by Jodi Picoult
“Ssh. I know.”
“You don’t know,” Katie sobbed.
Ellie’s hand fell, cool, on the back of her neck. “You’d be surprised.”
* * *
Katie desperately wanted Dr. Polacci to like her. Ellie had said that the psychiatrist was being paid a great deal of money to come to the farm and meet with her. She knew that Ellie believed whatever Dr. Polacci had to say would be extremely useful when it came time for trial. She also knew that ever since she had told Dr. Cooper about the pregnancy, he and Ellie had been too stiff with each other, and Katie thought it was all somehow tied together.
The psychiatrist had puffy black hair and a face like the moon and a wide ocean of body. Everything about her urged Katie to jump, knowing that no matter how she landed, she’d be safe.
She smiled nervously at Dr. Polacci. They were sitting in the living room, alone. Ellie had fought to be there, but Dr. Polacci suggested that her presence might keep Katie silent. “I’m someone she confides in,” Ellie had argued.
“You’re one more person to confess in front of,” the psychiatrist answered.
They talked in front of her like she was stupid, or a pet dog—like she had no opinion whatsoever about what was happening to her. In the end, Ellie had left. Dr. Polacci had made it clear that she was here to help Katie get acquitted. She’d said that Katie should tell her the truth, because she surely didn’t want to go to jail. Well, Dr. Polacci was right on that count. So pretty much, Katie had spent the past hour telling her everything that she had told Dr. Cooper. She was careful about her choice of words—she wanted the most precise recollection. She wanted Dr. Polacci to go back to Ellie and say, “Katie’s not crazy; it’s all right for the judge to let her go.”
“Katie,” Dr. Polacci asked now, drawing her attention, “what was going through your mind when you went to bed?”
“Just that I felt bad. And I wanted to go to sleep so that I could wake up and be better.”
The psychiatrist marked something down on her notepad. “Then what happened?”
She had been waiting for this, for the moment when the small flashes of light that had been bursting in her mind these past few days would fly from her mouth like a flock of scattering starlings. Katie could almost feel the cut of the pain again, slicing like a scythe from her back to her belly with such a sharp, reaching pull from inside that she found herself knotted in a ball by the time she could breathe again. “I hurt,” she whispered. “I woke up and the cramps were bad.”
Dr. Polacci frowned. “Dr. Cooper told me that you haven’t been able to remember labor pains, or the birth of the baby.”
“I haven’t,” Katie admitted. “The first thing that came to me was that I was pregnant—I told Dr. Cooper how I remembered trying to bend down and feeling something stuck in the middle there that I had to work my way around. And since then, I keep remembering things.”
“Like what?”
“Like that the light in the barn was already on, when it was way too early for the milking.” She shuddered. “And how I was trying and trying to hold it in, but I couldn’t.”
“Did you realize that you were giving birth?”
“I don’t know. I was awfully scared, because it hurt so much. I just knew that I had to be quiet, that if I yelled out or cried someone might hear.”
“Did your water break?”
“Not all at once, like my cousin Frieda’s did when she had little Joshua, right in the middle of the barn-raising lunch. The ladies sitting on both sides of her on the bench got soaked. This was more like a trickle, every time I sat up.”
“Was there blood?”
“A little, on the insides of my legs. That’s why I went outside—I didn’t want it to get on the sheets.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wash ’em, but my Mam takes them off the beds. And I didn’t want her to know what was happening.”
“Did you know you were going to go to the barn?”
“I didn’t plan it, exactly. I never really got to thinking about what would happen . . . when it was time. I just knew that I had to get out of the house.”
“Did anyone in the household wake up as you left?”
“No. And there was no one outside, or in the barn. I went into the calving pen, because I knew it had the cleanest hay put out for the expecting cows. And then . . . well, it was like I wasn’t there for a little while. Like I was somewhere else, just watching what was happening. And then I looked down, and it was out.”
“By ‘it’ you mean the baby.”
Katie looked up, a little dazed to think of the result of that night in those terms. “Yes,” she whispered.
* * *
“Approximately two hundred to two hundred and fifty neonaticides occur each year, Ms. Hathaway. And those are only the ones that are reported.” Teresa Polacci walked beside Ellie along the stream that bordered the farm. “In our culture, that’s reprehensible. But in certain cultures, such as the Far East, neonaticide is still acceptable.”
Ellie sighed. “What kind of woman would kill her own newborn?” she asked rhetorically.
“One who’s single, unmarried, pregnant for the first time with an unwanted baby conceived out of wedlock. They’re usually young, between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. They don’t abuse drugs or alcohol, or have run-ins with the law. No, they’re the girls who walk the neighbor’s dog as a favor when they’re on vacation; the ones who study hard to get good grades. Often they’re overachievers, oriented toward pleasing their parents. They are passive and naïve, afraid of shame and rejection, and occasionally come from religious backgrounds where sex is not discussed.”
“I take it from your comments that you think Katie fits the mold.”
“In terms of the profile, and her religious upbringing, I’ve rarely seen a closer case,” Dr. Polacci said. “She certainly had more reason than most girls in this day and age to face shame and persecution both within her family and without if she admitted to premarital sex and pregnancy. Hiding it became the path of least resistance.”
Ellie glanced at her. “Hiding it suggests a conscious decision to cover up.”
“Yes. At some point she knew she was pregnant—and she intentionally denied it. Curiously enough, she wasn’t the only one. There’s a conspiracy of silence—the people around the girl usually don’t want her to be pregnant, either, so they ignore the physical changes, or pretend to ignore them, which just plays into the system of denial.”
“So you don’t believe that Katie went into a dissociative state.”
“I never said that. I do believe it’s psychologically impossible to be in a dissociative state for the entire term of a pregnancy. Katie—like many other women I’ve interviewed who have committed neonaticide—consciously denied her pregnancy, yet then unconsciously dissociated at the time of the birth.”
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked.
“That’s when the moment of truth occurs. These women are extremely stressed. The defense mechanism they’ve had in place—denial—is shattered by the arrival of the infant. They have to distance themselves from what’s occurring, and most of these women—Katie included—will tell you it didn’t feel like it was happening to them, or that they saw themselves but couldn’t stop it—a true out-of-body experience. Sometimes the appearance of the baby even triggers a temporary psychosis. And the more out of touch with reality the women are at that moment, the more likely they are to harm their newborns.
“Let’s look at Katie, specifically. Thanks to her brother’s experience, she’s been living with a very primitive survival script in her head, believing that if Mom and Dad find out her secret, she’ll be excommunicated and forced out of the household. So there’s this covert idea in her mind that it’s somehow okay to get rid of your children. Then she goes into labor. She can’t deny the baby’s existence anymore—so she does to the baby what she’s afraid will happen to her—she throws it out. The dissociative state lasts long enough for
the birth and the murder, and then she reverts to using denial as a defense mechanism, so that when she’s confronted by the police, she immediately says she didn’t have a baby.”
“How can you tell that she dissociated at all?”
“When she speaks about giving birth, she shuts down a little. She doesn’t rely on other defense mechanisms—for example, denial, or something more primitive.”
“Wait a second,” Ellie said, stopping. “Katie admitted to giving birth?”
“Yes, I have it on tape.”
Ellie shook her head, feeling oddly betrayed. “She didn’t fold when Coop pressed her.”
“It’s not unusual for a client to admit something crucial to a forensic psychiatrist that she hasn’t admitted to a clinical psychiatrist. After all, I’m not talking to her to make her feel comfortable, but to keep her from going to jail. If she lies to me, she’s hurting herself. It’s my job to uncover the can of worms; it’s the clinical psychiatrist’s job to help stuff them back in.”
Ellie glanced up. “She told you about killing the infant too?”
The psychiatrist hesitated. “Actually, no. She says she still can’t remember two specific points: the conception of the baby, and the murder.”
“Could she have been in a dissociative state both times?”
“It’s entirely possible that she dissociated during the birth of the baby and during the killing. In fact, since her recollections don’t match entirely with the forensic records you’ve given me, the discrepancy flags just that. But as for the sex . . . well, that’s not something these women usually forget.”
“What if it was traumatic for her?” Ellie asked.
“You mean a rape? It’s possible, but usually women admit to being raped, unless they’re protecting someone. My gut feeling is that there’s more to Katie’s story on that particular point.”
Ellie nodded. “And the killing?”
“Katie recounted in great detail the night before the delivery, the actual birth, and falling asleep with the infant in her arms. She says the baby was gone when she woke up, along with the scissors she used to cut the umbilicus.”
“Did she look for the baby?”
“No. She went back to her room to sleep, entirely consistent with women who commit neonaticide—the problem’s out of sight, out of mind.”
Ellie’s head was spinning. “How long was she unconscious in the barn?”
“She said she doesn’t know.”
“It couldn’t have been long, based on the police reports,” Ellie mused aloud. “What if—”
“Ms. Hathaway, I realize what you’re thinking. But remember—up until now, Katie didn’t recall the birth of the baby. Tomorrow, who knows? She may recall in excruciating detail how she smothered it. As much as we might want to think she didn’t kill that infant, we have to take her recollections with a grain of salt. By the mere definition of dissociation, there are gaps of time and logic missing for Katie. Chances are awfully good that she did indeed kill the baby, even if she’s never able to verbally admit to it.”
“So you believe that she’s guilty,” Ellie said.
“I believe that she fits the profile of many other women I’ve interviewed who killed their newborns while in a dissociative state,” the psychiatrist corrected. “I believe that her pattern of behavior is consistent with what we know of the phenomenon of neonaticide.”
Ellie stopped walking along the stream’s edge. “Is my client sane, Dr. Polacci?”
The psychiatrist exhaled heavily. “That’s a loaded question. Are you talking medically sane, or legally sane? Medical insanity suggests that a person is not in touch with reality—but a person in a dissociative state is in touch with reality. She looks and appears normal while in a totally abnormal state. However, legal insanity has nothing to do with reality—it hinges on cognitive tests. And if a woman commits murder while in a dissociative state, she most likely will not understand the nature and quality of the act, or know that what she’s doing is wrong.”
“So I can use an insanity defense.”
“You can use whatever you want,” Polacci said flatly. “You’re really asking if an insanity defense can get your client off. Frankly, Ms. Hathaway, I don’t know. I will tell you that juries usually want to know practical issues: that the woman is safe, and that this won’t happen again—both of which are affirmative for most women who commit neonaticide. Best-case scenario? My testimony can give the jury something to hang their hats on—if they want to acquit, they will, as long as there’s something they can point to to rationalize their actions.”
“Worst-case scenario?”
Dr. Polacci shrugged. “The jury learns more about neonaticide than they ever wanted to know.”
“And Katie?”
The psychiatrist fixed her gaze on Ellie. “And Katie goes to jail.”
* * *
Katie felt like the green twig that she was mangling in her own hands—bent double backward, nearly ready to break. She fought the urge to stand up and start pacing, to look out the hayloft window, to do anything but speak to her attorney right now.
She understood the point of the drill—Ellie was trying to get her ready for what would certainly be an unpleasant grilling by the forensic psychiatrist who’d been hired by the State. Ellie had said Dr. Polacci believed Katie was holding back about how the baby was conceived. “And,” she’d finished, “I’ll be damned if you spill the beans to the prosecution’s expert.”
So now they were in the hayloft—she and Ellie, who’d somehow become so ruthless and unforgiving that every now and then Katie had to turn and make sure her face was familiar.
“You don’t remember having sex,” Ellie said.
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. You said you didn’t remember the pregnancy or the birth, and lo and behold, three days later, you’re a veritable font of information.”
“But it’s true!” Katie felt her hands sweating; she wiped them on her apron.
“You had a baby. Explain that.”
“I already did, to Dr.—”
“Explain how it was conceived.” At Katie’s prolonged silence, Ellie wearily propped her head in her heads. “Look,” she said. “You’re bluffing. The psychiatrist knows it and I know it, and Katie, you know it too. We’re all on the same goddamned side, here, but you’re making it twice as hard for us to defend you. I know of one Immaculate Conception, and yours wasn’t it.”
With resignation Katie’s gaze fluttered to her lap. What would it mean, to come clean? To confess, as she had for the bishop and the congregation? “Okay,” Katie said finally, softly. She swallowed hard. “I was visiting my brother, and we went to a graduation party at one of the fraternity houses. I didn’t want to go, but Jacob did, and I didn’t want him to feel badly for having me there like . . . what is it you say? Like a fifth wheel. We went to the party, and it was very crowded, very hot. Jacob went to get us something to eat and didn’t come back for a while. In the meantime, a boy came up to me. He gave me a glass of punch and said I looked like I needed it. I told him I was waiting for someone, and he laughed, and said, ‘Finders, keepers.’ Then he started to talk to me.”
Katie walked to the rear of the hayloft, fingering the spikes on a rake propped against the far wall. “I must have drunk some of the punch while he was talking, without really thinking about it. And it made me feel just awful—all sick to my stomach, and my head spinning like a top. I stood up to try to see Jacob in the crowd, and the whole room tilted.” She bit her lip. “The next thing, I was lying on a bed I didn’t recognize, with my clothes all . . . and he was . . .” Katie closed her eyes. “I . . . I didn’t even know his name.”
She bent her head to the wooden wall, feeling the rough plane of the board against her forehead. Her entire body was shaking, and she was afraid to turn and see Ellie’s expression.
She didn’t have to. Ellie embraced her from behind. “Oh, Katie,” she soothed. “I’m so sorry.”
K
atie turned in her arms, this safe place, and burst into tears.
* * *
This time, when Katie finished telling the story, she was grasping Ellie’s hand for support. If she was aware of the tears streaming over her cheeks, she made no mention of it. Ellie itched to wipe them away, to catch Katie’s eye and smile and tell her she’d done a great job.
Dr. Polacci, who’d been called back for the confession, looked from Katie to Ellie, and back again. Then she lifted her hands and began clapping, her expression impassive. “Nice story,” she said. “Try again.”
* * *
“She’s lying,” Dr. Polacci said. “She knows exactly where and when she conceived that baby, and that charming little date rape story wasn’t it.”
Ellie bristled at the thought that Katie was lying; at the thought that Katie had been lying deliberately to her. “We’re not talking about an average teenager who fabricates excuses for her parents and spends the night horizontal in the back of her boyfriend’s four-by-four.”
“Exactly. This story was just too good. Too calculated, too rehearsed. She was telling you what you wanted to hear. If she’d been raped, she would have admitted to it by now in her sessions with the clinical psychiatrist, unless she was protecting the rapist, which her tale didn’t support. And then there’s the small matter of the graduation party held three months after a June graduation—I’m assuming she conceived in October, based on the medical examiner’s report.”
It was that glaring inconsistency that finally broke through Ellie’s defenses. “Shit,” she muttered. At a sudden thought, Ellie glanced up. “If she’s lying about not remembering having sex, is she lying about not remembering the murder?”
The psychiatrist sighed. “My gut feeling still tells me no. When I pushed her on conception, she got fuzzy on me—said things are just sort of out of reach in her mind. When I pushed her about the murder, I got a flat denial of the crime, and that hard break—she fell asleep holding the infant; she woke up and it was gone. The two amnesic episodes differ—which leads me to believe she’s consciously denying one, and subconsciously dissociating about the other.”