The Laws of Gravity

by Liz Rosenberg

  It took nearly an hour to clear away the crowd from outside the courtroom. Stephanie had intercepted both the defendant and plaintiff and told them to stay away. The police started handing out written citations and parking tickets, and that seemed to do the trick. The journalists scattered, taking their cameras and equipment with them. Sol was more shaken by his run-in with Flannery than he cared to admit. What a fool he was, to have put his trust in such a man! He had considered Flannery almost a friend. Sol asked Frank Zimmer to cover for him, and looking a bit puzzled, the young part clerk had done the “All rise” in his quiet, even voice. He had pulled together all the needed files for the day; Myra pitched in, too. When she started to ask about Flannery, though, he cut her off. No one had filed a formal complaint about the morning’s disaster, but the judge knew he had a ticking time bomb on his hands. Katrina Turock looked like the cat who’d eaten the canary. For her, this was simply another opportunity. They managed to get the boy safely upstairs without further interference or publicity.

  The young witness sat beside his father, his hands folded in his lap. He was doing something curious with the hands, the judge realized, lacing and unlacing them, as if rearranging some design with his fingers. He looked like a nice kid—the kind of grandson he himself would have liked to have. Might conceivably still have. This boy was built just like his father beside him—the same broad shoulders, the same broad nose and deep brown level eyes. His hair was a bit darker and curlier, and he was wearing a navy blue blazer instead of a blue suit like his father. The father’s suit must have cost a thousand dollars, but the kid’s jacket was no bargain either. The boy kept his eyes on his hands.

  Nicole saw him come in, and she smiled at Julian, despite herself, but when he didn’t smile back she felt exhausted, as if she’d suddenly run out of gas. She felt that way a lot these days. When she put a halt to all the chemo treatments, she’d stopped feeling so nauseated, and some of the side effects went away, but inside, it was as if her body had dropped another floor on an elevator. The lump on her neck had returned. She had recurring nightmares now, where she came to a stone wall and could not get across it, though she could see Jay and Daisy on the other side, walking in the snow. The court case seemed more and more irrelevant. She kept on with it because she had said that she would, and stubbornness, it seemed, was the very last thing to go. Besides, to walk away from it now would be a betrayal of her husband and daughter. She’d fight this thing out to the end and try to leave them behind without bitterness. That was what she thought about now. How to exit gracefully, how to leave behind as little damage as possible.

  Peter had always prepared her for how this trial was likely to turn out. Another judge might have gone with the first motion to dismiss it altogether. She sometimes wished this one had. She had no false expectations. Still, having Julian testify against her in court brought more bitterness than she’d have expected. It knocked the wind right out of her. Mimi was nowhere in sight. Ari sat stolidly beside his son, one arm curved around his shoulder. He looked more alert, more solidly there, than he had for months.

  “This,” said the father, gesturing toward the boy, “is what we are trying to protect. This boy and his baby sister, who is too young to be here today.”

  Katrina called Ari to the stand. “Please state the age of your children.”

  “Julian is eleven,” the father said. “The baby—Arianna—is twenty-two months old.”

  “And can you describe the health of your children?”

  “Objection,” said Peter. “Compound question.”

  “Objection sustained,” said the judge. “The court will hear about one child’s health at a time.”

  Katrina rolled her eyes. “How would you describe the health of your daughter?” she asked with deliberate slowness.

  “It’s fine,” Ari said.

  “And the health of your son?”

  “Good,” the father said. “Their health is good. But some months ago, Julian got a lump”—his hand went instinctively to his own throat—“on his neck. A big hard lump on the side of his neck.” One hand hovered toward his son, as if to reassure himself. “The doctor thought it might be Hodgkin’s. We have the records. We had a biopsy done. That’s when I realized I could not go through with this thing. Life is too uncertain. Things go wrong when you least expect them. What if he really had been sick? What if we needed that cord blood for our own boy, and we had given it away?”

  “Objection to everything after ‘We had a biopsy done,’ Your Honor,” said Peter. “We request that it be stricken from the record. Witness may testify only to facts, not opinions.”

  “Objection sustained,” said the judge.

  “Is it a fact that you decided to withhold the cord blood after this biopsy?” asked Katrina Turock.

  “Yes, it is,” said Ari.

  “Thank you,” said Katrina. “Your witness,” she added, as she walked back to reclaim her seat. She said it the way a cat flicks its tail.

  “Mr. Wiesenthal,” said Peter. “What was the result of that biopsy?”

  “Benign,” the father said. “Something called a teratoma.—Like a hair ball, the doctor said. It happens sometimes. Still, it could have been much worse. Much, much worse.”

  “Objection,” said Peter. “Witness cannot speculate.”

  “Objection sustained,” said Sol.

  Katrina Turock was glaring at Peter.

  Ari looked rattled. His mouth opened and closed twice. “You understand,” he said. His fingers were gripping the edge of the wood table so hard that the blood left his fingertips. “I’m a father. I only—”

  “Objection again, Your Honor,” said Peter.

  “Sustained,” said Sol. “Mr. Wiesenthal, you are not to say anything unless you are asked a question.”

  Ari nodded.

  “I’m done here,” said Peter.

  Ari hurried back to his seat. His son kept his head down, the hair falling forward over his eyes.

  Katrina rose. “Defendant calls Julian Wiesenthal to the stand,” she said. She looked defiantly at Peter.

  “Objection,” said Peter. “Julian is too young to understand the oath.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Julian said. He did not say it impolitely.

  He looked like a nice boy, the judge thought. Unreadable, that half-babyish, half-teenage face. He felt the wrench inside his own gut when he looked at Nicole’s expression, her lowered head. Had any good come of it? Lieu had asked. Could any good come of it? This rending of flesh from flesh.

  “Julian,” the judge said. “Do you know what the truth is?”

  “Does anyone?” the boy asked.

  “Do you know that it is wrong to tell a lie?”

  “Of course,” said Julian.

  “So,” Sol continued, in a gentler voice. “You want to testify?”

  “I do,” the boy said, though his voice shivered a little on the word do.

  “And you’ve come of your own free will? No one has forced or coerced you to be here?”

  Julian shook his moppy head. His mouth was drawn tight. “No one,” he said. His father patted his arm with the hand that draped down over his shoulder.

  “All right, then,” the judge said. “Come on up to the stand, and we’ll swear you in.”

  The boy looked extremely solemn all during the procedure. He did not glance around the room, nor did he show the slightest inclination to dramatize or show off. He kept his hands clasped together and his eyes fixed on the judge’s face, which Sol found unusual in someone so young and inexperienced. His granddaughter Iris also had a preternaturally solemn face. Maybe this whole generation was born old. Aside from the small group, the court recorder tapping away, taking notes, and Carter Johnson himself standing guard at the back, the room was empty. Katrina Turock tapped her pencil rapidly on the wood desk in front of her, and then, hearing the sound rebound in the room, stopped.

  “Julian,” the judge said. “Is there any reason you feel you can’t speak freely
?” He inclined his head toward Nicole and her lawyer without mentioning them by name.

  “It’s fine,” Julian said. “I don’t care who hears me.”

  The judge nodded at Katrina, who strode toward Julian. “How old are you?” she asked

  “I’m eleven,” he said. He frowned at her as if to say, We already established that.

  “Do you know Nicole Greene?” she asked.

  “She’s my father’s cousin,” he said.

  “Her children are your cousins?”

  “She only has one child, but yes. Daisy is my cousin.”

  “Do you know what cord blood is, Julian?”

  “I looked it up on Wikipedia,” he answered. “Cord blood is blood that stays in the placenta and the umbilical cord after birth.”

  “Very good,” she said. Katrina laughed, and her laughter was rich and silvery, like bracelets jangling together. “Do you understand that you might need a cord blood transfusion someday?”

  “I don’t want it,” said Julian. “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”

  Ari jolted upright as if someone had administered an electric shock. The elderly court recorder stopped typing on her machine and looked at the judge for an instant, her eyebrow raised. Katrina moved forward, quick as a snake. “Your Honor, I object,” she said.

  “Overruled,” Sol said, just as quickly.

  “I don’t want the blood,” said Julian. “It’s mine, and I should have some say in the matter. I want it to go to Aunt Nicole. She needs it. I don’t.”

  “She is not your aunt!” Ari called.

  “My cousin,” Julian corrected himself, his voice shaking now.

  “You understand that this cord blood is being kept for your own benefit?” Katrina said. “Yours and your sister’s.”

  “I understand that,” Julian said. “But I really don’t give a crap.” For the first time now, he sounded like his father. “One of these days I’m going to turn twenty-one, and it’s going to belong to me. And I swear to God I’ll flush it down the toilet. I swear I will.—Arianna doesn’t need it. I don’t need it, I’m not sick. I wish I’d never been born!”

  The judge thought of the famous Jewish dictum, “Best of all never to have been.” He said nothing. The boy’s hands had come unclasped and were now leaning on the edge of the table, gripping the wood.

  “I don’t want it!” he shouted. “Will someone please, please listen to me?”

  “Calm down,” Katrina said stiffly. “We are listening very carefully to your testimony—including, most importantly, Judge Richter.”

  “You’re hearing my voice, but I don’t believe any of you are listening. I don’t want the goddamn cord blood!”

  “Shhh,” the father interrupted. “You are too young to know what you’re saying. You’re too young to know what you really want.” He seemed more stricken than angry.

  “Maybe you are too old to know what you want,” Sol said, taking himself by surprise. It was not his way to speak like this. Perhaps it was himself he was really talking about. He felt everything slipping away, out of his control. “Mr. Wiesenthal, I am not going to tell you again not to comment on the witness’s testimony. Order in the court!” he added curtly, again speaking mostly to himself.

  Nicole’s face was shining. She mouthed the words Thank you to Julian. He nodded, unsmiling. This was every bit as brave as the long-ago day she had dashed forward to protect her cousin and his dogs against the mongrel. Braver, she thought. Braver. We did all right with these kids. They’re going to be fine in the end. We did our job well. She was proud of herself, proud even of poor Ari. She wanted to throw her arms around them and go home.

  “I’m done with this witness,” Katrina said with disgust.

  “Counsel waives cross-examination,” Peter said.

  Julian began weeping like the child he really was as he stumbled out of the court, Ari hurrying after him.

  “I’m sorry!” Julian called tearfully to Nicole over his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Nothing I say makes any difference to anyone!” That wasn’t entirely true. Carter Johnson stepped out of the way when Julian passed, and opened the door for the boy. He gave just the smallest hint of a salute, but it was a real salute nonetheless.

  As soon as Nicole came home that afternoon, she dropped her bag on the floor and headed for the telephone. She didn’t allow herself time to think. She pressed the numbers of Mimi’s phone.

  “We have to stop this,” she said, as soon as Mimi picked up. “We can’t let them do this to us anymore. I’ve never wanted to live without you, and I’m damned if I’m going to die without you.”

  That Thursday when Julian came by to visit Daisy, he held a big wrapped box in his hands. Daisy was dancing by the front window, watching him come up the front walk.

  “What is it, what is it, what could it be?” she asked.

  “It’s a Wii!” Julian announced as soon as Daisy had yanked open the door. “With a sports game and a racing car game and a dancing game. I’m not doing the dancing game.”

  Daisy was too busy screaming to hear the rest.

  “Julian, thank you,” Nicole said. She couldn’t bring herself to say any more. She hugged him instead, tears in her eyes—but she hadn’t taken her eyes off Mimi, who was still inside the car, trying to get the parallel parking right. She never has learned how to line up the wheels of her car, Nicole thought. That’s something I can still teach her.

  “I don’t know how to set it up,” Daisy said.

  “It’s easy as lemon pie,” Julian said, with eleven-year-old superiority. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Mimi managed to get the car more or less parallel to the curb and was struggling out, holding her own bag of packages, in the kind of enormous bright foil gift bag Nicole’s mother had always used. She was wearing a shearling jacket and a boy’s-style gray watch cap—in fact, probably one of Julian’s hats. Nicole had to keep herself from running out into the snow. She waited for Mimi to get to the front steps, then flung the door open. Her heart was beating joyfully.

  “I brought presents,” Mimi said, setting down the bag.

  “So I see,” said Nicole. “What for?” She watched Mimi sizing her up, trying to hide her shock, her dismay at the change in Nicole, trying simply to smile. I know I’m dying, she wanted to say. It’s all right, it’s not as bad as you think.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mimi said, swiping the hat off her head and cramming it into her jacket pocket. “For the new year. Valentine’s Day. Something.”

  Nicole put both hands on her friend’s shoulders. She looked straight into those familiar brown eyes, the straight dark brows above them, her slightly crooked nose. “Lordy, lordy,” Nicole said. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  Mimi half smiled, but her eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nicole said. “I’ve missed you.”

  “No. I’m the one who’s sorry.” Mimi pressed her wet face against Nicole’s shoulder.

  “Okay, it’s a tie,” Nicole said. The two friends hugged and swayed back and forth a long time as if dancing, without speaking. They didn’t let go till the kids hollered at them to come downstairs. Daisy stood at the bottom of the stairway, studying them. She rolled her eyes at Julian, but looked triumphant.

  “Look!” she yelled. “Our mothers are in love.”

  Sol had decided to write the blood case decision without help. He wanted this last case to be entirely in his own words. Flannery had composed a draft weeks before, and Sol tossed it in the garbage now without looking at it. Then, thinking of Sarah, he relented and put it into the paper recycling bin, still unread.

  Sol struggled over the wording of this decision as if finding the right language might give him a clear conscience and direction. Justice, he knew, often depended on making the least damaging of two choices. Sol had given up his wide-eyed idealism long ago. Before he even got out of law school. Legal idealists were demagogues. They were more dangerous than the worst legal mind. The l
aw was fallible because it was an invention of fallible creatures.

  He had built his professional life on logic and precedent, and as long as he followed where they led, he felt he was in relatively safe territory. This had happened time and time again, over the years. Truth will spring forth from the earth, in the words of the Old Testament. But it evaded him now. He could not wrestle any meaning from the tangle of legalese. The harder he tried, the worse it sagged, snared in formal language like an animal caught in a trap.

  His judgment was a death sentence, he knew that, written in what felt like a dead language. He tried to add something of Flannery’s ornate style, but somehow that only made matters worse. Now the thing was not only dead but flowery. A eulogy. In despair one night, Sol showed Sarah what he had written.

  Sarah was in the midst of what Sol thought of as her Jewish phase. Twice a week she attended the bat-mitzvah class, but the rest of the time she studied on her own, head down, reading glasses falling to the end of her nose. Between her studies and the time she spent with Iris, she seemed happier, more self-sufficient, than she’d been in years. Now she examined her husband’s written notes closely, as if they, too, were Talmudic commentary, her chin propped in her hand. The lamplight glinted on her short gray hair. Finally she looked up.

  “What are you trying to say?” she said.

  Sol groaned and reached for the papers. “That bad,” he sighed. “Jeez.”

  “No. Sol. Forget the writing a minute. Just tell me what it is you’re trying to say.”

  He felt like an unprepared actor whose script had been snatched away. He tried to remember how the written decision began. “After due deliberation, it is the opinion of the Supreme Court of Nassau County, in accordance with—”

  “In your own words,” she interrupted. “Say it in English.”

  “Okay.” He started again. “I’m trying to say—I want to say that it’s impossible to force body parts or bodily fluids to be taken from one person and given to another without consent. Even if it saves a life. Legally speaking, it’s a slippery slope with horror at the end of it. Nonetheless, I want the defendant to carefully consider what he is doing. It’s up to him, we can’t force him from his path no matter how much we may detest him for it.”