by Jodi Picoult
"What was the prior conviction for?" Eric asks.
"I had spent a night in jail after a fight, once."
"Who was the person you assaulted?"
"Victor Vasquez," I say. "The man Elise wound up marrying."
"Can you tell the court why you fought with Victor?"
I run my thumbnail into a groove of the wood. Now that this moment is here, it's harder than I thought to make the words come out. "I found out that he was having an affair with my wife," I say bitterly. "I beat him up pretty badly and Elise called the police."
"In light of that incident, you were nervous about asking the authorities to revisit the custody agreement?"
"Yes. I thought they'd look at the petition and think I was doing it to get back at Elise."
"So." Eric faces the jury. "You'd already tried to get Elise to participate in her own rehabilitation, and it didn't work. You saw obstacles lying in front of you if you took legal action. What did you do next?"
"I had run out of options, the way I saw it. I couldn't leave Bethany there, and I couldn't let this keep happening. I wanted my daughter to have a normal life--no, a better than normal life. And I thought that maybe if I got her as far away from all of this as I could, we could both start over. I thought maybe she was even young enough to completely forget that this was the way she'd spent the first four years of her life." I look up at you, watching me with haunted eyes from the gallery. "As it turned out, I was right."
"What did you do next?"
"I took Beth and drove to my condo. I packed as much stuff as I could into the car, and then I started to drive east."
Eric guides me through a narrative of flight, a web of lies, an outline of how to reinvent oneself. I answer more of his questions--ones about life in Wexton, ones that dovetail with the spot where he began to overlap with our lives. And then he reaches the end of this act, the one we have practiced. "When you took your daughter, Andrew, did you know what you were doing was against the law?"
I look at the jury. "Yes."
"Can you imagine what would have happened to Delia if you hadn't taken her away?"
It is a question Eric's not expecting to get in, and sure enough, the prosecutor objects.
"Sustained," the judge says.
He has told me that this will be the last question, that he wants to leave the jury thinking about the answer to the question I am not allowed to give. But as Eric heads toward the defense table again, he suddenly stops and pivots. "Andrew?" he asks, as if it is just the two of us, and something he's wanted to know all along. "If you had the chance, would you change what you did?"
We haven't rehearsed this answer, and maybe it's the only one that really matters. I turn, so that I am staring square at you; so that you know, all my life, anything I've ever said or buried beneath silence was just for you. "If I had the chance," I reply, "I'd do it all over again."
IX
But what do you keep of me?
The memory of my bones flying up into your hands.
--Anne Sexton, "The Surgeon"
Eric
Maybe I'm not going to lose this case, after all.
It's clear Andrew's broken the law--he has admitted it, as well as a lack of remorse--but he's got a few sympathetic jurors. One Hispanic woman, who started crying when he talked about Delia growing up, and one older lady with a tight silver perm, who was nodding along with pity. Two, count 'em, two--when it only takes one to hang a jury.
But then again, Emma Wasserstein hasn't attacked yet. I sit beside Chris, my nails digging into the armrests of the chair. He leans closer to me. "Fifty bucks says she goes for rage."
"Lying," I murmur back. "She's got that one in the bag already."
The prosecutor walks toward Andrew; I try to will him faith and composure. Do not fuck this up, I think. I can do that myself.
"For twenty-eight years," Emma says, "you've been lying to your daughter, haven't you."
"Well, technically."
"You've been lying about who you are."
"Yes," Andrew admits.
"You've been lying about who she is."
"Yes."
"You've been lying about all aspects of your former life."
"Yes."
"In fact, Mr. Hopkins, there's an excellent chance that you're lying to all of us right now."
I feel Chris stuff something stiff into my hand; when I look down, it's a fifty-dollar bill.
"I'm not," Andrew insists. "I have not lied in this courtroom."
"Really," Emma says flatly.
"Yes, really."
"What if I told you I could prove otherwise?"
Andrew shakes his head. "I'd say you're mistaken."
"You told this court, under oath, that you came home to get a security blanket for your daughter ... and you found Elise Matthews drunk, lying amidst vomit and broken glass and dog feces. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"Would it surprise anyone in this courtroom to learn that Elise Vasquez is allergic to dogs? That she never owned one, either while you were living with her or anytime afterward?"
Oh, shit.
Andrew stares at her. "I never said it was her dog. I'm just telling you what I saw."
"Are you, Mr. Hopkins? Or are you telling this court what you want them to see? Are you painting this situation to be worse than it really was, to justify your own heinous actions?"
"Objection," I mumble.
"Withdrawn," Emma says. "Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, then; let's say your memory of the state of the house is flawless, even after almost thirty years. However, you also said that after finding your wife in this state, and feeling unfairly persecuted by the authorities, you went back to your condo and packed as much as you could into your car, and started driving east with your daughter. Do I have that right?"
"Yes."
"Would you classify your decision to abscond with your daughter as impulsive?"
"Absolutely," Andrew says.
"Then what made you close out your bank account on the previous Friday morning, a full day before you picked Bethany up for her custody visit?"
Andrew takes a deep breath, just like I've told him to. "I was in the process of switching banks," he says. "It was a coincidence."
"I'll bet," Emma remarks. "Let's talk about your good intentions for a moment. You said you brought your daughter to Harlem with you, to a crack house, when you purchased those identities?"
"Yes, I did."
"You brought a four-year-old along to watch you commit a crime?"
"I wasn't committing a crime," Andrew says.
"You were purchasing someone else's identity. What do you think that is, Mr. Hopkins? Or is your set of laws different from everyone else's?"
"Objection," I interrupt.
"Were there drug addicts at that crack house?" Emma asks.
"I assume so."
"Might there have been needles on the floor?"
"It's possible, I don't really remember."
"Were there individuals with guns or knives?"
"Everyone was busy doing their own thing, Ms. Wasserstein," Andrew says. "I knew it wasn't Disneyland when I went in there, but I had no alternative."
"So let me get this straight: You ran away with your daughter because you were worried about her safety ... and took her less than a week later into a crack house to become an accessory to a crime?"
"All right," Andrew admits heavily. "I did."
"You never called Elise to let her know that her daughter was healthy and happy, did you."
"No. I haven't had any contact with her." He hesitates. "I didn't want her to be able to track us down."
"You also never told your daughter that her mother was alive and well in Phoenix?"
"No."
"Why is that, Mr. Hopkins? Your daughter turned eighteen over a decade ago--she wouldn't have been returned to her mother's custody then, no matter what. The danger, as you perceived it, was over. If your motive for abducting Bethany wa
s to keep her safe, and eventually her safety was a sure thing, you had no reason to hide her whereabouts from your ex-wife anymore, did you?"
"I still couldn't tell her."
"Because you knew you'd committed a crime, didn't you. You knew you had broken the law."
"That's not the reason," Andrew says, shaking his head.
"You were hiding the fact that you had kidnapped her, and would most likely have to face the legal consequences."
"No," Andrew explodes, too loud. I take the fifty-dollar bill and push it across the table toward Chris.
"Then why, Mr. Hopkins?" the prosecutor asks.
"Because Elise had to stay dead for us to have the lives that we were leading. Delia and I, we were happy. If I told her the truth, I might have lost that. I didn't want to take that risk."
"Oh, please," Emma slaps back. "The only risk you couldn't take is the same one you face right now--the risk of everyone finding out who you really are, so that you'd be sent to prison."
Andrew stares her down. "You have no idea who I am," he says.
Emma walks toward the prosecutor's table. "I think you're wrong, Mr. Hopkins. I think I know exactly who you are. I think you're a man with a hair-trigger temper, who lies like a rug and acts rashly whenever the situation calls for it."
"Objection!" I say.
But Andrew isn't even listening to me anymore; he's focused on Emma, walking toward him. "Isn't it true, Mr. Hopkins, that you've gotten in trouble for letting your emotions run away with you before?"
"I don't know what you mean," he replies.
"You assaulted Mr. Vasquez after you found out your wife was having an extramarital affair, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"You were angry when you found out, weren't you."
"Yes."
"He was there with your wife, your daughter, wasn't he."
"Yes," Andrew says, his voice taut as a wire.
"You weren't going to let him get away with it, were you?"
"No." I try desperately to catch Andrew's eye, to center him, before he buys into the anger that Emma's building in him. But this is an Andrew I haven't seen before. His eyes are darker and harder than I have ever seen them; his face twists. "I saw what he was doing."
Emma steps directly in front of Andrew. "So you decided to beat him unconscious, Mr. Hopkins? You assaulted a man in front of your three-year-old daughter?"
"I didn't--"
"You saw something you didn't like, something that you considered a personal slight, and instead of weighing the alternatives you decided you were the only one who could possibly fix it, no matter who got hurt and how many laws were broken."
"You weren't--"
"You broke the law then, and you did it again when you kidnapped Bethany, Mr. Hopkins, isn't that the truth?"
By now, Andrew is shaking so hard I can see it even from where I'm sitting. "He was abusing my daughter. That sonofabitch was doing it then, and he was still doing it six months later when I took her away from him."
If the courtroom ceiling had plummeted at that instant, I couldn't have been more shocked. The entire corps of us is stunned into silence by this admission--Emma, the judge, myself. I turn to Delia, searching her out in the frantic gallery, and find her by the white oval of her face. "Objection, Your Honor," Emma shouts, the first to recover. "We've had no evidence to support this claim."
I know I am supposed to be doing something, but I cannot take my eyes off Delia, who begins to wilt into her chair, like the stalk of a milkweed pod after its heart has been blown away. Beside me I am vaguely aware of Chris Hamilton approaching the bench. "Of course there was no evidence, Judge. If there were, our client would have been able to present it to the authorities at the time, and we wouldn't all be sitting here. Instead Mr. Hopkins had to react--"
The judge bangs his gavel, screaming for order. Across the gallery, I see Fitz put his arm around Delia's shoulders and whisper something to help her keep herself together. I turn to face the spectacle. "Your Honor, I request a recess with my client."
"No way," Emma argues. "He's not going into a private conference room. If the defendant said or did something that counsel didn't know was coming, he can deal with it here and now."
"Mr. Talcott," the judge says, "I don't know what's going on here. It seems to me that you don't either. I urge you to prove me wrong."
I look at Andrew, and remember the time he taught me how to do a card trick. It was a simple one, a sleight of hand, but you would have thought from my reaction when I'd mastered it that I had just become David Copperfield. Andrew had laughed at me. "It's all just smoke and mirrors," he had said.
Now, I am the one with the tricks up my sleeve. I break the first rule of direct examination: I ask a question the answer to which I don't know, and don't want to. "Andrew," I say. "Tell us about the abuse."
"I thought Elise was having an affair. And I came home early, thinking I could catch her ..." He closes his eyes. "When I got there, and I looked in the window, Elise was asleep on the bed, alone. But in the living room ... Beth was watching television. He had her on his lap ... and he was scratching her back. But then his hands went underneath her skirt ... and ..." Andrew bends down, his shoulders heaving. "He had his hands on her. He touched my daughter. And every time Elise got drunk, or fell asleep, he was going to be there doing the same thing. I beat him up. But that wouldn't stop it from happening again."
There is noise in the gallery; I am not brave enough to look in that direction and risk seeing Delia's face yet. Andrew buries his face in his hands; I wait for him to regain his composure. When he lifts his head, his eyes are red and raw and hold every member of that jury accountable. "Maybe I kidnapped my daughter. Maybe I broke the law. But you can't tell me that what I did was wrong."
My head is a kaleidoscope of questions--not about this case, but about the woman ten feet away from me, whose life has just been ripped out from underneath her once again. "The defense rests," I murmur.
Before I can even make it back to my seat, though, Emma stands up again. "The prosecution would like to recall Delia Hopkins."
I turn around. "You can't."
"On what grounds?"
On the grounds that I love her.
No one comments when Fitz walks Delia all the way to the bar, and opens the gate to let her inside. She moves slowly, precariously. When she sits down on the edge of the chair, she does not look at her father, and she doesn't look at me. She is full of ghosts; I can see them peeking from the windows that used to be her eyes.
"Ms. Hopkins," Emma says, "do you have any recollection of being sexually abused by Victor Vasquez?"
Delia shakes her head.
"Let the record reflect that the witness has given a negative response," Emma says. "Nothing further."
The judge glances at me. "Mr. Talcott?"
I start to shake my head--I would rather be eviscerated with a butter knife on the bench right now than cross-examine Delia--but Chris Hamilton grabs my arm. "If you don't detonate this bomb," he whispers, "we are screwed."
So I get to my feet. Forgive me, I beg silently. I am only doing this for you. "You really don't remember being sexually abused by Victor Vasquez?"
She looks at me, surprised. The last thing she would expect from me right now is this tone of voice, this mockery. "I think it would be hard to forget something like that," she says.
"Maybe," I say coolly. "Then again, you don't remember being kidnapped, do you." I turn away from Delia before I can see how much more damage I've done.
As it happens, Emma is the one who needs a hiatus; the prosecutor's water breaks about five minutes later during a recess. She is taken to the hospital by ambulance, and court is adjourned for five days.
I find Delia and Fitz taking refuge in a conference room upstairs, away from the frenzied sea of media that has doubled in size, it seems, since this morning. She still looks unsteady, but by now, she is angry, too. "How could you do this to me?" she accuses. "You made thi
s all up."
Shaking my head, I walk toward her. I am struck by the sense that although she looks just like Delia should look, she is a soap bubble, and if I get too close she will simply disappear. "I give you my word, Dee, this was not some defense ploy. I didn't know this was going to happen."
When she tilts her face up to mine, it breaks my heart. "Then why didn't I know it ever had?"
Because I am a coward, I choose not to answer. "I have to go to the jail," I say gently. "I need to speak to your father now." With a squeeze of support to Delia's shoulders, I leave the conference room. I hurry across the street to the Madison Street Jail, and I ask to see Andrew.
I should have hired an investigator to depose him instead of doing it myself, then I would have been able to impeach him with his own testimony and salvage this trial. I don't say a single word, just wait for him to sit down and initiate conversation. "What happens now?" he asks finally.
"Well," I suggest, "how about you tell me what the hell that was all about?"
He knots his hands on the scarred table, his thumb tracing the graffiti that reads TUPAC 4EVA. "What kind of man goes after a woman who's married, a woman who's an obvious drunk, and who has a little girl? You do the math, Eric."
"Andrew," I explain, frustrated, "you can't throw a smoking gun down at the end of a trial. Why didn't you mention this before? It would have been a perfect defense."
"I managed to keep this from her all these years, so that she could have a normal life."
I scrub my hands through my hair. "Andrew, there's no evidence here. Delia doesn't even remember it happening."
But even as I say it, I'm remembering the smallest of details, the clues that I should have picked up on. Like when we first talked about Victor and the assault charge: I saw him, Andrew had said, I watched him kiss her.
Elise? I had asked, and he'd hesitated for a half-second before he nodded.
Or the medical records Delia and I had read together: Focused on the fact of the scorpion sting, I never really considered the physician's comment about the patient fighting when her clothes were being removed for treatment. Or the fact that a four-year-old girl had a urinary tract infection.
"What happens now?" Andrew repeats.
What happens now is that Emma will come back from her labor and delivery and file a motion to get Andrew's revelation excluded. The judge will be inclined to agree. The jurors--already dubious, because who drops a bomb like this one at the last minute but a liar?--will be asked to disregard the testimony. And Andrew, who literally confessed to kidnapping on the stand, will be convicted.