The Furthest City Light

by Jeanne Winer

  “I hate my life,” I muttered.

  “I’m not that crazy about mine either,” Emily said, still bent over her crossword puzzle. “You wouldn’t happen to know a four-letter word for a French military cap? Starts with a K.”

  “No, and if I were an abuser, I’d be tempted to punch you.”

  She smiled benignly. “Then it’s lucky for me you’re not.”

  The courtroom door opened and Jeff rushed up the aisle, stopping at our table. He was carrying his tie in one hand and a yellow pad of paper in the other.

  “I heard they have a verdict,” he said.

  “That’s the rumor,” I replied.

  He looked at Emily. “Well, your lawyer tried as hard as she could. No one could have done a better job.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “I’m very satisfied with her.”

  “Save the kind words, Jeff,” I said. “You did an adequate job. My client’s life is over. Congratulations.”

  Jeff took a step back. “Jesus, Rachel, I think you need a vacation.”

  After he’d walked away, Emily whispered, “That wasn’t very nice.”

  I shrugged like a sullen teenager. “The one great thing about being convicted of first-degree murder: you won’t have to worry about being nice to anyone ever again.”

  “That may be true for me, but you still have to work with him.”

  “No,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “I’ve just decided. I’m done.”

  Less than ten minutes later, the foreman of the jury—the high school principal—handed the verdict to the bailiff, who walked it over to the judge. None of the jurors looked at Emily. Emily and I stood up and faced the judge’s bench. The courtroom was as quiet as a mortuary. I could feel Emily shaking next to me and decided it didn’t matter if I let my feelings show a little.

  I pulled her close to me and together we listened as the judge intoned, “We the jury find the defendant, Emily Watkins, guilty of murder in the first degree.”

  A couple of Hal’s ex-colleagues began cheering but immediately stopped when they saw the look on the judge’s face.

  “There will be no more outbursts from the audience,” Judge Thomas warned. “None. If I hear one more sound, I will clear the room.” He paused. “Ms. Stein, would you like the jurors polled?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  Each juror was then asked to acknowledge whether this was indeed his or her verdict. Each juror said it was. Not one of them looked at Emily. The judge then thanked and excused the jury, which stood up en masse and quickly left the room. A few moments later, two guards in uniform emerged from one of the side doors, motioning for Sunny to change places with them. As Sunny walked past the defense table, he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Emily.”

  “We’ll talk later,” she said.

  The judge cleared his throat. “All right then, since I have no discretion in the matter, I’m inclined to sentence the defendant immediately. Any objection, Ms. Stein?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  As Emily and I approached the podium, I glanced back at Donald who was sitting with his shoulders slumped like a big sad bear. Alice and Janet sat next to him, holding hands. Their faces were the color of old snow.

  When we reached the podium, Judge Thomas turned directly to Emily. There was genuine sorrow in his eyes, not the obligatory sadness when he sentenced most of my clients, but the real thing. “Fix this,” I wanted to cry. “Make it right.” But of course I said nothing. The jury had found my Emily guilty. The judge was powerless.

  “Ms. Watkins,” he said, “as I’m sure your attorney has told you, when someone has been convicted of a class one felony in Colorado, the law requires me to sentence that person to life in prison.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  The judge nodded. “In which case, I am remanding you to the Department of Corrections to begin serving a sentence of life in prison.” He hesitated. “If anyone can make the best of this, I think maybe you can.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Thank you? No, I thought, and then the two guards materialized behind us and began escorting her out of the courtroom. It was much too fast.

  “Wait,” I said and followed them into an adjacent hallway. As soon as the door shut behind us, my client turned to me with an unexpected urgency. She didn’t care that the guards were standing only a few feet away from us. I’d never seen her look so serious.

  “You have to make your peace with this, Rachel.”

  I shook my head at her. “No, I don’t.”

  “Rachel—” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “You gave it everything you had. We all did.”

  I was obviously in shock, but a bitter hopelessness was closing in on me. “So what? We lost. That’s all that matters.”

  She looked as if she was about to cry, then pulled herself together. “Rachel, listen. You need to know how much this meant to me. No one has ever stood up for me the way you did.” She was staring at me, willing me to understand how important this was to her. “It’s enough.”

  I pursed my lips and shrugged. “I’m glad you feel that way, but I disagree. Nothing except winning is enough. The rest is just New Age bullshit.” It was a nasty thing to say, but I wanted to hurt someone and she was the only one around.

  “It’s not bullshit,” she said, but her voice lacked her earlier conviction.

  One of the guards stepped forward, looking apologetic. He was holding a pair of handcuffs.

  “I’m sorry, Emily,” he said, “but we have to get back in time for lockdown.”

  Emily turned to face him, placing her delicate wrists in front of her. The handcuffs snapped shut with a cold metal finality. The sound of it killed me.

  “Can we have one last moment?” I asked. “I need to apologize to my client.”

  The guards exchanged a look and then nodded. For Emily’s sake, though, not mine.

  Before I could say a word, Emily shook her head impatiently. “Rachel, I know you didn’t mean it. Listen, this is really important, so pay attention. The way I see it, we have two choices. We can either accept this or not. That’s it.”

  She looked so earnest that I had to smile. “That’s it?” I asked. “No third choice?”

  She was smiling back at me. “No, that’s it, only the two. I’m going to choose the first one and I think you should too.”

  “Why should I?”

  She regarded me with those kind blue eyes. “Because you’ll suffer less.”

  The guards stepped forward, signaling the end of our conversation. Emily held up her hands to me, bowing slightly. Then, flanked by the two burly men, she headed down the hallway toward an elevator that would take her to a holding cell in the basement. In a few days, she’d be transferred to the women’s correctional facility in southern Colorado. She must have been terrified, but she held her head up and walked quickly to keep up with the men.

  “Take care of yourself, Rachel,” she called, as if I were the one who had just been convicted.

  ***

  After a quick surreal conference with the judge concerning Emily’s pretrial confinement credit and promises to stay in touch with Janet and Alice, I left the courthouse and headed back to the public defender’s office. The lilacs were in bloom, tourists strolled along Canyon Boulevard in shorts, and the sky was a deep unconcerned blue. I pulled into the parking lot and sat there watching a couple of kids playing Frisbee. After a while, I thought of a movie I’d once seen about a man who was trapped in an elevator with no hope of being rescued. At first he was calm, but eventually he started going crazy. Hour after hour, he examined his life, but there was no end to it. Finally, in desperation, he climbed through the ceiling, stood on top of it, and managed to cut the cable above him. The movie ended just as the elevator began free falling through a long dark shaft toward the basement. Freedom. A few minutes later, I roused myself to go inside.

  I rapped once on Larry Hanover’s door, then marched into his office unannounced.
I caught him staring at a spider plant that looked as if it hadn’t been watered in a year.

  “I quit,” I told him.

  “Hello to you, too.” He was a short, bespectacled man in his forties who was always rubbing his forehead as if he had a perpetual headache.

  “I’m serious. I quit.”

  Larry gestured at the empty client chair in front of his desk. “I guess you lost the trial. I’m sorry, Rachel. I know how much it meant to you.”

  I refused to sit down. “Thanks, but in a way it’s a blessing. I needed something as bad as this to dislodge me.”

  Larry rubbed his forehead and sighed. He was the office head partly because no one else wanted the job, but also because he was better than anyone at not saying what he really felt, an adaptive skill he’d learned from growing up in a tough Chicago neighborhood. “Please sit down, Rachel.”

  I hesitated, then, feeling childish, sat down and tried to take a deep breath. There was no reason not to end my twelve-year tenure at the public defender’s office with a little grace and dignity. I crossed my legs, lowered my voice to a more appropriate level.

  “You can’t talk me out of this, Larry. I’m cooked.”

  “Of course you are. You’ve been working nonstop for months. Why don’t you take a few days off? We’ll cover your caseload until you get back.”

  I shook my head. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand my pantyhose for another second. They were hot, itchy and confining, a symbol of all the unpleasant compromises I’d had to make in order to work within the system. I wanted to rip them off, ball them up, and throw them in Larry’s face. I didn’t, not because I was too mature, but because as a trial lawyer I’d learned that grand gestures never went over as well as I imagined.

  My silence, however, was having an effect. Larry had removed his glasses, signaling his concern. “I see. Well, I think we can manage for a couple of weeks without you.”

  “Try for the rest of your lives. I’m out of here. Twelve years is enough.”

  Larry was beginning to rock back and forth in his chair, which meant he was irritated. “Oh for God’s sake, Rachel, you just need a vacation. You’re the best trial lawyer in the office. You can’t leave.”

  I stood up. “Watch me,” I said, heading for the door.

  “I won’t accept your resignation, Rachel.”

  I stopped and turned to face him. “You have to.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m putting you on a three-month sabbatical as of Monday. If you still want to quit in three months, I’ll accept your resignation then.”

  I shrugged. “Fine, but you’re just postponing the inevitable.”

  Larry waved me away with his glasses. “Get some rest, Rachel. We’ll miss you.”

  I had expected Vickie to be working in the garden when I got home, tending the plants, tinkering with the lawnmower that never worked, taking care of everything I couldn’t be bothered with. Vickie: my lover, my partner, my best friend. I’d already pictured myself running toward her and being caught in her reassuring arms.

  “I did it, baby! I finally quit. But if I’m not a public defender, who am I?”

  And Vickie holding me, smoothing my hair, and comforting me. Except she wasn’t there.

  I wandered into the living room, sat down on the couch, and flipped through a copy of The Nation that had been left on the coffee table. I remembered thinking a few weeks ago how much I loved this simple elegant room, how spacious and comfortable it seemed. How it reflected my sense of style as well as my values. And now it felt claustrophobic, a small ordinary box that I’d lovingly decorated without realizing it was just a cage. I stood up and began to pace, then abruptly sat down again. I looked at my watch. I’d been unemployed for less than an hour and already I was losing my mind.

  After critiquing each room in the house and eating a pint of coffee ice cream, I called Vickie at the hospital.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  She laughed. “I’m obviously here. You called me.”

  “Why aren’t you home? I need you.”

  “That’s a first.” She paused. “Are you all right, sweetheart? What’s going on? How did the trial go?”

  I sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace. “I lost. And then I quit my job.”

  “Are you serious, Rachel?”

  I nodded. “I did it. I quit.”

  “Wow, I never thought you’d do it. Congratulations.” She hesitated. “I mean I’m sorry you lost the trial and I feel badly for your client, but you may have just saved your own life.”

  I didn’t even try to contain my annoyance. “Gee, Vickie, that’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think? In the meantime, my client’s so-called life is truly over.”

  “You’re right, sweetheart, and I’m sorry. I know how hard you’ve worked, how much you wanted to win. This has to be a huge disappointment. But at least you’ve also done something positive. You’ve needed to quit for years.”

  “Yep, that’s what you’ve been telling me.” I reached down and ripped a piece of thread off the edge of my pants, then realized too late the entire hem was about to unravel. Well, fuck it; I wouldn’t be wearing these stupid court clothes anytime soon.

  “Rachel, I’ve been urging you to quit for years because I’ve never seen anyone use up as much adrenaline as you have.” She was straining to sound reasonable. “It’s a miracle you can even get out of bed, never mind function as well as you do. The supply, though, is not unlimited. When it’s gone, it’s gone. The health consequences can be catastrophic.”

  I tried to stand up, but my stomach hurt too much. “Great lecture, Doc, but the timing still needs a little work.”

  After a couple of seconds, Vickie said, “Jesus, Rachel, why are we bickering?”

  I rubbed my face. “I’m not sure, but I suppose it has something to do with how freaked out I am.” I stared at the empty carton of ice cream in my lap.

  “Do you want me to come home?” she asked.

  “I just ate a pint of your ice cream.”

  “Why would you do that? You’re lactose intolerant. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  ***

  We spent the evening reading Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man to each other and then making love. Before I fell asleep, I was thinking maybe this transition wouldn’t be so difficult after all. Then I woke up a few hours later, my face stained with tears, and knew I was in for it. Headed, as the Rolling Stones sang, for my nineteenth nervous breakdown.

  I spent the next week roaming from one room to another, never stopping for more than a few minutes in any particular place. I thought of the pale restless lions I’d watched at the zoo when I was a child and wondered if they’d actually understood their true situation—that they were in prison—or if they’d simply paced back and forth because it was their nature. I hoped it was the latter, but knew in my heart it wasn’t. At the beginning of the week, I stood in front of my bookshelves and pulled out five or six novels I’d always intended to read, but at the end of the week I hadn’t done anything more than glance at the covers. I washed the dishes every day, made the bed, vacuumed the rugs and overwatered the plants. I felt like a mechanical doll, a lesbian Stepford wife.

  I kept telling myself that my listlessness was only temporary, a kind of postpartum reaction to having made such a huge, long overdue decision. But I was terrified. What if my paralysis was in fact permanent? What if I turned out to be like Vickie’s uncle George who retired, moved into a suite at a hotel in downtown New York and never left for twenty years? Even worse, I could already feel the temptation to believe that if I wasn’t doing anything of value (like rescuing people) then I didn’t really matter.

  One of the main problems of being unemployed, of course, was that everyone else was working. If I’d had someone to climb with, for instance, everything might have turned out differently. Vickie, to her credit, made an effort to come home by five o’clock each day, which must have required juggling everyone’s schedule at the hospital.
She begged me to try a daytime yoga class, but I balked at the idea of spending an hour and a half practicing a series of slow-motion moves and ending up in exactly the same place I’d started. It reminded me too much of my career in which I’d essentially defended the same five people with the same five problems over and over again. Hiking seemed equally futile. If I wasn’t risking my life or trying to save someone else’s, why bother?

  By Friday afternoon, I was almost comatose. As I lay on the rug in the living room, I decided that only a masochist would have lasted at my job as long as I had. Looking back, I saw a long string of heartbreaks interrupted only occasionally by a handful of inconsequential victories. What kind of career choice was that? Would Vickie have remained a doctor if ninety percent of her patients ended up dying in her arms?

  For the thousandth time, I thought about Emily, wondering where in the system she was and how she was doing. I pictured her sitting among sly dangerous women, attempting to find common ground. Would she find any allies? Would she make any friends? Although I’d promised myself I’d stop worrying about her, I couldn’t. It was pointless, of course, because she was light years away, living in another universe. You can’t protect her now, I told myself. You never could.

  And another unexpected thought began stalking me as well. That I’d not only failed as a lawyer, but I’d also failed as a Jew. Which was funny because I hardly ever thought about my ethnicity. Like my parents, I was never an observant Jew. We didn’t even believe in God. But they’d suggested early on that being Jewish meant being an advocate for social justice. Since we’d been oppressed for centuries, they reasoned, we were experts at noticing and fighting against oppression. Our mission, if we chose to accept it, was to help repair the world. To do something about a few of the myriad injustices that surrounded us. My father was a professor of American History, my mother a newspaper reporter, and I—taking it one step further—had become a criminal defense attorney representing indigent people. But instead of repairing the world, I’d let an innocent woman fall through the cracks, a woman I’d practically promised to save. Bad lawyer. Bad Jew.