“Anything’s possible. Reid and Liddy could get a divorce.” As I say the words, I glance at Liddy in the gallery. Her face drains of color.
I don’t know what the story is between her and Max, but there is one. I could feel threads between them, invisible as they were, during her testimony, as if I’d walked through a spiderweb stretched across an open doorway. And then her words downstairs in the snack room:Max isn’t trying to hurt you.As if she’d discussed this with him.
Max couldn’t be in love with her.
She’s as different from me as a person could possibly be.
At that thought, I have to smile a little. Max could clearly say the same thing about Vanessa.
Even if Max has a crush on his sister-in-law, I can’t imagine it going anyplace. Liddy is far too caught up in being the perfect wife, the ideal church lady. And as far as I can tell, there’s no wiggle room for a fall from grace.
“Ms. Baxter?” Wade Preston says impatiently, and I realize I have completely missed his question.
“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”
“I said that you resent Reid and Liddy for the life they lead, don’t you?”
“I don’t resent them. We just place importance on very different things.”
“So you’re not jealous of their wealth?”
“No. Money isn’t everything.”
“Then you resent the fact that they’re such good role models?”
I smother a laugh. “Actually, I don’t think they are. I think they buy what they want—including these embryos. I think they use their Bible to judge people like me. Neither of which are qualities I’d want to pass down to a child.”
“You don’t go to church on a regular basis, do you, Ms. Baxter?”
“Objection,” Angela says. “Perhaps we need a visual.” She takes two legal books and smacks one down in front of her. “Church.” She moves the second book to the opposite edge of the defense table. “State.” Then she looks up at the judge. “See all the nice room in between.”
“Cute, Counselor. Please answer the question, Ms. Baxter,” the judge says.
“No.”
“You don’t think much of people who go to church, do you?”
“I think everyone should be entitled to believe what they want. Which includes not believing at all,” I add.
Vanessa doesn’t believe in God. I think her mother’s attempts to pray away the gay in her closed the door on organized religion. We’ve talked about it, in the folds of the night. How she doesn’t really care much about an afterlife, as long as she gets what she needs in her present one; how there’s an evolutionary component to helping people that has nothing to do with a Golden Rule; how even though I can’t subscribe to an organized religion, I also can’t say with certainty that I don’t believe in some higher power. I’m not sure if this is because I actually still cling to the vestiges of religion, or because I’m too afraid to admit out loud that I might not believe in God.
Atheism, I realize, is the new gay. The thing you hope no one finds out about you—because of all the negative assumptions that are sure to follow.
“So you wouldn’t plan to raise these pre-born children with any religion?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m going to raise a child to be loved and to show love; to be self-respecting and open-minded and tolerant of everyone. If I can find the right religious group to support that, then maybe we will join it.”
“Ms. Baxter, are you familiar with the case ofBurrows v. Brady?”
“Objection!” Angela says. “Counsel is referencing a custody case, and this is a property issue.”
“Overruled,” Judge O’Neill says. “Where are you going with this, Mr. Preston?”
“InBurrows v. Brady,the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that, when parents are divorced, each parent who has custody has the right to raise the child in the faith they think is in the child’s best interests. Moreover,Pettinato v. Pettinatosaid that the moral character of each potential custodial parent must be considered—”
“Is counsel trying to tell the court how to do its job,” Angela asks, “or does he actually have a question for my client?”
“Yes,” Wade replies. “I do have a question. You testified, Ms. Baxter, that you went through several in vitro procedures, all of which resulted in disaster?”
