The Sweet Hereafter (22 page)

Maybe my realizing this, after Billy left the house, is what let me start to evolve a plan in my mind that I couldn’t share with anyone, certainly not Mom or Daddy, and not Jennie, who would never understand, and not the boys, who would have ratted on me. If our family was going to be all fragmented like this, I figured, then I might as well take advantage of it and, for once, act completely on my own.

The first glimpse of it had come to me in a flash, as I sat there by the door with my sweet old teddy bear, Fergus, in my lap. I suddenly realized that I myself and not Daddy and Mom or the Walkers or the Ottos could force mister Stephens to drop the lawsuit. I could force their big shot lawyer to walk away from the case. And Daddy would know that I did it. Which would give me a good laugh. And because of what I knew about him, he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it afterwards. It wouldn’t really matter, but maybe then we could become a regular family again. Husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, all of us trusting one another, with no secrets.

Except the big one, of course. Which would always be there, no matter what I did, like a huge purple birthmark on my face, something that he alone could see whenever he looked at me, and I, whenever I looked in the mirror.

Graduation came and went, and, yes, I did stay home, and the school board mailed me my diploma, along with official notification that I would be attending ninth grade next year at Lake Placid High School and there would be a special van to transport me. At the last minute, Mom and Daddy almost went to the graduation ceremonies without me, just the two of them, all dressed up, but I talked them out of it. It was a stupid idea, but typical of them. They couldn’t bear being kept out of the limelight.

It’s not the same as going to church every Sunday without me, I explained, where people feel sorry for me and proud of you. People at school will just think you’re dumb and will feel sorry for you instead of me, I said.

Don’t talk to your mother that way, Daddy said.

They were all sitting in the living room watching television together, like a good American family it was The Simp sons, probably, which was the one show the whole bunch of them thought was funny. Even jennie.

Me, I can’t stand that show; it’s insulting.

Actually, Daddy, I said, I’m talking to you both, and I backed my wheelchair out of the room, turned, and went into my own room. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore, and he knew it, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

With summer here and school out, the kids were at home more, and because Mom was working at the Grand Union full time now, I had to baby sit. That was all right by me, since I didn’t have anyplace else to go, except physical therapy in Lake Placid two afternoons a week, which Grand Union let Mom take off, so she could drive me to the Olympic Center. Most days, Rudy and Skip ran wild, off in the woods and fishing or swimming in the Ausable River or riding their bikes all the way into town to goof around at the playground with their friends. I just let them go, as long as they got home before Mom did, and lied for them when Mom asked where they’d been all day, since they were supposed to stay around the house.

Jennie stuck close to me and was easy enough to amuse, especially if I let her play in my room with her Barbie dolls, which I did most of the time. We talked a lot that summer, almost as if she were a few years older than her real age and I were a few years younger, and it was one of the nicest things I can remember about our family. It was like I was ten years old again, and in the company of a sister who was also ten, because Jennie met me halfway. Some times I almost forgot about all the bad things that had happened to me, and I felt safe again and whole, untouched and innocent.

We both played Barbie dolls and read the same books and talked about things like witches and ghosts and whether we believed in them or not, and we wrote funny poems about people we didn’t like or thought were stupid and ridiculous, like mister Dillinger and Eden Schraft, the postmistress. Silly nonsensical stuff.

There once was a man named Dillinger, Whose brain had only one cylinder.

His wife’s had none, but she called him Hon, Now he’s convinced he’s thrilling her.

Eden Schraft was slightly daft And learned the alphabet late.

She sorted the mail in a plastic pail, And licked her stamps from a silver plate.

Those summer mornings and afternoons alone in the house with Jennie were, in a way, the last days of my childhood; that’s how it felt, even at the time it was happening to me.

Then one night Daddy knocked on the door of my room and said, Nichole, are you there? Can I come in a minute?

Yes, Daddy, I said, I’m here. Where did he think I was? I rolled over to the door and unlatched it, and he walked in. I reached over to the television and shut off the sound; I knew he had an announcement to make. He never came into my room alone now, unless he had to. In fact, he almost never talked directly to me anymore, probably because he couldn’t be sure of what I would say in response.

He knew I hated him.

He sat down on the bed and put his hands on his knees and studied them.

He has big hands. To me, they look like animals, thick and hairy. To him, I suppose, they’re just hands.

Nichole, he said, and he cleared his throat. Tomorrow, Nichole, tomorrow mister Stephens wants you to make your deposition over to the courthouse in Marlowe. I thought, even though it’s a weekday, I’d stay home from work so I can take you over, and Mom can stay with the kids, if that’s all right.

Sure, I said. Whatever.

‘Whatever. You sure are. .

‘What? I’m what?

I don’t know. Well, distant, I guess. Distant. Hard to talk to.

Daddy, I said, looking right at him. ‘We don’t have much to talk about. Do we?

‘What?

Do we?

He inhaled and sighed heavily, as if he felt suddenly sorry for himself. Well, then, it’s okay? I’ll take you over about nine thirty in the morning? That’s okay with you?

Sure, I said. Whatever.

I wish you wouldn’t always say that.

Say what?

‘Whatever.

Why?

It’s just… it sounds like you’ll do whatever I want, like you think you’re in my power or something. Only sarcastic. That’s the part I don’t like, the sarcasm.

I looked at him and didn’t say anything. Sometimes I don’t know who’s more out of it, him or Mom. Slowly he got up and went out to the living room, and I heard him and Mom go upstairs to their room.

The next morning, he drove me over to Marlowe. We rode the whole way without saying anything, although once or twice Daddy started whistling a little tune and then after a few seconds trailed off into silence.

It was a balmy clear day, with small white puffs of cloud sailing over the mountains from Sam Dent. Daddy parked the car in the lot and wheeled me around to the main entrance of the red brick building, which looks more like a mental hospital than a courthouse, and it gave me the willies. Unexpectedly, I was very nervous and dry mouthed, scared of what I was about to do.

Daddy huffed and puffed carrying me up the long stairs, because I kept my body stiff and wouldn’t hold on to him, and I must have felt heavier to him than I really was.

Like he was lugging a hundred and ten pounds of cinder blocks. After he set me into a regular chair and went back down for my wheelchair, I looked around me and saw that I was in a nice large book lined room with a huge table in the middle and these big leather covered chairs pulled up to it.

mister Stephens was there, wearing a dark pin striped lawyer suit, and he shook my hand with obvious pleasure.

He was glad to see me, I could tell, and this relaxed me some. When I first met him at our house, he had worn his regular clothes, a plaid shirt and wool pants, and had seemed even friendlier and gentler then.

I had liked him, but he wasn’t what you’d call impressive, probably because of his hairdo. Now he looked important and smart, and I was glad my lawyer was him and not one of the other guys he introduced me to there, a mister Garay and a mister Schwartz.

They were all suited up too, like him, but their suits looked like K Mart compared to his, and they were both short and baldish, and one of them, mister Garay, had real bad breath that he was trying to kill with Feen a Mints. Good luck.

mister Schwartz stood at the far end of the table and shuffled a messy pile of papers over and over, as if he was I looking for a lost document. Every few seconds, mister Garay walked down to mister Schwartz’s end of the table and watched over his shoulder and waited, then came back and stood nervously near me and mister Stephens.

‘Well, Nichole, are you all ready for this? mister Stephens asked me, and he smiled and winked. We’re on the same side, and we’re smarter than these other guys, was what he was communicating to me.

I’m ready, I said. And I was.

Daddy came back then with the wheelchair and opened it out for me, and when I had hitched myself into it, mister Stephens rolled me up to the table and took the seat I beside me on the right. He asked mister Schwartz where the stenographer was, and mister Schwartz looked up from his papers, blinked, said to mister Garay, Dave, you can tell we’re ready. We’re ready, right?

Yes, indeed, mister Stephens said. Daddy dragged one of the leather chairs from the table over by the wall next to the door, where he sat down and crossed his legs and tried to look casual, like he does this all the time.

mister Garay went out and a few seconds later came back followed by a short dark man I recognized from Mom and Daddy’s church which is how I thought of it by that time.

It wasn’t my church anymore, that’s for sure. The man carried a tape recorder and some papers, and he nodded and smiled at Daddy as he passed him, and Daddy nodded back.

I realized then that this was probably the third or fourth time Daddy had been in this room, so maybe he did have a reason to look casual.

He was getting used to this legal business.

This is Frank Onishenko, he’s the stenographer, and he’ll be taking down everything we say, ‘mister Stephens said to me. This is called an examination before trial, Nichole, he explained, and these gentlemen will ask you some questions, and I may make a few comments about the questions or your answers. Then mister Onishenko will make a transcript of the whole thing, which we’ll sign, and we’ll all have notarized copies, so there won’t be any surprises.

Right, gentlemen?

mister Schwartz looked up from his papers. What?

Just explaining to Nichole what’s going on here, mister Stephens said.

Are you ready?

Yeah, sure, mister Schwartz said, as if he’d really rather be doing something else. mister Garay didn’t seem too interested in what was happening, either. I guess I was mister Stephens’s choice witness, Exhibit A or something, and they figured there wasn’t much they could ask me that would help their case. They knew the facts already, and I was obviously exactly what I looked like, a poor teenaged kid in a wheelchair, a victim and that served only mister Stephens’s purpose, and of course Mom’s and Daddy’s purpose, and the Walkers’ and the Ottos’. But not mister Schwartz’s or mister Garay’s.

mister Stephens made some legal talk then. Stuff like Pursuant to the order of Judge Florio and all parties to appear today for the court ordered deposition, blah blah blah. He talked like that for quite a while. Prior to this date… numerous discovery and inspection.

.

. furnished to my office… the defendant, the State of New York.

.

.

the codefendant, the Town of Sam Dent, Essex County, State of New York … ,’ Et cetera, et cetera. It was pretty impressive, though, and if he hadn’t been my lawyer, here to protect me, I would’ve been seriously scared of him.

He went on growling and barking like that for a while, and the other lawyers cut in and out a couple of times and made legal speeches of their own. After each speech, they would all three fall into a conversation among them that they said was off the record, so mister Onishenko would stop the tape and look at me and smile a little, like we were actors in a play rehearsal forced to stand by while the director consulted with one of the other actors.

Finally, it looked like the lawyers had got all thee technical difficulties ironed out, and mister Onishenko asked me to swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.

I said I would, and then mister Schwartz looked straight at me, smiled, and gazed into my eyes like the next words I heard were going to make us lifelong friends. Nichole, he said, good morning.

Good morning.

Nichole, I’m going to ask you a series of questions about this case.

If at any time you do not understand the question or would like me to rephrase or repeat it, please just ask me and I will do so. Is that agreed?

Yes.

Good. Could you tell me your full name?

Nichole Smythe Burnell. I didn’t mention it, of course, since he didn’t ask, but Smythe is Mom’s maiden name. At school in the fall I was planning to start calling myself Smythe Burnell. No more Nichole.

No more Nickie, Nike, Nickle, Nicolodeon. From now on, Smythe.

‘Where do you presently reside?

Box 54, Bartlett Hill Road, Sam Dent, New York 12950.

How long have you resided at that address?

All my life. Since December 4, 1975. I figured I’d throw that in, so he wouldn’t have to ask my age.

Fine. And with whom do you presently reside at that address?

‘With my parents, Samuel and ‘Mary Burnell, and my two brothers, Rudolph and Richard, aged eleven and ten, and my sister, Jennifer, aged six.

For a long time, that’s how it went mister Schwartz asking these boring questions, like he was filling out a job application for me, and me answering with the basic facts of my life so far. But I liked it. I liked the way it was so factual and impersonal, almost as if we were talking about someone else, a girl who wasn’t even in the room.

After a while, though, he started asking more personal things, like about my health and my daily activities. I real ired that he had done some research already, because it was obvious from the questions that he already knew the answers to most of them. It was like that TV game show Jeopardy, where the MC gives the answers and the contestant has to come up with the questions. Except that here the ” contestant, mister Schwartz, seemed more in charge than the MC, me.