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

Shauna stands. “Respectfully, we might, Your Honor, but Mr. Estrada has declined to provide it.”

“So he has.” Dars gives a sage nod. “And I put him in jail for it. But the fact remains that without him telling me, in a sealed hearing, outside the presence of the government, a privilege that I extended to him—” here Dars’s voice takes on a tone of righteous indignation “—I don’t have the basis to make that ruling. Therefore, Ms. Gooden, you may not inquire into those conversations. But you can ask the defendant about the fact that she made those calls, when she made them, how long they were, that sort of thing. The jury has that evidence in the form of his billing records.”

Over Luz’s head, Will and Abby exchanged a relieved glance.

“Alright then. Mrs. Rivera Hollis, you will retake the witness stand. Let me remind you that you are still under oath.”

From the beginning, Will can sense it’s going wrong. All wrong. Within minutes, Luz’s affect has gone from flat to pissy. At first, she sounded like a bored teenager. Now she sounds like a bitch. He can feel Abby tensing; her poker face mask is firmly in place but she has gone pale, her lips pressed together in a thin, bloodless line.

“That’s not what I said.”

Will snaps his attention back to Luz, who has crossed her arms over her chest and is glaring at Shauna.

Shauna smiles pleasantly, as if over a minor misunderstanding. “You didn’t say to Captain Aronson that the only way to get away from your husband would be to kill him?”

“No. I told him Travis was possessive and jealous and that he could get violent if he thought I was even looking at another guy.”

“Why would Captain Aronson say that you said you would have to kill your husband to get away from him if it wasn’t true?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

Shauna casts her doe eyes at Dars. “Your Honor, please admonish the witness that it is my job to ask the questions and the defendant’s job to answer them.”

Dars, who has settled back in his chair, appears to be thoroughly enjoying himself. “It sounds like you did just that, Ms. Gooden. Next question.”

“You told the jury that before you stabbed your husband, he had attempted to rape you—”

“I never said it was rape.” Luz’s eyes are glittering.

Clearly surprised, Shauna takes a literal step back. “Did you want to have sex with him that night?”

Luz shakes her head like Shauna is stupid. “It’s not about whether I wanted it. He was my husband. What happened between us wasn’t rape.”

“You had sex to make up after fights?”

Luz is practically rolling her eyes now at the obviousness of the question. “Sometimes.”

“But not that time. You were not willing to make up with your husband that night, were you?”

“You saw—” Luz gestures to the narrow pathway where she and Will had so perfectly executed the marital death dance.

“Objection,” Will says. He is not sure it is even his own voice he’s hearing. “Argumentative.”

“Overruled.”

Luz turns back to Shauna, clearly exasperated. “What do you think I could have done?”

“You created the situation and then you chose to escalate it, because you were angry.” Shauna, managing to sound both firm and sorrowful, lands the arrow.

“You think I got him drunk? You think I made him hit me?” Luz shakes her head in disgust. “Look at him. Look at me. What do you think I could have done?”

“I think,” Shauna says evenly, “that you wanted to make him as hurt and angry as he made you. I think your intent was to provoke him.”

Luz snorts. “You don’t know anything about my intent.”

“I know you were angry.”

Will is up again. “Objection. Calls for speculation—”

“Overruled.”

“Your Honor—”

Without looking at him, Abby says in a barely audible whisper, “Sit down and shut up, Will.”

“I wasn’t angry,” Luz says.

Shauna’s eyes widen. “Hours before he came home drunk, you learned that your husband had betrayed you in the worst way possible by fathering a child with his ex-girlfriend. Your testimony to this jury is that you weren’t angry?”

“I was disappointed.”

Shauna lets her answer hang in the air for a moment before moving on. Will cannot bear to look at the jurors, pretends to take notes on his notepad.

“You testified,” Shauna reminds her, “that you were going to leave your husband when the money came through from your grandmother for plane tickets. That could take days or weeks. What was your plan in the meantime?”

Luz shrugs. “Just take it day by day, I guess. I thought Travis would leave after I told him to and we could live apart until it was time for me and Cristina to go.”

Now it is Shauna who is crossing her arms, taking on, Will has no doubt, the expression she once used with her own kids when they lied to her face about something readily disprovable. “So let me see if I understand. Your husband comes home, very drunk. You tell him that you are leaving him and taking Cristina with you even though, according to you, he was possessive and was never going to let go of you much less let you take his daughter away. Your expectation was that his response would be to leave the house voluntarily and what? Go stay with friends on the base in the meantime?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“Even though, according to you, when your husband got very drunk, he got violent.”

“According to me?” Luz shakes her head in disbelief. “Ask the guy he punched in the face at the bar. Ask his friends. Ask anyone who knew him.” Her voice gets louder with each sentence. “When he got drunk and jealous, he got mean, and he wanted to take everybody else down with him.”

“But he wasn’t going to take you down, was he?”

“I wasn’t going to let him kill me, no.” Luz’s eyes are glittering again, her hand raised, a shaking index finger