are now?”

“No. I wore a costume, a Christmas costume. People love a good character, and I gave them one of the best Charles Dickens ever wrote.”

Ted's face ripened with a growing realization as he turned and looked back at Mila, who smiled.

“What was this character you speak of?”

“I was the Ghost of Christmas Present, the original embodiment of Father Christmas. I was a singing, rhyming, Shakespeare-reciting spirit who haunted the sidewalks of Broadway”—Patrick looked straight at Ted—“and gave maybe just a little joy to those who approached me.”

Ted bolted up. “It's impossible! I would have known you.”

“Mr. Cake! Sit down!” Ramirez said, banging his gavel. Ted sat down, looking wildly unbalanced.

Patrick met his eyes. “Spare some coin for a poor beggar, sir,” he said in his Ghost voice. “It'll secure you a place in heaven.”

Ted gripped the plaintiff's table and steadied himself.

“So it would seem that Mr. Cake's declaration that he has never seen nor been affected by one of your performances might now be in question.”

The Nutcracker attorney bolted up. “This line of questioning is absurd. Whether Mr. Cake did or did not know this man was a begging Ghost of Christmas Past—”

“Present,” Abe said.

“Immaterial! That Mr. Cake perhaps stopped to hear a pathetic wretch on the sidewalk and toss him a nickel—”

“It grew to be ten dollars a day,” Patrick said.

“Immaterial!”

“Once he even gave me a hundred-dollar bill.”

“So, he's a man generous to unfortunates. No one disputes that. But that he was an unknowing audience to the man he knows to be an unfit provider for his grandson changes nothing.”

“It was your own client who declared he blamed the defendant's pursuit of acting for his daughter's death, and that he has also never been touched by it, so much so that he would put his hand to a Bible to that effect. Ten dollars a day to a panhandler tells me he just might have been touched.”

“So my client was ‘touched,'” the Nutcracker said in exasperation. “But that doesn't make Mr. Cake a redeemed Scrooge ready to buy everybody in town a fat goose, and it doesn't make his grandson Tiny Tim. That's a Christmas fairy tale and this is real life. Braden Guthrie's welfare is what's at stake here.”