Right now, you know better than I do what the evidence is. You certainly know better than I do how Nathaniel is faring. But you also know there are some pieces of the puzzle we're waiting on- like the lab reports, and your son's recovery. Six months from now, a year from now . . . Nathaniel might be doing a whole lot better, and taking the stand might not be as much of a hardship. "
"He is five years old. In those fifteen years, Tom, how many cases with a five-year-old witness ended up with a perp in jail for life?"
Not a single one, and he knows it. "Then we'll wait," Tom says. "We have some time, and the defendant is going to want time too, you know that."
"You can't hold him in jail forever."
"I'm going to ask for $150,000 bail. And I doubt the Catholic Church will post it for him." He smiles at me. "He's not going anywhere, Nina."
I feel Caleb's hand steal into my lap, and I grab onto it. I think he is supporting me, at first, but then he squeezes my fingers nearly to the point of pain. "Nina," he says pleasantly, "maybe we should just let Mr. LaCroix do his job right now."
"It's my job too," I point out. "I put children on the stand every day, and I watch them fall apart, and then I watch the abusers walk. How can you ask me to forget that, when we're talking about Nathaniel?"
"Exactly-we're talking about Nathaniel. And today he needs a mother more than he needs a mother who is a prosecutor. We need to look at this in steps, and today that step is keeping Szyszynski locked up,"
Tom says. "Let's just focus, and once we clear this hurdle, we can decide what to do next."
I stare into my lap, where I've nervously pleated my skirt into a thousand wrinkles. "I know what you're saying."
"Good, then."
Lifting my gaze, I smile slightly. "You're saying the same thing I do, to victims, when I really don't know if I have any chance of securing a conviction."
To his credit, Tom nods. "You're right. But I'm not trying to con you. We never know which cases are going to work out, which cases are going to take a plea, which kids will make a turnaround, which kids will heal to the point where a year from now, they're able to contribute in a way they can't that first day."
I get to my feet. "But you said it yourself, Tom. Today I'm not supposed to give a damn about those other kids. Today I just care about my own." I walk to the door before Caleb even has risen from his seat. "One o'clock," I say, and it is a warning.
Caleb doesn't catch up to her until they are in the lobby, and then, he has to pull her aside to a small nook, where reporters will not find them. "What was that all about?"
"I'm protecting Nathaniel." Nina crosses her arms, daring him to say otherwise.
She seems shaky and unsteady, not at all herself. Maybe it is just the truth of this day. God knows, Caleb isn't faring all that well either. "We ought to go tell Monica that there's a delay."
But Nina is busy putting on her coat. "Can you do it?" she asks. "I need to run to the office."
"Now?" Alfred, and the superior court building, is only fifteen minutes away. But still.
"It's something I have to give to Thomas," she explains.
Caleb shrugs. He watches Nina walk out the front steps. The flashes of several cameras strike her like bullets, freezing her in time as she jogs down the steps. Caleb sees her brush off a reporter with no more effort than she would use to wave away a fly.
He wants to run after her, hold Nina until that wall around her cracks and all the pain spills out. He wants to tell her that she doesn't have to be so strong around him, because they are in this together. He wants to take her downstairs to the bright room with alphabet squares on the floor, sit with their son between them. All she has to do is take off those focused blinders; then she will see that she isn't alone.
Caleb goes so far as to open the glass door, to stick his head outside. By now she is a dot, far across the parking lot. Her name hovers on his lips, but then there is an explosion that blinds him-a newspaper photographer, again. Backing inside, he tries to shake the double vision, but it is a long time before he can see clearly; and so he never witnesses Nina's car leaving the courthouse lot, turning in the opposite direction of her office.
I'm late.
I hurry through the front door of the court, around the line of people waiting to go through the metal detector. "Hey, Mike," I say breathlessly, slipping behind the familiar bailiff, who just nods. Our courtroom is to the left; I open the double doors and walk inside.
It is filled with reporters and cameramen, all lined up in the back rows like the bad kids on the rear seats of a bus. This is a big story for York County, Maine. This is a big story for any place.
I walk to the front, where Patrick and Caleb are sitting. They have left a seat on the aisle for me. For a moment I fight my natural inclination- to continue through the gate, and sit at the prosecutor's table with Thomas LaCroix. That is why we "pass the bar"-we are allowed, by virtue of that test, to work in the front of the courtroom.
I don't know the defense attorney. Probably someone from Portland. Someone the diocese keeps on retainer for things like this. There is a cameraman set up to the right of the defense table, his head bent close to the machine in preparation.
Patrick notices me first. "Hey," he says. "You all right?"
As I expect, Caleb is angry. "Where have you been? I've tried-"
