“Objection!” Angela roars.
“If Ms. Moretti needs a brief recess to review the records, we’re perfectly willing to give her a few minutes—”
“I don’t need a recess, you windbag. I have no question in my mind that not only are these records irrelevant but that Mr. Preston obtained them through an illegal missive. He comes into this courtroom with unclean hands. I don’t know what they do in Louisiana, but here in Rhode Island we have laws to protect our citizens, and Ms. Shaw’s rights are being violated at this very moment.”
“Your Honor, if the witness would like to recant her testimony and admit that she did attempt suicide, I am happy to dismiss the records entirely,” Preston says.
“Enough.” The judge sighs. “I will allow the records in for identification purposes only. However, I’d like counsel to explain how he obtained them before we go any further.”
“They were pushed under the door of my hotel room,” he says. “God works in mysterious ways.”
I highly doubt that God was the one running the Xerox machine at Blackstone.
“Ms. Shaw, I’m going to ask you again. Did your suicide attempt lead to your stay at Blackstone Hospital in 2003?”
My face is flushed; I can feel my pulse hammering. “No.”
“So you accidentally swallowed a bottle of Tylenol?”
“I was depressed. I didn’t have a plan to kill myself. It was a long time ago, and I’m in a very different place now than I was back then. Frankly, I don’t understand why you’re even on this witch hunt.”
“Is it fair to say that you were upset eight years ago? In crisis?”
“Yes.”
“Something unexpected happened that rattled you to the point where you ended up hospitalized?”
I look down. “I guess.”
“Zoe Baxter has testified that she had cancer. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, I am. But she’s healthy now.”
“Cancer has a nasty way of recurring, doesn’t it? Ms. Baxter could get cancer again, couldn’t she?”
“So could you,” I say.
Preferably in the next three minutes.
“This is a terrible thought,” Preston says, “but we do need to press through all possibilities here. Let’s say Ms. Baxter got cancer again. You’d be upset, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d be devastated.”
“To the point of another breakdown, Ms. Shaw? Another bottle of Tylenol?”
Angela stands again, objecting.
Wade Preston shakes his head and tsks. “In that case, Ms. Shaw,” he says, “who’s gonna take care of those poor children?”
As soon as I step down from the witness stand, the judge calls a recess. Zoe turns to the seat I’ve taken behind her in the gallery. We both stand; she wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
I know she is thinking of Lucy, how I went above and beyond the call of a school counselor’s duty to find that girl something that would keep her tethered to this world instead of checking out of it. I know she’s wondering if I saw myself in her.
From the corner of my eye, I see a flash of purple. Wade Preston heads up the aisle. Gently I disengage myself from Zoe’s embrace. “I’ll be back.”
I follow Preston down the hallway, drawing into shadows as he glad-hands congregants and gives sound bites to reporters. He whistles, too full of himself to even notice that he’s got a shadow. He turns a corner and pushes open the door to the men’s room.
I go in right after him.
