by Selena Kitt
“Did you talk to Mrs. Nolan when you were transferred in her hospital room?”
“No.” She made a face. “And I wasn’t transferred. It was just a holding area until they could find another private room for me because the idiots gave mine away. Anyway, I kept my curtain closed. I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Did you happen to overhear a conversation between Mrs. Goulden and Mrs. Nolan—the girl you knew as Lily?”
Rebecca looked straight at the ghoul, her gaze never wavering. “Yes, I did.”
“Objection!” Frank jumped up, waving his yellow legal pad. “Hearsay!”
“You need to go back to law school, Frank,” the judge said wryly. “That’s direct testimony.”
“But… but…” Frank fumbled, flustered. “But she heard it through a curtain!”
Judge Solomon looked at him over his glasses for a long time, and finally he just shook his head and said, “Overruled. Proceed, Mr. Highbrow.”
“What did you hear, Rebecca?”
“I heard the ghoul—Joan Goulden—ask Lily—er, Mrs. Nolan, that girl.” Rebecca pointed to Leah, who was sitting on the edge of her seat, eyes wide, heart racing in her chest.
Donald Highbrow turned to the court stenographer. “Let the record show that the witness has identified Leah Nolan.”
“I heard her ask Leah to sign hospital discharge papers.”
“You’re certain.”
“I am.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I heard her.” Rebecca blinked at him, giving him an exasperated look. “She even said the nurses asked her to do it. The ghoul said, ‘The nurses are so busy, they asked me to have you sign the discharge papers before you leave.’ It was clear as day. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past her. She did the same thing to me.”
The whole room was silent and Leah thought she could hear her own heart beating, like a big bass drum in her ears. It was deafening.
“Objection!” Frank jumped up so fast, several people gasped in surprise. Leah was still too stunned to say anything. “Irrelevant!”
Judge Solomon shook his head. “Nope. I’ll allow it. Go ahead, Donald.”
“The ghoul—I mean, Mrs. Goulden—” Several people tittered at Donald’s mistake. “She did the same thing to you? What do you mean?”
“She tricked me. She knew I wanted to keep my baby, and she didn’t want me to keep it. She tricked me!” Rebecca stared down the ghoul, whose face was red, even with all the makeup coverage. “Except instead of discharge papers, she told me I was signing permission for the doctors to commit an autopsy.”
Donald’s eyes widened. “An autopsy?”
“Because she told me my baby was stillborn.”
Leah made a small, pained sound and felt Rob’s hand in hers, her mother’s still clutching her other one. How could she? How dare she?
Leah might not have liked Rebecca—the girl she had known only as “the new Elizabeth”—but when she saw the girl look at her, their eyes locking, she knew their bond went beyond like or dislike. This wasn’t about something so petty. They were both mothers, and they had been denied their rights as mothers by the same woman.
Donald let the judge absorb that information before he leaned in and asked gently, “And was your baby stillborn, Rebecca?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
The girl’s eyes were blazing with triumph when she looked across the courtroom at the ghoul. “Because my father got my baby back.”
“Your father, the senator?”
“That’s right.” Rebecca had clearly lived a life of privilege. It was the same attitude that had rubbed all the girls the wrong way at Magdalene House. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t human, that she didn’t have feelings. Leah saw that on her face when she told Donald, “When my Daddy visited me, I told him they said my baby died, but I knew he didn’t die. I heard him cry. I was drugged, I know—they had me on something really weird. But I heard him cry, I know I did.”
“Did your father pursue this matter for you, Rebecca?”
She scoffed. The idea! “He hired people to pursue it. And they found my baby.”
“Thank you, Rebecca.” Donald looked over his shoulder at the older lawyer. “Frank? Your witness.”
Frank didn’t even get up from his table. He just sat back and muttered, “I have no questions, Your Honor.”
“She’s lying!” The ghoul came rushing up the aisle, past where Leah and her family were sitting, rushing the witness box in a rage. “This little slut is lying!”
The ghoul turned her fury on the lawyer for the state next. “Frank! Don’t you dare just sit there and let that little trollop get away with this!”
Donald Highbrow took a step back as the ghoul stomped toward the judge’s bench, banging her fist on front of it. “This is an outrage! This little whore is a flat-out liar! A compulsive liar in fact!” A sly look came over the ghoul’s face as she looked at Rebecca. “Go ahead, check her file!”
Donald gave a weary sigh. “Do you want to me to call the rest of the girls in, Your Honor? All of the girls in the hospital room with Mrs. Nolan who witnessed Mrs. Joan Goulden misrepresenting the documents she asked her client to sign?”
Judge Solomon looked from Rebecca, out into the courtroom to where Leah was sitting, and then back to the ghoul, who was still fuming and sputtering in front of him about sluts and whores and trollops and liars.
“That won’t be necessary.” The gavel came down, a sharp, sudden sound, making Leah jump in her seat. “This court rules for the plaintiff. Baby… Baby…” Judge Solomon looked down at his file. “Baby Grace shall be returned to her mother.”
The whole courtroom exploded in cheers—not just Leah and Rob and her mother and Erica and Clay, who were all hugging and laughing, but everyone who had been watching the drama unfold before them. Leah couldn’t believe it, feeling the finality of the judge’s statement in every cell of her body.
She turned to Rob, eyes bright, as if to ask, “Did you hear that too?” but the look of relief and joy on his face told her that he had heard it too—she wasn’t dreaming. Their daughter was coming home. She threw her arms around his neck, laughing and crying at the same time, and he rocked her, whispering words she couldn’t hear but she didn’t care. Grace was theirs, now and forever.
Grace was returning home.
Leah saw the ghoul out of the corner of her eye, storming over to where Frank sat with his head in his hands and they put their heads together, plotting she was sure of it, while the judge excused Rebecca as a witness. Leah looked up as she walked over, standing to take the girl’s outstretched hand.
“Thank you,” Leah whispered, still not quite clear on how Rebecca had gotten involved, but she had never been so grateful to someone in her life. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Rebecca gave a satisfied nod, glancing over at the ghoul. “She stole my baby too. Only she told me he was dead.”
“But you knew he wasn’t.” Leah’s eyes filled with tears at the thought.
Rebecca looked back at her, eyes softening. “A mother knows.”
They both smiled, an understanding passing between them that transcended hierarchy and class and judgment. They were both mothers, and they both knew exactly how that felt.
Donald came over, a giant grin on his face, and Leah hugged him without a second thought.
“I don’t know how you did that,” Leah said. “It was like magic. You pulled Rebecca out of your hat just like a rabbit!”
“Well don’t tell anyone but I was bluffing about all the other witnesses. Rebecca was our only trump card.” Donald laughed, hugging her back and planting a fond kiss on the top of her head before letting her go. “Well I had a fairy godmother. Erica and Clay helped me track her down. With Father Michael’s help. So it was magic, plus Nancy Drew and her Hardy Boy over there, with a sprinkle of divine intervention. And luck. Definitely a dash of luck.”
“I’m going to have to hear this story!” Leah looked over at Erica and Clay, bemused. “How in the world did you know she’d been in the room. I didn’t even know!”
“I interviewed the nurses,” Donald replied. “There was a young nurse named Cathy who remembered you, and she remembered Elizabeth too, but she couldn’t remember her real name, just her Magdalene name.”
The judge banged his gavel and the commotion began to die down. Judge Solomon banged it again, making sure they all knew he was serious.
“I have other cases to hear today,” the judge said. “Can we please have quiet in the courtroom?”
Leah was about to ask Donald what was next, how did they go about getting Grace back? But Frank took advantage of the opportunity to speak up.
“Your honor!” Frank stood, clearing his throat. “May I approach the bench?”
“No you may not.” Judge Solomon glared at the table where Frank and the ghoul sat. “And you’d better keep that harpy away from my bench if you know what’s good for you. She’s already looking at a perjury charge. I can add contempt to that faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”
Frank tried again. “There is still the matter of the child’s well-being to consider.”
The judge looked at the lawyer over his glasses, incredulous. “I’ve already considered it, Frank. I’ve ruled on the matter. The child is going to be returned to her mother.”
“Here we go.” Donald muttered, sliding into the seat on Rob’s other side. “The stalling tactics.”
“No,” Leah breathed, the tears she’d been holding starting to fall, dropping onto her skirt, leaving fat, round wet circles on the black satin.
“I’m sorry,” Donald whispered. “I told you she would try to pull this. It’s textbook. This is what they do.”
“Your honor, you seem to have overlooked the fact that this baby is very sick.” The ghoul stood beside Frank, who clearly wasn’t making the argument to her liking. “She’s all the way on the other side of the state. She can’t travel. And it’s likely she’s ill because her mother was taking drugs while she was pregnant with the poor little thing.”
The ghoul glared at Leah and she felt the hair stand up on her arms and on the back of her neck, a low buzzing sound beginning in her head. It was just how she felt before she’d gone after the ghoul in the restaurant, and she told herself to sit there, just sit there and let the lawyers handle it, but her hands were clenched into fists at her side and her breathing was so shallow she was beginning to see spots floating in her vision.
“I don’t care if that baby is on the moon, Lady,” the judge exploded. “I want her brought here—today, before…” He checked his watch. “Before five p.m. If that baby isn’t in her mother’s arms before then, I will hold you in contempt.”
The crowd cheered and clapped, but the judge frowned and banged his gavel for quiet.
The ghoul wasn’t giving up. “Your honor, that’s just not possible. Her foster parents are in no condition to—”
“Lady, you are pushing my very last button…”
Leah looked over at Donald, who gave her a smile and a thumbs-up, making her heart soar. Clearly this wasn’t standard procedure, and she was encouraged by her lawyer’s response. She glanced down the row and saw Erica, sitting next to Clay. Leah wondered how she had managed to track Elizabeth—Rebecca—down, but she knew it must have something to do with the Mary Magdalenes. How had Donald known she was in the room? Leah hadn’t even known!
There was a woman on the other side of Clay, an attractive older blonde, and they were whispering together. Leah hadn’t seen her come in and wondered who she was. The ghoul was still trying, interrupting the judge with an excuse every time he told her to bring Grace to his courtroom, and everyone was waiting for him to snap. She glimpsed Rebecca, sitting a few rows over, and smiled to see her holding her baby in her arms.
Leah felt tears stinging her eyes at the sight, her arms aching like they had for weeks, to hold her own baby. Oh Grace, we’re so close, she thought. I’m almost there. Mommy’s here. I’m coming. Her body tingled all over with longing, a lump growing in her throat, and she could have sworn she heard Grace cry, like she always did. That little plaintive wail of her ghost baby. Where are you, Mama? Where are you?
Leah closed her eyes against it, now realizing her mistake during the questioning, telling Frank about the ghost-baby who followed her, who cried at night, who was just out of her reach, always, so glad it hadn’t ended up hurting her. Thank god for Rebecca.
Stop. Please stop.
But it wouldn’t stop. Grace kept crying. And crying. She knew that cry. Her baby was hungry. She would be sucking on her fists and turning her head from side to side, looking for her milk, but Leah didn’t have any more milk, they had taken that too.
She opened her eyes, looking over at Rebecca, expecting to see her baby boy crying, the sound morphing to Leah’s head into Grace’s hungry-cry, but he was sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. Confused, Leah looked again to her right, where the sound was actually coming from.
“Can you please take that baby from the courtroom?” Judge Solomon was still, still dealing with the ghoul—the man clearly had the patience of a saint.
“I’m sorry, Your Honor!” the older blonde stood and Leah saw the infant in her arms she hadn’t noticed before. Clay had been in the way. “It’s just that there’s been an emergency, and I had to talk to my son—”
“Oh, Lady, please, I don’t want to hear anymore.” Judge Solomon groaned, putting his head in his hands. “Can we please just—”
“Grace!” Leah leapt out of her seat, reaching for the baby, but Rob had her caught in the strong circle of his arms, whispering that it was okay, it was okay, it wasn’t Grace, she was okay…
“Grace!” Leah screamed, pointing at the baby in the blonde’s arms, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that it was Grace, her Grace. The woman held the baby close to her, protecting her, turning instinctively away from Leah. “That’s Grace! That’s my baby!”
“Take her out of here!” Judge Solomon banged his gavel.
Donald Highbrow half-stood, asking, “Who, the baby or the mother, Your Honor?”
“Take them both!” the judge roared.
“Noooo!” Leah struggled in Rob’s arms, knowing he had misinterpreted her, believing she had mistaken the baby in the woman’s arms for a sighting of her ghost baby, but that was no ghost. That was Grace. “Rob! That’s our daughter! Let me go!”
He struggled, looking at Donald, asking, “A little help?”
Donald stood, taking Leah by her other arm, and both men carried her, feet off the ground, heading toward the door. The baby—Grace, Grace Grace!—was still crying against the blonde’s shoulder, who was standing at the end of the aisle looking bewildered, rocking the baby without thinking about it.
“Get her out of here! Quick!” the ghoul snapped, shoving Rob as they passed. He gave her a dark look, but the look on the judge’s face was darker.
“That’s my baby!” Leah screamed at the top of her lungs, but she couldn’t fight the men holding her. They were far too strong. “Her name is Grace Patricia Nolan! She has a strawberry birth mark on her belly, just above her navel. She has a teeny tiny baby toenail, so tiny you can barely see it! She—”
“Wait!” the blonde called, rushing to the front of the courtroom. “Wait!”
“Order!” The judge banged his gavel over and over. “Order in the courtroom! Order! Order!”
Leah stood between Rob and Donald, looking at the woman
“Ma’am, can I ask your name?”
“Me? My name is Gertrude Louise Webber.”
“Thank you.” The judge gave her a brief smile. “And is that your baby?”
Gertrude shook her head. “No, Your Honor.”
“Whose baby is it?”
“Mine!” Leah croaked, holding her arms out, oh they ached, like the empty dry socket of a tooth, like a phantom limb, like the rending, tearing pain
of a missing womb.
“Oh for God’s sake!” The ghoul threw up her hands, waving Rob and Donald and Leah toward the door. “What does it matter? Now take her out of here and call an ambulance. They’re going to have to put her in restraints again like last time. I told you this would happen Your Honor. She’s insane. She—”
The gavel came down again, once, hard, like a gunshot, and they all froze. Judge Solomon had reached the end of his clearly very long fuse.
“Lady, I warned you. I am holding you in contempt.” The judge nodded toward the bailiff. “Please remove this ghoul from my courtroom.”
Again, the entire courtroom burst into applause and cheers as the bailiff grabbed the ghoul’s arm and she shrieked in protest, trying to shake him off, but he pushed her past where Leah stood, frozen between Donald and Robert, staring at the woman holding her baby.
“Now…” The judge looked between Leah and Gertrude. “Why do you think this is your baby, Leah?”
“Because she is,” Leah croaked, edging a little closer, so close, oh she was so close! “That’s Grace. Rob, that’s our baby!”
She looked over her shoulder at her husband, pleading at him with her eyes. Rob looked between Leah and the child, stunned, like he’d been hit hard on the head with something and wasn’t sure which way to stumble.
“Mrs. Webber.” The judge turned to the blonde, clearly hoping to get some more definitive answers in her direction.
“She’s a foster child, Your Honor. But her name isn’t Grace. It’s Lily.”
The collective gasp that went through the courtroom made Leah shiver. The ghoul had changed her baby’s name to the fake one that pregnant Leah had been given while she was imprisoned at Magdalene House.
“Does the child have a strawberry mark on her belly?” the judge inquired.
Gertrude nodded. “Yes, your honor.”
Another collective gasp.
“And the pinkie toe?” the judge asked, looking at Leah, his face almost as incredulous as her own.
“Barely there,” Gertrude replied, looking at Leah. “Is she really yours, honey? Is this your baby?”