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

“Yes,” she says. “As soon as my grandmother could send me money for the tickets.”

“Okay,” Will says. “Show me how you were reopening the boxes when your husband got home.”

She crouches down on her knees and moves to open one of the boxes.

“No,” he says. “You weren’t using your hands. What were you using?”

A shock of loose hair falls across her face when she looks up at him. She turns her head and gestures at the steak knife lying in a plastic sheath on the floor beside one of the boxes, caked to the handle in a rust of dried blood. She hesitates. Without access to the actual weapon, they have always used a toy version to practice.

“Pick it up.”

She closes her fingers over the handle and stares at it.

“Pick it up,” he says again loudly, and she does, then pantomimes sawing through the tape on the boxes.

“Then what?”

She puts the knife down. “I heard Travis outside. He was trying to use his key but he couldn’t get it to work in the lock. It used to stick sometimes. He started banging on the door and cursing.”

“What curse words did he say?”

“Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.”

Will lets the words hang there, waiting for her to go on.

“I ran to open the door because I didn’t want him to wake the baby. I think he was surprised when it gave way like that because he kind of stumbled into me.”

Will beckons and Luz comes flying toward him. When she pulls open the imaginary door, he staggers and pushes her backward. “Like that?”

“Yes.” Will had used his full weight, and Luz is breathing audibly, back on her heels. More hair comes loose from her ponytail, partially obscuring her face, but he can see two scarlet spots forming, one on each cheek. Will has a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to pull Luz into his body, to feel the warmth of her skin. To inhale her. He sees her on the conference table staring up at him, eyes wide, her legs wrapped around his waist.

But she isn’t looking at him that way now and he could swear her head is shaking slightly. What had she said to him once, afterward? You need to be angrier, Will. You need to hate me.

He blinks. “What happened after he stumbled into you?”

“I told him, ‘Travis, you can’t stay here. You’re too drunk.’ He smelled like liquor and he was angry in that way he gets. I didn’t want him waking up Cristina.”

“Did he leave?”

“No.” She pushes back the loose hair, tries to tuck it behind one ear. “He said, ‘This is my house. I’m not going anywhere.’ He grabbed me. He started shaking me—”

Will puts his hands on Luz’s shoulders, pulls her to him, away, and to him again. “Like this?”

“Harder. My head kept hitting the wall.”

“Like this?” Will uses more force, jerking her back and forth against an imaginary surface.

“Ye-e-s.” He hears a vertebrae crack in her neck, feels her recoil.

“Then what?”

“I pushed him.” Luz puts her hands against Will’s chest and gives him a surprisingly forceful shove. “And he reached out and grabbed my face, around my jaw.”

Will pulls her toward him again, cupping her chin in the V between his thumb and forefinger and pushing down into the sides of her face. “Like this?” Behind him, he hears someone in the gallery gasp.

“Yes.” His grip is making it difficult for Luz to speak, and he has to ease up slightly so she can get the word out. Their faces are inches apart now, his fingers on her jawbone, clamping her in place.

“Then what?”

“He took off his shirt and his belt—”

With his free hand, Will pulls his tee shirt over his head and undoes his belt buckle, sliding it through the loops of his jeans. It’s the craziest thing he has ever done in court and physically one of the most difficult—it’s tricky as hell to hold her still and undress himself at the same time. But strangely, it’s a relief; he’s hotter than he realized, sweat is trickling down his exposed rib cage. The frozen silence in the courtroom fissures. Will hears rumbling all around him, sees Shauna stir in her seat.

“Your Honor, this is highly improper—”

Will keeps his eyes on Luz. “State of mind. This entire case is about my client’s state of mind.”

“Overruled.”

“Finish what you were saying,” Will tells Luz.

“He told me to pull down my pants.”

He turns her face a few inches in the jury’s direction, forcing her to speak to them. “Meaning what?”

“He wanted to have sex.” She tries to look down, but Will tightens his grip on her jaw, stamping the pads of his fingertips onto her skin. She takes a shallow breath and he eases up again to let her get out the rest of her answer. “That’s what always happened when he was like that. He would want to and I would—I would let him just to make it not so bad.”

“Did you let him this time?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“I scratched his face.”

Her nails rake his cheek and he can feel tiny dots of blood spring up along the trail they leave behind.

“What did he do?”

“He hit me.”

Will lets go of Luz’s chin and smacks her across the face. It’s a clean flat hit, not hard enough to take her down, but nearly, and it’s shatteringly loud. Luz stumbles backward, her hand to her cheek. The courtroom erupts in sound and Shauna is on her feet.

This time Dars isn’t having it. “That is enough,” he bellows. “Do that again, Mr. Ellet, and you will be removed from my courtroom. And to everyone else, you will remain silent or be escorted out.”

Will does not look away from Luz. “Then what?”

“I ran to the baby’s room where the cordless phone was. When I got in there, I shut the door and locked it.” She turns, moves quickly into the space where they have placed the crib, shuts an imaginary door, and picks up the phone. “I called