But Brad's feelings intensified too quickly for Julie. He began clinging to her oppressively and pressing her for marriage. However, neither she nor her family recognized Brad's behavior as a real obsession. Everyone assumed his feelings would pass.
Just before midnight on June 7, 1988, in the family room of the Albans' hacienda-style home, Julie broke off the affair. "I'll always love you. I'll always be your friend," she told him, "and you'll always be welcomed by my family."
Brad's apartment was forty-five minutes away, so Julie invited him to sleep in the guest room.
At seven o'clock the next morning, she heard her bedroom door open. "I pretended to be asleep. Then I heard this tremendously loud blast, and I was thrown to the floor."
A moment later, Brad pointed the gun at his own chest
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and fired. Julie watched in horror and shock, not really aware that she had been wounded. She screamed for her parents, asleep at the other end of the house. When they didn't respond, she dragged herself to the next room, where she called 911.
Finally waking to Julie's screams, her father raced down the hall and gave CPR to the bleeding young man until paramedics arrived. Only then did he realize that Julie, still lying on the floor, was also in danger.
"Dad, I can't move my legs," Julie whimpered. When her father rolled her over, her spinal fluid was seeping out.
Compounding his distress, Julie's father realized his daughter had been shot with his own pistol. He belonged to the county sheriff's reserve, and he had invited Brad to the firing range the day before, afterwards leaving the gun in his unlocked car.
Julie and Brad were rushed to the hospital where they lay in the emergency room separated by a thin curtain. Julie overheard doctors say Brad would survive. She told her mother through angry sobs, "He's going to walk out of here, and I'm never going to walk again."
Discharged from the hospital two weeks later, Brad was arraigned for attempted murder. His wealthy parents, members of the same Long Beach elite, posted the five-hundred-thousand-dollar bail, and he went home without serving any jail time.
Julie, meanwhile, began physical therapy. "I'd been an active young woman, ready to take on the world," she says. "And here I was, having to learn what to do if I fell in the shower."
After a month, Julie, too, went home. One day, as she lay anguished and immobile, she heard a familiar, repetitive "whup" through her bedroom window.
It was the sound of Brad swatting tennis balls on his private court next door.
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At his trial in December 1988, Brad claimed that he had been despondent over gambling debts and had shot Julie accidentally after overdosing on Valium.
Unmoved, the jury convicted him. (Ultimately he served half of a fourteen-year prison term before his release on parole. He has since married.)
Julie last saw Brad in prison eight years ago, behind a glass partition. "I wanted to hear him say 'I'm sorry,'" she says. Instead, Brad told the woman he had paralyzed for life, "The worst part of this is, I know your father hates me."
With Brad behind bars, Julie got on with her lifea very different life than before. She could no longer participate in the usual social activities of her circle of girlfriendsfriendships that had been based mostly, as she recalls, on playing tennis and shopping for cocktail dresses. Instead, Julie learned to operate a specially equipped car, although spasms of pain prevented her from driving it. And in 1990, she entered law school, a lifelong dream.
Despite chronic paineventually eased by surgery to remove bullet and bone fragments from her spinal canalJulie fulfilled her ambition. She even took one final exam while recuperating on a gurney, graduating on time in 1993.
After passing the bar exam, Julie applied for a job with the district attorney's office. "I told my future boss that I would be the most determined prosecutor he ever hired," she says, "because I had a personal commitment to victims he wasn't going to find in other people."
About that, even her legal adversaries agree. "The biggest problem the prosecution has in these cases is that most victims recant," says Bill Hoffman, a public defender who has battled Julie in domestic-violence cases.
"But Julie Alban helps these women find a voice."
Lisa appears to be one of them. After speaking with Julie, she agreed to confront her boyfriend in court. He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor domestic violence
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and was ordered to undergo counseling and perform community service.
''He can't just smack me whenever he doesn't like what I say," Lisa declares, with new firmness and self-respect. "I can't let what happened to Julie happen to me."
Richard Jerome
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Barriers or Hurdles?
Children were enthusiastically rehearsing and decorating the rural school for their approaching concert. As I glanced up from my teacher's desk, Patty stood waiting to lodge her urgent request.
"Every year I g-g-g-get to do quiet stuff. The other kids are always in a p-p-p-p-play or something. Talking. This year, I w-w-want to do a p-p-p-p-poem, myself!"
As I looked into those eager eyes, all possible excuses fizzled. Patty's yearning drew from me a promise that in a day or two she would have a special parta "reciting" part. That promise proved to be very difficult to keep.
None of my resource books had any usable selection. In desperation, I stayed up most of the night writing a poem, carefully avoiding those letters that trip the tongue. It was not great literature, but it was custom tailored to cope with Patty's speech problem.
After only a few brief readings, Patty had memorized all the verses and was prepared to dash through them. Somehow we had to control that rush without shattering her enthusiasm. Day after day, Patty and I plodded through recitals. She meticulously matched her timing to my silent mouthing. She accepted the drudgery, eagerly
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anticipating her first speaking part.
Concert night found the children in a frenzy of excitement.
In a dither the master of ceremonies came to me, waving his printed program. "There has been a mistake! You have listed Patty for a recitation. That girl can't even say her own name without stuttering." Because there was not time enough for explanations, I brushed his objection aside with, "We know what we are doing."
The entertainment was moving well. As item after item was presented, parents and friends responded with encouraging applause.
When it was time for the questionable recitation, the MC again challenged me, insisting that Patty would embarrass everyone. Losing patience, I snapped, "Patty will do her part. You do yours. Just introduce her number."
I flitted past the curtains and sat on the floor at the foot of the audience. The emcee appeared flustered as he announced, "The next recitation will be by . . . um . . . Patty Connors." An initial gasp from the audience was followed by strained silence.
The curtain parted to show Patty, radiant, confident.
Those hours of rehearsing took possession of the moment. In perfect control, the little charmer synchronized her words to my silent mouthing below the footlights. She articulated each syllable with controlled clarity, and without a splutter or stammer. With eyes sparkling she made her triumphant bow.
The curtain closed. A hushed silence held the audience. Gradually the stillness gave way to suppressed chuckles, and then to enthusiastic applause.
Utterly thrilled, I floated backstage. My little heroine threw her arms around me and, bubbling with joy, blurted out, "We d-d-d-d-did it!
Irvine Johnston
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A Tribute to Courage
It was the middle of May and spring was in the air. The sun was warm against my face and the smell of wildflowers and cut grass was everywhere. I took a deep breath, which seemed to ease the pain growing in my abdomen. Heavy with child I called for my husband, "Honey, I think it's time to go. Honey . . . Now!" He came out of the garage at a steady pace, calculating each step to
keep his balance. I could see worry and excitement fighting for dominance on his face. "Okay, Sweetheart, I'm coming! Just don't move!" Amusement crossed my face for a brief moment only to be replaced with pain as another contraction came. I carefully gained my balance as I rose from the chair, and he ushered me to the car and grabbed our daughter who was playing nearby. As he fumbled with the keys I placed my hand on his; he smiled, took a deep breath and started the car.
He paced up and down the hospital corridors with his daughter, small for the age of three, matching his strides, holding tightly to his strong hand. Glancing at the hospital wallswhite and gleamingthe smell of antiseptic assaulted his nose. Nurses in starched white uniforms scurried up and down the halls with an assortment of
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needles, bandages and bags loaded in their arms.
He hated hospitals and all they represented; antiseptic and impersonal. His daughter looked up at him in quiet anticipation, hoping for a brother. "It won't be long now, Princess," he said understanding her dilemma. "Mommy will be fine," he added as he noticed fear creeping into her eyes.
As they sat in the waiting room he cradled his daughter protectively as his mind drifted back to when he was a small boy, in a place like this . . . for a very different reason. Yet the walls were not antiseptic and white, they were dirty and the rooms smelled of urine and disease. Death ran rampant through the halls taking one child and rejecting another.
It was the years when polio was ravishing children, claiming so many little victims. The nurses began to shut off their emotions just to deal with all they had seen, and the children in some hospitals were on their own, alone and scared. In one of those rooms lay a small frail boy, his eyes clouded by pain and confusion. He didn't understand why he was here and why his legs wouldn't move. He had heard the doctors and nurses talking about this thing called "polio." In all his nine years he had never heard the word before. Somehow it made everyone sad and it hurt children, he knew that much! All the questions that never seemed to be answered, like why his right arm worked and his left one didn't. He wished someone would tell him how long it would be before his left arm would work again; after all, he had baseball practice in the spring.
He heard the nurse outside the door. Maybe if I shrink myself really small she won't find me! He knew why she was coming: The daily dipping of the not-so-perfect-hand into a vat of hot wax . . . into the wax . . . let it seep through all the fingers . . . then harden and back in again. She never
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seemed to notice the tears rolling down his cheeks because the wax was so hot, or the pain in his eyes when they stuck another needle into his bruised flesh. He lay very quiet but to no avail, the nurse turned the covers back, "Okay, let's have the hand." He looked up at her with tears welling in his eyes as she lifted his hand from the bed.
Hours turned into days and days into months. The innocent little boy who first came to the hospital was replaced by a strong-willed fighter with determination and courage to survive. To occupy his time he played a game with the fingers on his good hand . . . up the stomach . . . down the stomach . . . inch by inch so his right hand would be strong. He waited daily for a visit from his parents, but they rarely came. They had other children to care for, and he thought because he wasn't perfect they had discarded him.
"Mr. Robinson, Mr. Robinson," he stirred, fighting to climb out of the darkness that enveloped him. He looked up as his mind cleared, his face drenched in sweat; his body trembled and he clutched his daughter tightly. "Mr. Robinson," the nurse smiled softly as she spoke. "You have a son.'' He didn't believe it at first. As his daughter giggled and jumped around his feet, he asked the nurse with great reluctance, "Does he have all his fingers and toes?" It was a question he also asked when his daughter was born. He had been told all his life that imperfect people produce imperfect children. The nurse smiled with understanding and replied, "He is healthy, all fingers and toes present and screaming bloody murder!"
He rose slowly and walked to the room where I lay sleeping. Touching my hair with tenderness he whispered, "I love you and I'm so grateful you believed in us. His thoughts drifted to his son, who would be able to play baseball, football and all the things he wasn't able to do.
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He thought about his daughter who loved him as he was; to her he was her knight in shining armor.
As the years passed and the children grew, he taught them not to judge a person by the outward appearance, but by what is on the inside. The children knew this too well, from years of growing up around people too quick to judge their father.
It's been fourteen years since he paced the halls of the hospital awaiting the arrival of his son.
It's Thursday night and we sit in the football stadium with our daughter. The band plays and the cheerleaders scream in unison. We wait for the announcer to call our son's name, "Robinson #10, quarterback." He runs across the field, strong and lithe, looks up in the stands, finds his father and smiles, holds his arm high, thumb in the air and mouths, "For you, Dad."
Victoria Robinson
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Riley
We should consider every day lost in which we have not danced at least once.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In March 1995, my wife Teri and twin three-year-old daughters, Riley and Taylor, were living in Los Angeles with my wife's parents. I was working 250 miles away in El Centro, California, driving in on weekends to be with them. My wife was six months pregnant with our son Max. One day Riley complained of a headache and showed flu-like symptoms. Our family pediatrician examined her and told Teri that Riley probably had some childhood virus.
Twenty-four hours later, Riley was in the emergency room at Tarzana Medical Center. X-rays and MRIs revealed a mass at the base of her brain. My wife and I were told Riley's mass was in the brain stem; it had bled and was probably still bleeding. We prepared to say good-bye to our daughter. Then the doctor told us that she needed to be transported to UCLA Medical Center where pediatric neurosurgeons could try to help her. It was her only chance.
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When Riley arrived at UCLA, we were met by Dr. Jorge Lazareff. He confirmed the seriousness of Riley's condition, but told us not to give up hope. The fact that Riley was still alive after such massive bleeding meant that she was a fighter.
The first of many surgeries followed, lasting fourteen hours. It involved removing a piece of Riley's skull, separating the two halves of the brain, manipulating the brain stem and then removing the mass. The veins within the mass can rupture at any time, causing a stroke. It is crucial to remove all of the mass to ensure that no additional strokes happen in the future.
Riley had five such surgeries. The staff at UCLA said it was a miracle that she was still with us.
During that first surgery, the doctors manipulated the brain stem, disconnecting it from the rest of the brain. This causes the brain to lose its ability to talk to the body. Riley lost all motor skills; for a while she needed a respirator just to breathe. Most of the doctors told us that we should not expect much from Riley and to be thankful she was even alive. However, Doctor Lazareff said that Riley might prove the medical establishment wrong again.
When we finally took Riley home, she could not eat, walk, talk or do even the basic movements expected of a newborn. My wife, Teri, worked daily with Riley, while I returned to work. Each weekend, when I returned to L.A., I witnessed a new miracle. With the love only a mother could give, Riley learned how to eat, talk and move her limbs again. During this period, after seeing a dance recital on television, Riley announced that she wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up. Riley's spirit was dreaming of dancing even before she had relearned to walk.
Then we received news that a recent MRI had shown more of the mass. In August, Riley once again went to UCLA. The single operation that would remove the
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