A Good Mother

by Lara Bazelon

  Will beckons and Luz comes flying toward him. When she pulls open the imaginary door, he staggers and pushes her backward. “Like that?”

  “Yes.” Will had used his full weight, and Luz is breathing audibly, back on her heels. More hair comes loose from her ponytail, partially obscuring her face, but he can see two scarlet spots forming, one on each cheek. Will has a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to pull Luz into his body, to feel the warmth of her skin. To inhale her. He sees her on the conference table staring up at him, eyes wide, her legs wrapped around his waist.

  But she isn’t looking at him that way now and he could swear her head is shaking slightly. What had she said to him once, afterward? You need to be angrier, Will. You need to hate me.

  He blinks. “What happened after he stumbled into you?”

  “I told him, ‘Travis, you can’t stay here. You’re too drunk.’ He smelled like liquor and he was angry in that way he gets. I didn’t want him waking up Cristina.”

  “Did he leave?”

  “No.” She pushes back the loose hair, tries to tuck it behind one ear. “He said, ‘This is my house. I’m not going anywhere.’ He grabbed me. He started shaking me—”

  Will puts his hands on Luz’s shoulders, pulls her to him, away, and to him again. “Like this?”

  “Harder. My head kept hitting the wall.”

  “Like this?” Will uses more force, jerking her back and forth against an imaginary surface.

  “Ye-e-s.” He hears a vertebrae crack in her neck, feels her recoil.

  “Then what?”

  “I pushed him.” Luz puts her hands against Will’s chest and gives him a surprisingly forceful shove. “And he reached out and grabbed my face, around my jaw.”

  Will pulls her toward him again, cupping her chin in the V between his thumb and forefinger and pushing down into the sides of her face. “Like this?” Behind him, he hears someone in the gallery gasp.

  “Yes.” His grip is making it difficult for Luz to speak, and he has to ease up slightly so she can get the word out. Their faces are inches apart now, his fingers on her jawbone, clamping her in place.

  “Then what?”

  “He took off his shirt and his belt—”

  With his free hand, Will pulls his tee shirt over his head and undoes his belt buckle, sliding it through the loops of his jeans. It’s the craziest thing he has ever done in court and physically one of the most difficult—it’s tricky as hell to hold her still and undress himself at the same time. But strangely, it’s a relief; he’s hotter than he realized, sweat is trickling down his exposed rib cage. The frozen silence in the courtroom fissures. Will hears rumbling all around him, sees Shauna stir in her seat.

  “Your Honor, this is highly improper—”

  Will keeps his eyes on Luz. “State of mind. This entire case is about my client’s state of mind.”

  “Overruled.”

  “Finish what you were saying,” Will tells Luz.

  “He told me to pull down my pants.”

  He turns her face a few inches in the jury’s direction, forcing her to speak to them. “Meaning what?”

  “He wanted to have sex.” She tries to look down, but Will tightens his grip on her jaw, stamping the pads of his fingertips onto her skin. She takes a shallow breath and he eases up again to let her get out the rest of her answer. “That’s what always happened when he was like that. He would want to and I would—I would let him just to make it not so bad.”

  “Did you let him this time?”

  “No.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I scratched his face.”

  Her nails rake his cheek and he can feel tiny dots of blood spring up along the trail they leave behind.

  “What did he do?”

  “He hit me.”

  Will lets go of Luz’s chin and smacks her across the face. It’s a clean flat hit, not hard enough to take her down, but nearly, and it’s shatteringly loud. Luz stumbles backward, her hand to her cheek. The courtroom erupts in sound and Shauna is on her feet.

  This time Dars isn’t having it. “That is enough,” he bellows. “Do that again, Mr. Ellet, and you will be removed from my courtroom. And to everyone else, you will remain silent or be escorted out.”

  Will does not look away from Luz. “Then what?”

  “I ran to the baby’s room where the cordless phone was. When I got in there, I shut the door and locked it.” She turns, moves quickly into the space where they have placed the crib, shuts an imaginary door, and picks up the phone. “I called Captain Aronson.” Will moves swiftly to close in on her.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Travis is the police.” Her eyes are glittering again and she takes a ragged breath. “They’re all—Those are the guys he serves with. I just thought—” She breaks off.

  “Thought what?” He has turned to face her, his back to the jury.

  “If I could get Captain Aronson to come over he could handle the situation. He understood about it and he was—he was Travis’s commanding officer.”

  He points his finger at her, half turns to the jury. “You were sitting here in court when Captain Aronson testified about the call you made. Did it go the way he said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not crying or screaming, were you?”

  “No.” Her voice is lower now.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “I said no.” A hard emphasis on the last word. Another ragged breath. “I was trying to stay calm, for the baby and because I didn’t want to—to escalate the situation.”

  He wishes she hadn’t used that word; it isn’t hers, it’s Dr. Cartwright’s, and it rings false. “What was the situation at that point?”

  “Travis was banging on the bedroom door and Cristina had started crying. Captain Aronson had to repeat himself. He told me, ‘Let me speak to Hollis,’ so I opened the door to hold out the phone and when Travis took it I kind of slid around him out of the room—”

  Will, looming in the imaginary doorway, snatches the phone out of her hand.

  “Then what?”

  “I heard Sergeant Aronson say, ‘Hollis? Hollis? What’s going on there?’”

  “And then?”

  She looks at him steadily. “Travis answered the way Detective Aronson testified.”

  “‘You stupid cunt.’” Will takes his time with each word, staring her down. “Then what?”

  “He threw the phone against the crib.”

  Will hurls the plastic phone, which hits the side railing with a satisfying crack. “Was Captain Aronson still on the line after that?”

  “No.”

  “Where were you at that point?”

  “He was coming after me. I was running down the hallway to the front door but then I turned around because I realized I couldn’t leave—couldn’t leave Cristina there.” Luz doesn’t need to be told now. She runs the length of the hallway and Will comes after her. When she whirls around, he is right in her face.

  “I told him then—” Luz is out of breath, her ponytail a tattered mess “—that I knew about Jackie and the baby. All of the lies—I knew. I told him to get out. To get out of the house.”

  Will leans in, leering at her. “It’s my house,” he says. “You get out, you stupid cunt.”

  Luz’s slap is open-handed, right to left, and it stings hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “I’m leaving you.” Her voice rises to a near scream. “I’m taking Cristina and we’re going back.”

  “Your Honor—” Shauna’s voice is practically pleading.

  “Overruled.”

  Will puts his hands around Luz’s neck. No matter how many times they have practiced, it still surprises him how stem-like it is, how easy it would be to snap. “You’re not going anywhere with my baby. You are never going a
nywhere.” Will says the last five words like they are each separated by a period. They are nose to nose now. This close, her eyes are inky black, all pupil. “Start praying,” he says in a low voice that is meant to carry.

  Shauna is on her feet again, objecting.

  “There is no question pending,” Will says through gritted teeth.

  “Then ask one,” Dars says tightly.

  Will backs off a few inches but keeps his hands firmly around her neck. “What did you take it to mean when your husband suggested you start praying?”

  “That he was going to kill me.”

  Will tightens his grip.

  “Could you breathe?”

  “Yes, but it was getting harder.”

  He feels her throat constrict as she tries to swallow and he forces himself to ease up.

  “He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back—”

  Will yanks hard on what is left of her ponytail. The hair tie falls out and her neck arches, her chin pointed at the ceiling, the mark on her face like a red stripe where he’s hit her. She looks terrified, eyes rolling like a colt caught out in a thunderstorm.

  “What did you do?”

  “I kicked him and scratched him.”

  “Show me.”

  Again she scratches him, leaving a parallel track beside the first one, and kicks at him in the shins with her bare feet. “Did he let go?”

  “No. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see—” She tries to wrench free and he jerks her back.

  “See what?”

  “The flower vase on the table. I got hold of it and I hit him over the head.” Luz picks up the actual vase from the make-shift nightstand and cracks it against Will’s skull. She’s hit him hard and he actually cries out, his hand to the side of his head, and then she is running back down to the other end of the hallway and he is chasing her.

  She stops as she reaches the clerk’s bench and turns to face him. Will crouches down. He is intensely present in the moment, his physical odor raw and pungent like an animal’s, and yet also outside of his body, disconnected from himself and from her, watching from a distance. There are no more questions and answers now, they are in it.

  Luz picks the steak knife off the floor. She holds it out, tip first, wavering. “Stay away from me or I’ll cut you.”

  “Fucking bitch,” he yells. “Whore. You ruined my life.” The last line is unscripted, and it’s the one he means the most.

  “Stay away from me.” She is screaming now, her face contorted, the knife hand shaking.

  Will pulls back his fist like he is about to hit the heavy bag at the gym. He lunges, putting his full weight forward and Luz shoves the knife toward him, the thick plastic encasement hitting the left side of his chest. He lets it stick under his armpit; from the jury’s vantage point it looks like it has entered his body. He waits a moment, then steps back, letting the knife fall. He’s breathing heavily as he sinks to his knees.

  Luz is weeping now openly, her hands at her sides. “I was afraid, I thought—I thought if I could scare him, get him away from me, but then—”

  “Then what?” Will is trying to get his breath under control, but finds that he is still panting. He lies on the ground.

  “There was so much blood. And I could hear Cristina, she was still crying. I thought I should call for help, so I ran back in her room to get the phone but it was broken from when he threw it and when I came back into the hallway there was even more blood.” Luz does not act this part out. Instead, she stands still, her eyes squeezed shut. “Mi culpa,” she whispers.

  This is not in the script. Will shoots Luz a warning look, but her eyes are still closed. “Mi culpa mi culpa mi culpa.” She is rocking back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut, her arms hugging her chest. Tears streaming down her face.

  “What did you do?”

  She opens her eyes and takes a long shuddering breath. “I sat down next to him. He was on his side and I saw his cell phone in his back pocket. I used it to call the desk—”

  “The recorded call we heard?” From his prone position, Will has to project his voice to make sure the jury can hear him.

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “I held him.” Luz sinks down to the carpet beside Will, raising his head and putting it in her lap. Her hands are warm running over his scalp, itself slick with sweat. “I said, ‘Baby, baby. Please don’t die. Please don’t die, baby.’”

  Will lies against her, finally allowing his body to relax and be still. Luz’s hair is a tangle, her sobs echoing off the walls, tears running down her face and onto his body. As his chest finally stops heaving, Will feels Luz convulse. He reaches for her hand and she takes it, bending over him, her voice in his ear.

  Mi culpa.

  Friday, March 23, 2007

  7:13 a.m.

  Riverside, California

  Luz says goodbye to Father Abelard at his front door and walks slowly to Will’s car, her head down. She is wearing a black dress with short sleeves. It’s not the right look: too short, too dark, too informal. Will knows that Abby would have told Luz to go back inside and put on something else, but given the blow Luz has just had to absorb, Will doesn’t have the heart to say anything. She gets into the passenger seat and puts on her seat belt.

  Will reaches for her hand and squeezes it as he backs out of the driveway, but Luz doesn’t return the pressure and he lets go.

  “She’s dead.”

  “I know,” Will says. “Father Abelard told us. I am so sorry, Luz.” The call had come in at around 5:30 a.m., jolting Will out of the deeper end of a fitful sleep. He had assured Meredith that everything was fine, the judge just wanted them all there early, and to go back to sleep. Then he had slipped out of the bedroom to call Abby, shaved and gotten dressed in the bathroom, and left to get Luz.

  Luz is silent, not looking at him, and Will adds, “And I’m sorry we couldn’t get you a few days off. Abby spoke to the clerk this morning to explain the situation, but the judge was—” He pauses, unable to come up with a euphemism. “The judge is an asshole.”

  Luz seems not to have heard him. “Cristina and I have no family now,” she says. “There’s no one left.”

  “No,” he says, “don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.” She is staring out of the passenger window.

  Will wants to say, You have me. But the words are corny beyond belief and in any event, not true. He’s not her family. He’s her lawyer. Her half-crazed, besotted lawyer. But did that necessarily have to be the beginning, the middle, and the hard end of a relationship that had never stayed within those boundaries in the first place? Maybe this was a sign. Maybe it was time for Will, like Charles, to take a wild, scandalous action and embrace an utterly different way of thinking about the world and his place in it. Maybe that break—with convention, expectation, tradition—was the end of the story, in the same way it had been for Charles and Sarah. At least in one of the novel’s three endings.

  Deep in thought, Will pulls out of the driveway and heads west toward the freeway.

  “She’s right,” Luz says out of nowhere.

  It takes him a moment to register what she’d said and even then, it makes no sense. “Who?” he asks. “Who’s right?”

  “She said I was going to have to make my own family.”

  “Abby said that?”

  She nods.

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  Slowly, she shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says. “It was just a conversation we had. It doesn’t mean anything.” She turns again to look out the window.

  Feeling her attention slipping away, Will says, “I missed you yesterday after court.” It had been the first evening that they hadn’t met to practice Luz’s direct examination in as long as Will can remember. Leaving the office to go home, Will kept thinking
he was missing something, had repeatedly checked his pockets for his wallet, his keys, his parking pass, only to realize that what was missing was the time he would normally be spending with Luz. At that point, the endorphins that had been coursing through him since their triumphant performance in court had evaporated. There would be no more practice sessions because the show was over. But maybe it wasn’t after all.

  “You did?” she says. “That’s nice.” But her voice is distant, as if she is talking to a well-wisher she barely knows. They drive in silence for a few blocks until they get to the intersection. The light turns green. Straight ahead is the freeway ramp. This is it: the literal fork in the road. Will turns left, heading east again, speeding down the road that leads to Maria Elena’s empty house.

  “Where are you going?” Luz says, and then, when several turns later it becomes clear, she says, the pitch of her voice sharper, “What are you doing?”

  Will waits until he has parked in front of Maria Elena’s house to answer. He turns off the engine, and turns to Luz. He strokes her cheek with his thumb. “We have some time before court,” he says. “I picked you up early.”

  She is staring at him now, barely breathing.

  “Let’s go inside,” he says, “Be together.”

  Luz is shaking her head: short, sharp gestures.

  “I know this sounds crazy and I wasn’t going to say anything but, Luz, I love you.” He reaches for her and she pulls away. “It’s not just for now. I am going to leave my wife. I am going to be with you, always. And I know you probably don’t believe me, you think it was about—that it was only to—” He stops. “But what I am telling you is the truth.” He leans forward to kiss her, pulling her toward him over the gearshift as he slides his other hand up her skirt. He waits for her mouth to open, for her legs to part, but she is rigid, unyielding.

  “I love you,” he says again in her ear, knowing he sounds desperate but unable to help himself.

  Luz’s shove sends Will back against the steering wheel with enough force that his neck muscles contract reflexively, causing whiplash. “What are you talking about? You want to leave your wife? You want to fuck me in my dead grandmother’s house? You think that’s what I want?” The words feel violent, but underneath he hears a strangled sob and then she is weeping, her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking.