Plain Truth

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Plain Truth Page 22

by Jodie Picoult


  Ellie scrambled to recall a typical fee. “Twelve hundred to two thousand.”

  “All right. Consider yourself funded with a two-thousand-dollar cap, unless I hear cause for more than that. If there are any other motions due, I want them within thirty days. We’ll have our final pretrial in six weeks. Does that give you two enough time?”

  Ellie and George murmured their assent, and the judge rose. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m due in court.” She breezed past, leaving them alone in chambers.

  Ellie shuffled her papers together while George clicked his pen and hooked it back inside his suit jacket pocket. “So,” he said, smirking. “How’s the milking going?”

  “You oughtta know, farm boy.”

  “I may be a country lawyer, Ellie, but I got my degree in Philly, just like you.”

  Ellie stood. “George, do me a favor and find someplace to go. I’ve seen enough horse’s asses in the past few weeks.”

  George laughed and picked up his portfolio, then held the door open for Ellie. “If I had as shitty a case as you do, I guess I’d be in a foul mood, too.”

  Ellie walked past him. “Don’t guess,” she said. “You’re bound to be wrong.”

  • • •

  Coop had asked Katie to walk him through the days leading up to the birth, hoping to jar a memory, although in an hour’s time there had been no major breakthroughs. He leaned forward. “So you were doing the wash. Tell me what it felt like when you bent down to reach into that basket of wet clothes.”

  Katie closed her eyes. “Good. Cool. I took one of my Dat’s shirts and rubbed it on my face, because I was so hot.”

  “Was it hard to bend down?”

  She frowned. “It hurt my back. I felt a crick in it, like I sometimes do before it’s my time of the month.”

  “How long had it been since your time of the month?”

  “A long time,” Katie admitted. “I thought about that when I hung my drawers up to dry.”

  “You knew that skipping menses was a sign of pregnancy,” Coop said gently.

  “Ja, but I’d been late before.” Katie picked at the hem of her apron. “I kept telling myself that.”

  Coop’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Because . . . because I . . .” Katie’s face contorted, reddened.

  “Tell me,” he urged.

  “When I first missed my time,” Katie said, tears streaming down her cheeks, “I told myself not to worry about it. And then I stopped worrying, for a little while. But I was so tired, I could barely stay awake after dinner. And when I put on my apron, I had to work hard to make the straight pins go through the same holes as always.” She took a shuddering breath. “I thought-I thought I might be-but I wasn’t big like my Mam with Hannah.” Her hands moved to her belly. “This was nothing.”

  “Did you ever feel something moving inside you? Kicking?”

  Katie was silent for so long Coop was about to ask another question. Then, suddenly, her voice came, quiet and sad. “Sometimes,” she confessed, “it would wake me up at night.”

  Coop lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Katie, on that day you hung the laundry, on that day your back hurt so much, what did you know?”

  She looked into her lap. “That I was pregnant,” she breathed.

  Coop stilled at the admission. “Did you tell your mother?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  She shook her head. “The Lord. I asked Him to help me.”

  “What time that night did you wake up with cramps?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “All right,” Coop said. “Then when did you go out to the barn?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Katie, you knew you were pregnant when you went to sleep that night.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you think you were pregnant the next morning?”

  “No,” Katie answered. “It was gone. I just knew all of a sudden.”

  “Then something must have happened between that night and the next morning. What happened?”

  Katie blinked back fresh tears. “God answered my prayers.”

  By silent agreement, neither Ellie nor Coop spoke of the fiasco in his apartment a few nights earlier. They were colleagues, polite and professional, and as Ellie listened to Coop talk about his session with Katie, she tried not to feel as if something was missing.

  In the privacy of the barn, Coop watched the wheels turn in Ellie’s mind as she analyzed Katie’s admission of pregnancy. “She cried?”

  “Yeah,” Coop answered.

  “That would be evidence of remorse.”

  “She cried, but not about the baby-about the mess she’d gotten into. Plus, she’s still amnesiac about how she became pregnant. And instead of a birth, we have divine intervention.”

  Ellie smiled a little. “Well, that would be a novel defense.”

  “What I’m saying, Ellie, is that you shouldn’t be throwing a victory party just yet. She hid a pregnancy, and today she admitted to it. First off, that’s shady. Often amnesia victims present false memories-the story they’ve heard from the press and from the family, and worse, once they tell it they believe this new story fiercely, when it may not be accurate at all. But, just for the hell of it, let’s say that Katie’s on the square here, and truly did just remember being pregnant. Maybe there will be more admissions, as her defense mechanisms break down. But maybe there won’t be. What just happened is therapeutic for Katie, but not for you and your defense-no one ever doubted that she had the baby, except for Katie herself. And hiding a pregnancy isn’t normal, but it’s not outside the range of the law, either.”

  “I know what she’s on trial for,” Ellie snapped.

  “I know you do,” Coop said. “But does she?”

  Adam stood behind her, his hands fisted over her own on the dowsing rods. “You ready?” he whispered, as a barn owl cried. They stepped forward, walking the perimeter of the pond, their shoes crunching on the dry field grass. Katie could feel Adam’s heart pounding, and she wondered why he too seemed on edge; wondered what on earth he had to lose.

  The rods began to shake and jump, and Katie instinctively drew back against Adam. He murmured something she did not hear, and together they fought to hold onto the sticks. “Take me back there,” he said, and Katie closed her eyes.

  She imagined the cold of that day, how you could pinch together your nostrils and feel them stick, how when you removed your mittens to lace up your skates, your fingers grew thick and red as sausages. She imagined the whoop of delight Hannah had let out when she skated off to the center of the pond, shawl flying out behind her. She imagined her sister’s bright blond hair glinting through her kapp. Most of all, she remembered the feel of Hannah’s hand in hers when they walked down the slippery hill to the pond, small and warm and utterly trusting in Katie’s ability to keep her from falling.

  The pressure on the dowsing rods stopped, and Katie opened her eyes when Adam sucked in his breath. “She looks just like you,” he whispered.

  Hannah skated away from them, making figure eights about six inches above the surface of the water. “The pond was higher then,” Adam said. “That’s why she seems to be floating.”

  “You see her,” Katie murmured, her heart lifting. She dropped the dowsing rods and threw her arms around Adam. “You can see my sister!” Belatedly suspi cious, she drew back to quiz him. “What color are her skates?”

  “Black. And they look like hand-me-downs.”

  “And her dress?”

  “Kind of green. Light, like sherbet.”

  Adam led her to the bench at the edge of the pond. “Tell me what happened that night.”

  Katie painted with words: Jacob’s escape to the barn, the spangles on the figure-skating champion she’d been dreaming about, the scrape of Hannah’s blades on the thin patches of ice. “I was supposed to be looking out for her, and instead all I could think of was me,�
� she said finally, miserably. “It was my fault.”

  “You can’t think that. It was just something horrible that happened.” He touched Katie’s cheek. “Look at her. She’s happy. You can feel it.”

  Katie lifted her face to his. “You’ve already told me that the ones who come back, the ones who become ghosts, have pain left behind. If she’s so happy, Adam, why is she still here?”

  “What I told you,” Adam gently corrected, “is that the ones who come back have an emotional connection to the world. Sometimes it’s pain, sometimes it’s anger . . . but Katie, sometimes it’s just love.” His words rose softly between them. “Sometimes they stay because they don’t want to leave someone behind.”

  She remained perfectly still as Adam bent toward her. She waited for him to kiss her, but he didn’t. He stopped just a breath away, fighting for the willpower to keep from touching her.

  Katie knew he would be leaving the next day, knew that he moved in a world that would never be her own. She placed her palms on his cheeks. “Will you haunt me?” she whispered, and met his lips halfway.

  Katie was cleaning the tack used by the mules and by Nugget when a voice startled her.

  “They made you pick up my chores,” Jacob said sadly. “I never even thought to ask you about it.”

  Her hand at her throat, she whirled around. “Jacob!”

  He opened his arms, and she flew into them. “Does Mam know-”

  “No,” he said, cutting her off. “And let’s keep it that way.” He hugged her tightly and then held her at arm’s length. “Katie, what’s happened?”

  She buried her face against his chest again. He smelled of pine and ink, and was so solid, so strong for her. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I thought I did, but now I can’t be sure.”

  She felt Jacob distance himself again, and then his eyes dipped down to her apron. “You had . . . a baby,” he said uneasily, then swallowed. “You were pregnant when you last saw me.”

  She nodded and bit her lower lip. “Are you awful mad about it?”

  He slid his hand down her arm and squeezed her hand. “I’m not mad,” he said, sitting down on the edge of a wagon. “I’m sorry.”

  Katie sat beside him and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I am too,” she whispered.

  Mary Esch came visiting on Sunday, wearing Rollerblades and bearing a Frisbee. Ellie could have run up and hugged the girl. It was just what Katie needed in light of these newfound recollections about the baby-a moment to just be a teenager again, without any responsibilities. While Ellie washed the dishes from lunch, Mary and Katie ran around the front yard, their skirts belling as they leaped into the air to snatch the neon disc.

  Hot and winded, the girls collapsed on the grass outside the kitchen window, which Ellie had opened to catch the faint breeze. She could hear snatches of conversation drifting up over the rush of the faucet: “. . . seen the fly that landed on Bishop Ephram’s nose,” “. . . asked about you,” “. . . not so lonely, not really.”

  Mary closed her eyes and rubbed the cold glass of a root beer bottle against her forehead. “I think it’s hotter than any summer I ever remember,” she said.

  “No.” Katie smiled. “You just put things out of your mind when they’re not right in front of you, is all.”

  “Still, it’s awful hot.” She put down the bottle and fluted her skirt over her bare toes, unsure of what else to say.

  “Mary, has it got so bad that all we can talk about is the weather?” Katie said quietly. “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask?”

  Mary looked into her lap. “Is it awful, being shunned?”

  Katie shrugged. “It’s not so bad. The mealtimes are tough, but I have Ellie with me, and my Mam tries to make it all work out okay.”

  “And your Dat?”

  “My Dat isn’t so good at trying to make it all work out,” she admitted. “But that’s how he is.” She took her friend’s hand. “In six weeks, it’ll all go back to being the way it was.”

  If anything, this made Mary look even more upset. “I don’t know about that, Katie.”

  “Well, sure you do. I’ve made my things right. Even if Bishop Ephram asks me to step down at communion time, I won’t have to be under the bann.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Mary murmured. “It’s the way others might act.”

  Katie slowly turned. “If they can’t forgive my sin, they shouldn’t be my friends.”

  “For some people, it’s going to be harder to pretend nothing happened.”

  “It’s the good Christian thing to do,” Katie said.

  “Ja, but it’s hard to be Christian when it was your girl,” Mary answered quietly. She fiddled with the strings of her kapp. “Katie, I think Samuel might want to see someone else.”

  Katie felt the air go out of her, like a pillow punched in the middle. “Who told you that?”

  Mary did not answer. But the red burn in her friend’s cheeks, the obvious discomfort at bringing up the very private notion of a beau, made Katie realize exactly what had happened. “Mary Esch,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I didn’t want to! I pushed him away after he tried to kiss me!”

  Katie got to her feet, so angry she was shaking. “Some friend you are!”

  “I am, Katie. I came here so you wouldn’t have to hear it from someone else.”

  “I wish you hadn’t.”

  Mary nodded slowly, sadly. She pulled her socks from the bellies of her Rollerblades and buckled the skates onto her feet. Gliding smoothly out of the driveway, she did not look back.

  Katie held her elbows tight at her sides. Any movement, she thought, and she might fly apart in a thousand different pieces. She heard the screen door open and slam, but she remained staring over the fields, where Samuel was working with her father.

  “I heard,” Ellie said, touching her shoulder from behind. “I’m sorry.”

  Katie tried to keep her eyes wide, so wide that the tears in them couldn’t quite trickle over the edges. But then she turned and threw herself into Ellie’s arms. “It’s not supposed to be like this,” she cried. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

  “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.”

 

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