"Do you think you can promise to answer some questions today?"
"Yes!"
The judge leans back, wincing a little. "This is Mr. Brown, Nathaniel, and he's going to talk to you first."
Nathaniel looks at the big man, who stands up and smiles. He has white, white teeth. Like a wolf. He is nearly as tall as the ceiling and Nathaniel takes one look at him coming closer and thinks of him hurting his mother and then turning around and biting Nathaniel himself in two.
He takes a deep breath, and bursts into tears.
The man stops in his tracks, like he's lost his balance. "Go away!" Nathaniel shouts. He draws up his knees, and buries his face in them.
"Nathaniel." Mr. Brown comes forward slowly, holding out his hand. "I just need to ask you a couple of questions. Is that okay?"
Nathaniel shakes his head, but he won't look up. Maybe the big man has laser eyes too, like Cyclops from the X-Men. Maybe he can freeze them with one glance and with the next, make them burst into fire.
"What's your turtle's name?" the big man asks.
Nathaniel buries Franklin under his knees, so that he won't have to see the man either. He covers his face with his hands and peeks out, but the man has gotten even closer and this makes Nathaniel turn sideways in the chair, as if he might slip through the slats on the back side of it.
"Nathaniel," the man tries again.
"No," Nathaniel sobs. "I don't want to!"
The man turns away. "Judge. May we approach?"
Nathaniel peers over the lip of the box he is sitting in and sees his mother. She's crying too, but then that makes sense. The man wants to hurt her. She must be just as scared of him as Nathaniel is.
Fisher has told me not to cry, because I will get kicked out of the room. But I can't control myself-the tears come as naturally as a blush or a breath. Nathaniel burrows into the wooden chair, all but hidden by the frame of the witness stand. Fisher and Brown walk toward the bench, where the judge is angry enough to be spitting sparks. "Mr. Brown," he says. "I can't believe you insisted on taking this so far.
You know very well you didn't need this testimony, and I'm not going to allow psychological mind games to be played in my courtroom. Don't even think about making an argument to revisit this."
"You're right, Judge," answers that bastard. "I asked to approach because clearly this child should not have to testify."
The judge raps his gavel. "This court rules that Nathaniel Frost is not competent to stand trial. The subpoena is quashed." He turns to my son. "Nathaniel, you can go on down to your dad."
Nathaniel bolts out of the chair and down the steps. I think he is going to run to Caleb, in the back of the courtroom-but instead he rushes straight to me. The force of his body sends my chair scooting back a few inches. Nathaniel wraps his arms around my waist, squeezing free the breath I have not even noticed I am holding.
I wait until Nathaniel glances up, terrified by the faces in this foreign world-the clerk, the judge, the stenographer, and the prosecutor. "Nathaniel," I tell him fiercely, drawing his attention. "You were the best witness I could have had."
Over his head, I catch Quentin Brown's eye. And smile.
When Patrick met Nathaniel Frost, the child was six months old. Patrick's first thought was that he looked just like Nina. His second thought was that, right here, in his arms, was the reason they would never be together. Patrick made an extra effort to get close to Nathaniel, even though sometimes it was painful enough to make him ache for days after a visit. He'd bring Weed little dolphins to float in the bathtub; Silly Putty; sparklers. For years Patrick had wanted to get under Nina's skin; Nathaniel, who'd grown below her heart, surely had something to teach him. So he tagged along on hikes, swapping off with Caleb to carry Nathaniel when his legs got tired. He let Nathaniel spin in his desk chair at the station. He even baby-sat for a whole weekend, when Caleb and Nina went away for a relative's wedding.
And somewhere along the way, Patrick-who'd loved Nina forever- fell just as hard for her son.
The clock hasn't moved in two hours, Patrick would swear to that. Right now, Nathaniel is undergoing his competency hearing-a procedure Patrick couldn't watch, even if he wanted to. And he doesn't.
Because Nina will be there too, and he hasn't seen or spoken to her since Christmas Eve.
It's not that he doesn't want to. God, he can't seem to think of anything but Nina--the feel of her, the taste of her, the way her body relaxed against his in her sleep. But right now, the memory is crystallized for Patrick. Any words that come between them, aftershocks, are only going to take away from that.
And it isn't what Nina would say to him that worries Patrick-it's what she wouldn't say. That she loves him, that she needs him, that this meant as much to her as it did to him.
He rests his head in his hands. Deep inside, there is a part of him that also knows this was a grave error.
Patrick wants to get this off his chest, to confess his doubts to someone who would understand implicitly. But his confidante, his best friend, is Nina. If she cannot be that anymore . . . and she cannot be his . . . where does that leave them?
With a deep sigh he grabs the phone from his desk and dials an out-of-state number. He wants resolution, a present to give to Nina before he has to take the stand and testify against her. Farnsworth McGee, the police chief in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, answers on the third ring. "Hello?" he drawls, extending the word an extra syllable.
