The judge nods and looks back down at his papers. “Next exhibit.”
I finally take a breath again. I still can’t believe David would stoop so low as to accuse me in the first place. I glance over and see the Shrew whispering in his ear and roll my eyes. Oh right, I forgot. He can’t think for himself anymore.
Then I shudder. That woman wants my son, along with David, the cheater, liar, and all-out bastard. These are the people trying to take my sweet Charlie. No. I won’t fucking let it happen.
I look back up at the judge as their lawyer brings up the next affidavit about my brief stint in jail and the stalking charges.
My face flames in spite of my determination to stay cool. I hate how persuasively their lawyer paints a picture of me as an unstable woman. Stalking. Deranged and lighting a car on fire. Being locked up before I could do any more harm. The way he talks about me, I wouldn’t want to leave a child under my care. I have to fight the urge to slink down in my chair. The blatant facts aren’t wrong, but—
But what? It’s not the whole story. It’s true, but I don’t know how to argue it.
Don stands after their lawyer sits down again and I swallow hard, trying to gulp down all my fears with it. All right, time for my attorney to earn those hard-earned bucks I’m paying him.
“My colleague has tried to paint a picture of a manipulative drug addict,” Don says, “but that’s a tall tale stretched from a single Polaroid picture and a couple other cobbled-together stories.”
“I’d hardly call police reports mere stories,” David’s lawyer interjects.
The judge stares David’s lawyer down with a glare that says what words don’t have to, and he shuts up.
“As I was saying,” Don continues, shooting his own heavy look in the other lawyer’s direction before focusing his attention back on the judge. “Miss Cruise’s story can much more easily be explained not as that of a troubled girl dependent on alcohol and drugs—proof of which the opposing counsel has no further evidence than a single photograph—but simply that she was a naïve young woman who came to be in the unfortunate circumstances of finding herself with child.”
All right. So far so good. We ran out of time last night before he could tell me his whole plan for my defense. Most of the time was spent prepping me for what David’s team had in store for us, but he assured me he had this well in hand. I’m anxious to hear it.
“It’s a story as old as time,” Don continues. “Her parents were unwilling to take her in. And yes, she might have become a little overwrought when the father of her child rejected her.” He looks over at me piteously before turning back to the judge. I shift a little in my chair. I know this is part theater, to paint the girl I was in a certain way, but I hate the pity look. Still, I try to keep sitting with as much dignity as I can muster while Don continues.
“But you have to remember, as testimony by Dr. Ruth Newsome explains in exhibit twenty-three, a pregnant woman is producing up to a thousand times her normal estrogen levels by the end of her pregnancy. That plus extra progesterone and other pregnancy hormones can create incredible mood swings that account for Miss Cruise’s actions at the time those police reports were filed.”
He goes on arguing the point. I blink as I keep listening. His whole argument is based on the idea that I was crazy because I was pregnant. Wow. This is kind of humiliating. Hormones. Really, that’s the extent of my defense?
I watch the judge’s face. I can’t tell if he’s buying it. God, it sounds like the old female hysteria fable. Men trying to man-splain women’s actions and calling anything that has to do with us hysteria.
In our briefing yesterday, I tried bringing up Jackson’s point, which if I thought I remembered Don even saying something about in our first meeting. Even now thinking of Jackson’s righteous fury on my behalf, talking about how David had abused his position of power over me, isolating me by forcing me to keep our relationship secret since it could get him in trouble… At the time I would have said no, that I fully knew what I was doing, that I was an adult making adult decisions.
But looking back now, I can see just how naïve I was. For the first time in years, I’ve started to think that it wasn’t entirely my own fault. That I’m not just a stupid girl who always fucks everything up and inflated something in my head to be more than it was. David seemed so wise, so confident, like he’d always take care of me and then suddenly he was just…
Gone.
He didn’t want me anymore.
It didn’t compute.
Sure, hell yeah I was screwed up.
But maybe the truth is that David was just a predator asshole who saw a pretty, vulnerable girl and wanted some hot ass since he was free from his controlling bitch of a wife for the first time in years. And yeah, the fact that I was an abuse victim probably made me more susceptible and affected how I reacted when my supposed savior suddenly dumped me as easily as if I was last week’s garbage.
I’m old enough and mature enough to take responsibility for my actions—but allowing myself to see David’s part in screwing me over helps to lift the ridiculous weight of shame I’ve carried for so long. Staring past his attorney and looking at him now, in the shadow of the Shrew, I can see David isn’t who I thought he was. I fell in love with a fiction—he was never the strong, loving, caring man I believed him to be. He was always a selfish coward, out for some pleasure and fun, weak-willed and taking the path of least resistance.
“So she can’t be held responsible for her actions because her estrogen levels were at an all-time high,” my lawyer declares, zooming my attention back into court. “At the same time she was sleep-deprived due to her break-up with Mr. Kinnock and discomfort from being with child. As you’ll see in the study by Baker, Garcia, and Hammock, et al., sleep deprivation plus sharp hormonal escalation can lead to the symptoms of impaired judgment my client exhibited during the period in question. Since then, however, once her hormones leveled out after pregnancy, she has been a model citizen and parent.”
I try to avoid scrunching my nose in embarrassment. All right. It’s not the most flattering portrait of me, but I suppose it might get the job done. And Don and I did talk about other ways to describe that period of time in my life. There weren’t many more attractive alternative explanations to make me come off as sympathetic.
Don said David and Regina’s lawyers would paint me as a homewrecker who tried to seduce my older, married professor. Apparently there are pictures of me on social media from that time showing I dressed immodestly, exhibiting ‘attention-seeking behavior.’ It’s all infuriating sexist bullshit and a couple of out-of-context pictures from the one party I went to in the early stages with David when I was still trying to make friends outside of him. A girlfriend dressed me up and dragged me to the party.
David had been furious afterward and confronted me with the pics he’d found on one of my then-friend’s Instagram accounts—a person who was also, I might note, one of his students. Hello red flag. But I didn’t see it that way at the time. He was so passionate about me. He couldn’t stand for anyone else to see me like that when he couldn’t be there, blah, blah, blah. And now he’s resurrecting those pictures to try to take Charlie.
My hands form into fists underneath the table. Don was obviously right about where David’s lawyers were going to take this. But why aren’t we attacking back? Calling David out for his abuse of power?
I remember back to yesterday. Don said we shouldn’t resort to petty name-calling and mud-slinging—that it would go over far better with the judge in proving my character if we took the high road. Instead of an overemotional, bitter ex-lover, we wanted to stick to the facts and prove the positive: why I’m a completely stable and productive member of society, as well as a capable and caring mother. I agreed at the time. It all sounded good when Don laid out the not-attacking-David version of the plan, but God, I feel like my character’s getting massacred while David just sits there looking like a fucking boy scout.
When Do
n sits down, David’s lawyer is up once again on his feet, like he’s spring-loaded and was just waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed. “Would a model parent frequently stay out all night and leave her child in someone else’s care? Wouldn’t a model parent provide a stable environment instead of moving,” he looks down to reference a paper on the table, “five times in two and a half years or rely on a family member to raise her child more than she herself does?”
Goddammit. The private detective. I knew from everything we looked through over the weekend that David had hired one. It was bad enough when I saw that he was having me followed in the first place—at least he was two months ago, in March and April when I worked at the bar before I got my new job. Christ, is he still at it?
My fingernails bite into my palms my hands are clenched so hard. Don puts a hand on my forearm. He must sense how taut my entire body has gone. Shit. I better not be showing how pissed I am on my face. I try to adopt a serene expression. Zen. I am a fucking tree with roots growing deep in the ground and the sun on my face—
“As you’ll see in exhibit twenty-six, Calliope Cruise did not come home fourteen nights during the period of March 1st to April 30th of this year. That means 22% of the time, Calliope Cruise is not at home with her little boy. That’s roughly one-fourth. Can you imagine?” The lawyer shakes his head as if he can’t believe it. “For one-fourth of her child’s life, her sister’s at home with her baby while she’s out God knows where doing God knows what. And that was when she had full custody! You see why my client believes the child’s welfare would be better served if he had care full time.”
The feet of my chair squeak on the tile as I jolt backwards. Motherfu—
Don’t!
I clench my jaw and stop myself just in time. In my head, I’m on my feet. I’m shouting curses at that bastard lawyer. How can they just let these fuckers get up there and spew this toxic shit? For them to spin the numbers this way…
Though isn’t it the same way Shannon looked at those nights. Slut. Whore. The words left unsaid but alluded to a thousand ways. Stupid, stupid not to think they’d push this angle of me as an immoral woman and horrible mom. I just thought the facts were so obvious: I was a woman and it was a bad part of town. Walking home alone equaled too much danger to risk.
I take a deep breath and keep my ass planted firmly on the hardwood chair. No giving them what they want. I clasp my hands daintily in front of me. Charlie. Remember Charlie.
Don’s gaze locks on me, like he’s sure any second I’m gonna lose it. He didn’t grab or try to stop me this time. Maybe he recognized it as a lost cause. If I was going to blow, nothing was going to stop me. But I manage to keep my shit together. I think of Charlie’s toothy smile in the morning when he climbs up on my bed and pulls on my nose until I wake up. His echoing giggles when I blow raspberries on his tummy after I change his diaper. The twang of his voice when he tries to say r’s and they come out more as w’s. Twuck. Twy. Wun.
I take a deep breath and nod to Don. If the vein in my forehead is pulsing at maximum capacity, well, we’ll just hope the judge is sitting too far away to notice.
As soon as David’s lawyer sits down, Don’s on his feet. “Your honor, those nights my client slept in her workplace because she couldn’t get a ride home. It’s not a good part of town and she was afraid for her safety on public transit. For Mr. Newsom to accuse her of lewd behavior when she was simply a woman fearing for her safety is completely outrageous.”
David’s lawyer raises his eyebrows. “Can Mr. Maury produce her employer’s testimony as to where she slept those nights?”
My heart sinks. Fuck. No, of course not. Because I never told him since I didn’t think he’d like it. I doubt arguing that I lied to my boss about staying over would help my case much.
“You will direct your comments to the court,” the judge says, eyebrows heavy with disapproval as he stares down David’s attorney. Not that attorney Douchey McDouche looks repentant. He got in his pot shot after all.
“Judge, has my colleague produced any exhibits with testimony that my client was partying or doing anything else of which she has been unjustly accused?” Don argues back. I nod. Yeah, way to go, Don. I feel like high-fiving him or kissing his cheeks. This is what money for a real lawyer gets you.
“It’s a big city,” David’s lawyer says. “There are any number of places Miss Cruise may have gone.”
“Which means you have no evidence that she went anywhere at all.”
“What’s important here is where she wasn’t. At home with her son.”
“Only because she couldn’t be without risking her own safety. But she left him with a caregiver who is extremely qualified. At no point was the child neglected or in any danger.”
“Enough,” the judge says loudly. “I’ll remind both of you that all comments are to be directed to the court. If you can’t remember that, I have no problem throwing you out of my court room for contempt. Next.”
Yikes. I look at Don worriedly, but he gives me a small confident nod. He must have only risked pissing off the judge if he thought it was an important argument not to lose. I nod back. Okay. I think we might have won that point? Especially when Don goes on to point out I don’t have that bar job anymore anyway. I work normal, respectable hours.
Even if my work is far from respectable. Oh my God, if I’m still being followed, what if they caught any of it on film…? For a second I’m so paralyzed I can’t breathe, but then realization hits. If they had that one incident from Gentry fingering me at the restaurant on video, they’d have opened with it. And Gentry hasn’t had me out in public since then.
Holy shit. I bite my top lip and my hands wring together under the table.
I’m only twenty-two but I suddenly feel way too old for this shit. I just don’t have the energy for it. How did I not see how much I was risking by working for Gentry? If David’s lawyers had any inkling of what was really going on at my so-called respectable job… I’ve been such a fool. I’ve let my past patterns and insecurities dictate my life for way too long. How has it taken me this long to recognize it?
I feel sick to my stomach. Quickly, I open the water bottle in front of me and take a deep swig. The lawyers work through another couple less contentious exhibits and then we break for lunch.
I stand up for the break and when I do, a serious-faced woman with over-sized glasses in a shoddy pantsuit stands beside the bailiff.
“Callie, this is Rita Hawthorne,” Don says. “She’ll escort you to the restroom and collect your sample.”
Oh goody. The pee test. I nod at the woman, feeling awkward, because do you shake your pee tester’s hand? That just seems wrong somehow. Luckily, she must agree because she just gives me a tight smile, then turns and heads out of the courtroom. Right. I follow.
When we get there, the lady bailiff waits outside. Again unsure of protocol, I hold the door open for Rita and she gives an awkward nod as she heads inside. Once we’re both standing in front of the large mirror with bright fluorescents overhead, she rustles through her bag and pulls out a cup for me to pee into. Then she follows me into the stall.
Yeah. That’s really a thing. They watch you while you pee.
I’m just lucky Don kept me supplied with water bottles throughout the morning. Any other time I’d be too pee shy, but I’ve had to go like a mother for the past hour and a half.
Rita makes a production of putting on plastic gloves before she takes the cup from me and puts the official sticker seal on it. She signs it before we leave the bathroom. She’s real CSI about the whole thing, extra vigilant. That’s only good for me, though. This way David and the Shrew can’t claim I tampered with it or question the results when they come back clean.
David’s such an idiot to even try and claim I’m into drugs. Does he really think I kept up with that crap? I hated the way it made me feel the two times he pressured me into doing it with him. Out of control and vulnerable, like anyone could do anything to me and I c
ouldn’t stop them… Ugh, I shudder even remembering it. No, it’s nothing I would ever do again by choice. He must have just been banking on the accusation itself making me look bad.
To take away my baby. The thought of possibly losing Charlie—it makes me want to turn back for the toilet and throw up whatever little is in my stomach. David is evil. Evil. There’s no other word for what he’s trying to do. The mix of fury and queasiness makes me lightheaded on my feet.
Or shit, maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten anything today. I lean on the wall outside the bathroom, take a deep breath and grab an energy bar out of my bag. I force myself to take several bites even though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. My stomach rebels but I keep it down. I can’t risk passing out because I haven’t eaten anything today.
When I walk back to the courtroom, I’m more determined than ever to stay calm, cool, and collected. Those bastards aren’t taking my son and if they’re trying to provoke a reaction from me by one of these exhibits they bring up, they’re going to be sorely disappointed.
* * *
I keep to my internal promise and don’t react to anything that comes up in the afternoon. Not even the staged video in the bathroom at the gala. Of course, Don objected that it shouldn’t be allowed into the record after it was shown, but the judge had already seen it by that point. The judge acknowledged Don’s objection and said he would take the video ‘for what it was worth,’ whatever that means.
I didn’t let my serene expression crack once. I didn’t turn my head to look at David or his wife. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. And, well, if I even glanced at them, I worried the façade would crack, and I might leap over our lawyers to scratch David’s eyeballs out. So there was that.
Best to pretend they didn’t exist. I focused on the notepad in front of me, at first taking notes as the lawyers got into a war of words, technical jargon edition. I tried to follow along, but it was all ‘within the context of the statutory obligation to avoid disclosure of information’ this and ‘consistent with the provisions of Section 3020(a)’ that. Yeah, I stopped taking notes after just a few of those mind-numbing phrases.
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