A Good Mother by Lara Bazelon (classic books to read .TXT) 📕

2006

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

7:30 a.m.

Willowick, Ohio

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Hey T, ur a daddy! he’s almost 9 lbs, gonna be a big man like his daddy. i named him Chance, middle name is Robert, after your dad.

i can’t wait for us three to be a family.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

1:37 p.m.

Ramstein Air Base

Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

can’t wait to see the lil man! but could be awhile. i put in for Xmas leave and was denied. send me some pix.

whose name is on the birth certificate?

T

Thursday, July 20, 2006

6:32 p.m.

Willowick, Ohio

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

who’s do you think??? who’s been there 4 me this whole time? not you.

Its time to tell the truth, that you love me, that you are Chance’s daddy, and that we are a family. i am ok with u paying her child support but she needs to go the fuck back to mexico or wherever she’s from and get help from her own family.

2007

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

1:30 p.m.

United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Shauna’s next witness is another doctor, Lenore Spellman, who is there to tell the jury about her physical examination of Luz at the army base medical clinic. It’s a short and extremely unhelpful story: Dr. Spellman found no wounds, bumps, bruises, or abrasions on any part of Luz’s body. No physical injuries to suggest that she had been attacked or hurt while trying to defend herself. No physical injuries of any kind.

Asking questions on cross will make a bad situation worse and Abby declines when Dars asks her.

He turns back to Shauna. “Call your next witness.”

“The government requests a sidebar, Your Honor.”

Dars beckons the lawyers to approach and steps off the bench. They form their usual circle around the court reporter, her hands ever-poised to tap-tap-tap on the stenographer’s machine. Dars crosses his black-robed arms over his puffed-out chest.

“Well, Ms. Gooden?”

“Your Honor, this morning’s testimony went more rapidly than we had anticipated. Our next witness, Michael Ravel, was on call for 1:30 p.m., immediately following the lunch break.”

“Who?”

“Michael Ravel,” Shauna repeats, “Sergeant Hollis’s closest friend on the army base and the witness to Sergeant Hollis’s signing of the life insurance policy—the second time around, that is, when he left everything to the defendant. Mr. Ravel is prepared to testify that—”

Dars says impatiently, “I think I have some idea about what he’s going to testify to.”

“My assistant has been trying Mr. Ravel’s cell phone and put in a call to the hotel where we’ve put him up at the Olani. When she didn’t get a response, we had the concierge go up to his room. He knocked, but there was no response, and there’s a Do Not Disturb sign on his door.”

Abby looks at Will, who looks back at her, eyebrows raised.

“Is he under subpoena?” Dars asks Shauna.

“Of course.”

Dars leans forward, a vein throbbing visibly in his forehead. “Then go disturb him.” He jabs his index finger inches from Shauna’s face. “This isn’t a government paid vacation, Ms. Gooden. Send one of the marshals if you have to. I’ll let the jury have a twenty-minute recess, after which he better be sitting in that chair.” Dars jabs his finger again, this time at the empty witness box.

“Understood, Your Honor.”

Twenty minutes pass, then thirty, then forty. Shauna has disappeared from the courtroom. When Will comes out to check, he finds her huddled with Jared and another marshal, a short, heavyset Latino guy he doesn’t recognize, at the far end of the hallway.

Closing in on their group, he makes sure his heels click loudly on the marble floor to give them plenty of notice before he touches Shauna on the shoulder. But she flinches before looking up, obviously startled.

“The clerk sent me. The judge wants us back inside.”

Shauna’s lips are set in a grim line. Without a word, she beckons to the others, and they walk back to the courtroom in a phalanx, leaving Will to trail behind and wonder what the hell is going on.

Dars is looking at Shauna with great displeasure. “I gave you twenty minutes and you took fifty-seven. Fifty-seven minutes,” he repeats, as if each one is a treasured grain of sand lost forever to the hourglass.

Beside Will, Luz shivers slightly and draws her shoulders in tight. After feeding Cristina, brought by Father Abelard and another member of Luz’s church—a middle-aged sweet-faced woman who is now the baby’s de facto babysitter—along with the disheartening news that there had been no change in Maria Elena’s condition, Luz had lain back in one of the old leather chairs in the attorney lounge and passed out. It had taken both Abby and Will to rouse her, Will repeating her name as Abby shook her by the shoulder. She still hadn’t said anything to either of them, but when she emerged from the bathroom, Will was relieved to see that she had made more of an effort to pull herself together: applying lipstick and tying back her hair.

Shauna clears her throat. “On Your Honor’s instructions, we sent two marshals to Mr. Ravel’s hotel room. When he did not answer to the door, the desk clerk was summoned with a key. The marshals entered and found Mr. Ravel sprawled on the bed, nonresponsive. Emergency personnel were called immediately. Narcan was administered to reverse the effects of what appeared to be an opioid overdose.”

“So, he’s come around?”

“No, Your Honor. He’s dead.”

Will tries to look suitably somber at the delivery of the news but it is all he can do not to grab Abby’s hand and raise it high in the air. After a nightmarish twenty-four hours in and out of the courtroom, they have caught a break. Ravel could have devastated their careful efforts to portray Luz as the real victim with Shauna using his marginal relevance—witnessing Travis sign a life insurance policy—as a lever to pry open the closed window of Travis Hollis’s misgivings and grievances. Ravel would have been Travis’s voice from