The Daughter She Used To Be

by Rosalind Noonan

  “And how are you planning to do that?”

  “I’m not expecting to be a part of the defense team, but I would like to sit in when you interview Curtis and other character witnesses. I would gather their testimony, things that put a positive spin on your client’s character and circumstances. The testimony I gather will help in the sentencing hearing.”

  “And you’re going to sit in on interviews and depositions.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” He rose. “Excuse me if I don’t walk you to the door. I’ve had enough theater of the absurd.” He walked away.

  “But ... wait. I’m offering you free help.”

  He paused. “Miss Sullivan, did you ever hear mention in law school of an ancient device called attorney-client privilege?”

  “I ... well, of course.” She blinked. “It protects the communications between a client and his attorney from disclosure to the court.”

  “So you were paying attention. Think about it. Attorneys don’t bring an audience when they consult with their client. Of course you can’t ‘sit in’ on interviews.” He rolled his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me ...”

  He walked off, leaving her standing beneath the floating napkin tent. She reached up and pinged the canvas, then headed off in a funk.

  As soon as the kitchen door squeaked open, Bernie sensed the heavy air in the house.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” She tried a light tone, but the question fell flat in the kitchen full of women.

  “Oh, Bernie, love, close the door tight.” Her mother sounded like a wounded hen as she briefly looked up from rinsing dishes at the sink. “I feel a draft.”

  Sarah sat in her new spot in the corner chair, peeling potatoes. My old job, Bernie thought.

  “Did they fix your furnace yet?” Bernie asked. Sarah and the girls had moved into the back bedrooms when their furnace conked out.

  “Please.” Sarah shook her head. “The part that finally came to fix the old one still didn’t get it working. I’m meeting the contractor at the house tomorrow so they can install a brand-new furnace.”

  “You’re lucky your pipes didn’t burst,” Mary Kate said. “Conner had the idea of using space heaters. At least it’s keeping the house from freezing.”

  “I’ll be glad when it’s all working again.” Sarah put the last skinned potato in the pot. “Brendan used to take care of that stuff, and now I know why. These contractors hear a woman on the phone and they think I’m an idiot.”

  “I hope you flexed your muscles for them,” Bernie said, peeking into the living room for her father. She had expected to see him in his Barcalounger with the television on low, but the room was empty, the television off. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Down at the Spinnytop, probably head in the soup,” Peg said.

  “Dad?” Bernie had seen her father with a beer in his hand nearly every day of his life, but she’d never seen him drunk.

  Peg nodded toward the back room. “I don’t think he wanted the granddaughters to see him that way.”

  “Ma, none of us wants to see him like that.” There was a clang of pots as Mary Kate fished around in a cabinet. “He put Sully’s Cup up for sale. He met with one of those Realtors who specializes in commercial properties.”

  Sarah dumped the mound of potato skins into the trash. “I wish he hadn’t done that.”

  “Hence the morose cloud hanging over this house,” Bernie said. She herself had mixed feelings about the future of Sully’s Cup, but Sully was going to be lost without it.

  Still, Sully seemed to see it as the source of his downhill slide, which had begun the day of the shooting and accelerated when she’d stopped him from shooting Peyton Curtis that day in the hospital room.

  He’ll never forgive me.

  That was a tough burden to bear, but she would gladly shoulder it if she thought he could begin to forgive himself. He still believed it was his “cop” coffee shop that had lured the shooter in. Sully saw himself as the cause of the tragedy, and he couldn’t move past that.

  Killing Curtis would have provided a sort of closure for Sully, who saw it as his only chance to end the evil he’d unleashed. And she’d taken that away from him.

  Of course, this was the analysis she and Keesh had come up with last Friday when he’d stopped over after work and stayed the night. Keesh was the only person who knew about the hospital episode, and though his judgment was sound, the explanation they’d come up with was pure conjecture.

  No one really knew the multifaceted bloom of Sully’s suffering, and he wasn’t talking.

  Bernie took a Diet Pepsi from the fridge and sat down at the table. “Maybe it’s good that he’s not here, because he’s not going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  “What have you done now?” Mary Kate asked in that disapproving, older-sister voice that made Bernie cringe.

  “It’s worse than you can imagine.” Bernie let her eyes trace the familiar path through her mother’s kitchen that always calmed her, starting at the statue of the Virgin Mary facing east on the windowsill over the sink, to the teapot-shaped clock over the cabinets, then to the simple wood crucifix over the dining room doorway, and finally landing on the wreath of baby blue flowers on the wall over the table. This room, this home, had always brought her comfort, but today the walls seemed like a hollow façade. There was dust on the clock and she noticed that the satin flowers of the wreath had faded to gray. Suddenly, her heart ached for the simpler days of her childhood.

  “Bernie?” Sarah broke the silence. She added water to the potatoes and set them up on the stove. “What’s up with you?”

  “I’m getting into an area that’s going to make Dad mad at me. And you guys probably won’t be so happy about it, either.” She told them about her meeting with Curtis’s attorney. “He rejected me, but I can’t let it go. Even if I have to resign from my job and start some sort of nonprofit organization, a campaign to end capital punishment, or something like that, this is something I need to do.”

  “Working for the enemy,” Mary Kate said. “At least, that’s how Dad will see it.”

  “But I’m really working for our brother’s memory. Don’t you remember that night when he talked about the death penalty? Do you remember, Sarah?”

  “I really don’t.” Sarah’s eyes were the blue of a sea churning before a storm. “I don’t think I was in on that conversation, but it makes sense. He had a gentle heart. Such a softy for kids. A real people person. I could see him defending life.” She folded her arms over her chest, drifting off in thought.

  Well, at least Sarah wouldn’t hate her. Bernie took a swig of diet soda, wondering if Sully would be back for dinner. Maybe this would be her last supper here for a while.

  “So what’s troubling you most about this, Bernadette?” Peg asked, her hands busy forming biscuits on a tray. “Is it the disapproval of this family, or are you not sure of what’s right?”

  “I know what’s right, Ma. Brendan knew it was wrong to take another man’s life, even in the most heinous cases. Think about it. He wouldn’t want Curtis to be killed. He can’t speak for himself, but I’m here, and I can defend his beliefs. I have to do it.”

  “Then you have to go for it and stop worrying about what other people will think. And I say good luck to you.” Peg wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face Bernie. “Our Brendan is dead, and there’s no bringing him back. I say we find the killer, lock him up, and throw away the key. That’s good enough for me.”

  “Same,” Mary Kate said. “I don’t believe in execution, either, but I just don’t want this guy to get off because he’s crazy or had an underprivileged childhood or some lame excuse like that.”

  “Nobody’s looking for that to happen,” Bernie said.

  “Good.” MK shredded a carrot into the salad. “So I guess we’ll let you stay in the family then.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Bernie took a sip of soda, thinking that Sully wasn’t going to be quite so gen
erous.

  Chapter 44

  Sarah sat on the edge of the paper-covered examining table, her bare legs crossed. She had told the nurse she didn’t need an exam, but the woman had insisted that she change into the drafty gown.

  “Doctor Newbury will want to examine you,” the nurse had insisted with wide eyes, as if there would be a terrible punishment if they defied the doctor.

  Which Sarah was about to do. “I don’t want to be examined,” she told the doctor. “I don’t want anything that will compare this in any way to my girls, to the babies I had with you. I know I’m pregnant, and I need to terminate the pregnancy.”

  Dr. Patricia Newbury didn’t register shock or disapproval as she gazed up at Sarah. For the first time Sarah noticed that Newbury’s short cloud of blond hair had streaks of gray running through it, and she wondered if her OB-GYN was too old now to have any more babies. What a blessing.

  The doctor closed Sarah’s chart and rose so that she could look Sarah in the eye. “You don’t think you can handle a new baby on your own.”

  “I know I can’t.”

  “That’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot, Sarah.”

  “And I’ve got more torture to come. The prospect of harming a living thing disturbs me, but I can’t think of any other way.”

  “You’re an educated woman,” Dr. Newbury said. “Scientists tell us that the fetus has no awareness and no pain sensation until after the fifth month of pregnancy. If that has any bearing on your decision ...”

  “I’m just trying to look forward, to the future, in a realistic way, and a baby ... I wouldn’t have a minute for Grace and Maisey, and they need me now.”

  Dr. Newbury nodded, her gray eyes soaking it all in.

  “So I just want the pill you give to people that causes the ... the medical abortion. I read online that you can take it up to the seventh week, and by my calculations I’m right around the fifth week. Or sixth. Somewhere around there.”

  “Seven weeks is the range we’re comfortable with giving a medical abortion.” Newbury stepped back to lean against the counter. She looked to the ceiling and sunk her hands into the pockets of her white coat. “But I’d like to do an exam. Your chart says you’re on the Pill.”

  “But barely.” Sarah looked down at her hands, her index finger worrying the loose cuticle on her thumb. She’d been tearing at her cuticles the past two weeks, but if that was her nastiest vice, she figured she’d survive. “I wasn’t so good about taking a pill every day. And when the last month’s packet was done, I couldn’t make it to the pharmacy. I kept trying to, but ... Anyway, I figured I’d take a month off and start again. I thought the hormones would stay in my system.”

  “Sometimes they do.”

  “Except for the unlucky few.” Sarah tugged hard on the loose strip of cuticle, pulling until she felt pain. There. That made her feel better somehow. It made the psychological pain recede somewhat.

  “There’s the possibility that the fetus isn’t viable,” the doctor said. “Usually that’s not the news people want, but in your case, I suspect it might help alleviate some guilt.”

  The doctor was right, but Sarah did not want this to feel like a real pregnancy. She didn’t want an exam. “Can’t I just get the medicine and go?”

  “Sarah, it’s not that simple. I’m concerned about your health, physical and emotional. Some women feel relief after their abortion. Others report feeling sad or overwrought for days or weeks afterward. If you choose to terminate, we’ll need to address any emotional fallout, too.”

  “So I’ll go for therapy. I just lost my husband. I wouldn’t mind talking to someone once a week. An hour on a couch would be heaven right now.”

  “Therapy sounds like a good idea for the long term. But the abortion isn’t something you can work out over time. If your calculations are right, we have two more weeks for a medical abortion. Surgical, you can go up to twelve weeks. That would give you another month to think about it.”

  “I don’t want to think. I want it to be over.”

  “Sarah.” Dr. Newbury moved closer and took Sarah’s hands in hers, surprising Sarah. Her hands were surprisingly soft against Sarah’s dry cuticles. “I have no qualms about terminating your pregnancy if you’re absolutely sure. It’s your choice. But this is such a difficult time for you. I’m sure you’re feeling ... fragile at best. You owe it to yourself to take a few more days to think about it. Meet with a therapist.”

  When the woman’s sincere gray eyes met hers, Sarah felt the corner of her lips curl in that screwed-up way she had of holding back tears.

  This time it didn’t work. Hot tears filled her eyes, running down her cheeks. “I’m such a mess.”

  The doctor released her hands and reached for a tissue box. “You seem to have your priorities in the right place, to take care of your girls. But I want to make sure you take care of Sarah, too. You have a lot of work ahead of you. I can give you a list of psychologists who take your insurance.”

  Sarah pressed a wad of tissues to her eyes. “Okay.”

  “And since you’re here, I’m going to be the pain-in-the-ass doctor and insist that you let me examine you.”

  Sarah laughed, then sniffed.

  “I knew you would say that.”

  “Okay?” The doctor glanced to a cart beside the examining table. “Janice has you set up for a transvaginal ultrasound. How about I do that right now? It doesn’t take long. I’m sure you remember the vaginal wand.”

  Sarah took a deep breath, then nodded in resignation. “Okay.”

  Dr. Newbury’s practiced, capable hands were reassuring, despite the usual discomfort of having someone work down there. Slathered with gel, the wand moved inside while Sarah stared off in the distance and tried to imagine herself anywhere but here. She was a speck inside a small crater on the ceiling tile. She was hovering over the roof of this cheesy flat-roofed building, ascending among the angel hair clouds in the cerulean sky.

  A rapid clicking sound brought Sarah back to the here and now. She turned her head to Dr. Newbury, who was facing the monitor. “There it is.” With her left hand she reached for the mouse and moved a cursor on the monitor to a small, peanut-shaped object. “That’s the fetus. The sound you’re hearing is the fetal heartbeat.”

  The pulse was quick, like the flutter of butterfly wings.

  “So fast?” Sarah asked.

  “That’s normal. I’m just going to take some quick measurements. The CRL. We measure crown to rump. Do you remember any of this from your last pregnancy?”

  “Not really.” It had been almost five years since Maisey’s birth, and Brendan had been with her for every step of the pregnancy and birth, never missing an appointment. He had focused on details, and she had focused on his joy.

  “At this stage, the fetus is called a fetal pole.” It looked like a knobby pole with a tail. “The head is right here.” The doctor marked it with the cursor.

  It didn’t look like much. Not even as elaborate as the paramecium cells you viewed under a microscope in school.

  But the sound ... the quick little flutter of the tiny butterfly inside her ... it tapped a tiny message.

  I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.

  If you choose.

  Chapter 45

  It was almost noon and Bernie was still in a robe at her laptop. Her second cup of coffee had grown cold, but from her online research she was starting to feel better about her choices.

  If she chose to fight capital punishment as a general issue, she wouldn’t be alone. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union were entrenched in a long-standing campaign to abolish the death penalty in each of the fifty states. The arguments and blogs on their website were clear and to the point. She knew they would support Peyton Curtis’s right to live.

  But the ACLU ... Dad would be horrified.

  Her cell started jingling, and she picked it up. Keesh.

  “This is really weird to be the new kid,” he said. “They want
me to go on a bus tour of Queens with all the new hires.”

  “Well, don’t get too cozy, because we’re moving to Canada.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Canada has abolished the death penalty. I say we pack our stuff and head north.”

  “Too cold. Any warmer options?”

  “Australia?”

  “They have seasons, but we’d never get snow at Christmas.”

  “Well, most of the European nations are good. Then you have China. Very disturbing. The Chinese execute prisoners by the hundreds.”

  “Sounds like you’re getting into it.”

  “It’s like writing a research paper. That love-hate thing.”

  “The HR person is back. Gotta go.”

  “Enjoy your tour. Wave if you pass my place.”

  Bernie stretched and went to the window of her bedroom, which was cracked open a few inches to take the edge off the dry heat. She had chosen this ground floor apartment with intentions of hanging out in the backyard, tanning and reading and throwing parties for friends. But it had never happened. As landlord, her father had put a charcoal grill on the patio, but she didn’t like to cook, and the weather rarely beckoned one to a Queens backyard. Summers were too hot, winters too cold, and in between, the yard was either a mud pit or a bed of leaves.

  Face it, you’re not the domestic type. Her sister Mary Kate would have gotten out there and planted. She’d have flowers popping up in rows in front of sculptured bushes. But Bernie preferred to spend her weekends sleeping in, going for a run, or hanging out with her friends. Not in the backyard.

  When the phone rang again, she assumed it was Keesh. Instead, it was a 212 number she didn’t recognize; Manhattan.

  “Hello?”