Mothers and Other Liars

by Amy Bourret

  SIXTY-THREE

  John pauses his questions to ask the court clerk to refill Ruby’s water. Ruby drinks and drinks, and the clerk refills the glass again before sitting back down.

  “Where did the California police officers take you, Ruby?”

  Ruby continues her story over the gurgling in her stomach.

  The police took her to another lady’s house. A chain fence made a square around the front yard. The yard didn’t grow grass, just dirt and toys. The lady’s hair was yellow on the bottom and brown on top. Her tummy poked out between her shorts and shirt, and her legs were jiggly. She talked with a cigarette poking out of the side of her mouth.

  Lots of other kids ran around, in and out of the house and across the yard. Some of them looked mean. Ruby cried when the police started to leave; she asked them please could she go with them and promised she’d be good, but they left her anyway.

  Ruby didn’t like staying at that house. The lady yelled all the time. The older kids were mean to her, and the babies cried really loud and their diapers sagged with poop. She wanted her mama and daddy. She felt scared all the way to her tummy every day and every night. The lady yelled at Ruby when she cried, so she tried really hard to keep her tears inside her eyes, but sometimes at night the tears leaked out onto her pillow, especially when the big boy climbed into her bed.

  After more days than Ruby had fingers, the doorbell rang at the foster home, and a lady called out to Ruby. She didn’t recognize Nana at first because she wasn’t at her regular house, and when Ruby did recognize her, all Ruby could do was cry.

  A yellow taxi drove Nana and Ruby to a big airport, and then they flew on a plane. Ruby was a little scared and a little excited because she had never been up in the air before. But mostly she was sad, because Nana told her that her mama and daddy’s car crashed and now they were in heaven.

  Nana said she was sorry Ruby had to stay at the house so long, that the police took a long time to find Nana because she and Ruby’s mama had different last names. Ruby knew that heaven was up in the sky, and she searched the clouds outside the airplane window.

  But she didn’t see her mama and daddy; she never saw them again.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  “Your Honor, the defense rests.” John strides back to the table, takes his seat as if he hasn’t a care in the world. Beyond him, Ruby catches sight of a familiar face. Chaz. Of course he came, even though she told him not to. Chaz meets her eye and gives a nod that says everything, that he finally understands.

  “Mr. Noble?” the judge asks.

  Noble stands, buttons his coat. His body tenses as if he is a cat readying to pounce.

  “Ms. Leander, on the subject of that birth certificate, did you destroy it, burn it?”

  “No. Not intentionally. But it could have gotten thrown out.”

  “But if we executed a search warrant of your house, it might be there? We might find it stuck in some pile of receipts or letters or something?”

  “I…I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Noble crosses his arms, looks at the jury, back at Ruby. “Let’s say that you didn’t find the article and next year you needed a birth certificate to get Lark in a different school or a camp or a doctor or—”

  “Objection,” John says. “Now this is speculation.”

  “Overruled. I’m going to allow it. The witness will answer the question.”

  Ruby looks up at the judge, over at John. They hadn’t practiced this one. “I, I guess I would have looked for it or asked the school for a copy or something.”

  Noble unfolds his arms, nods to the jury. “Thank you, Ms. Leander. Now let’s switch gears. Did you take that child—the Tinsdales’ child—across the state line of Oklahoma into New Mexico?”

  “Objection,” John says. “I think this has already been established, Your Honor.”

  “Your Honor, I am trying to establish consciousness of guilt through evidence of flight.”

  The judge looks at Ruby. “The witness may answer.”

  “Actually”—Ruby cringes a bit at using that word, Lark’s word—“we crossed into Texas, then into New Mexico.”

  Noble’s cheeks pink up a shade. “But. You did. Take that child and leave the state of Oklahoma with her?”

  “Yes.”

  The prosecutor slinks in for the kill. “Because you knew it was wrong, because you knew that little baby belonged to someone else.”

  Ruby shrugs. “Actually”—this time Lark’s word makes the inside of her mouth smile—“I was on my way to California, before I found Lark. I was just passing through Oklahoma and I, we, decided she’d come along, seeing as how she was just thrown away.”

  Now Noble’s cheeks are cherry bright. “Your Honor, will you please instruct the witness to stick to answering the questions asked?”

  The judge leans over the dais toward Ruby. His voice is stern, but his eyes twinkle. “Let’s rein in the editorializing.”

  Ruby nods, and takes a breath. She doesn’t want to come off as flippant, glib; this jury needs to like her. “I’m sorry, Mr. Noble.”

  Noble tugs at his tie. “And did you report to any authority the fact that you had come across this infant at a rest stop.”

  “Actually,” Ruby starts. Watch it, she tells herself. “I did tell the authorities. Just as soon as I found out about the carjacking, that Lark hadn’t been abandoned after all.”

  “I mean at the time you found the child. Did you at any time in the almost ten years leading up to finding that article ever tell anyone the truth?”

  Ruby resists the urge to look down at her hands; John made her practice keeping eye contact. She also avoids seeking out Chaz’s face in the gallery over John’s shoulder. “No.”

  Noble fans through some papers on his table. Ruby has no doubt his actions are for show; he knows exactly what he’s going to say next. “Where were you, Ms. Leander, on the morning of July 13 of this year?”

  “I…I was here. In Dallas.”

  “Despite a court order to remain in the state of New Mexico?”

  “Yes. I…”

  “And just where in our fine city were you on that morning?”

  “At the Tinsdales’. On the street in front of their house.”

  “And were you not also under a court order regarding contact with the Tinsdales and their child?”

  “Yes.”

  Noble’s “hmm” is as melodramatic as a silent-movie villain twisting the end of his mustache. “So in direct violation of not one but two separate court orders—”

  “I didn’t contact her.” Ruby’s words burble from her mouth despite her attempts at control. “I only wanted to see where she was living. I needed to see that she was all right.”

  “No. You wanted to kidnap that poor child all over again, didn’t you?”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  “Objection,” John says. “Your Honor, there is no evidence—”

  Noble smirks his “withdrawn” before John can finish his sentence, before Ruby has to face answering that question. He struts back to the prosecutor’s table, shakes his head when his assistant slides a yellow note pad his way. “That’s all I have for this witness.”

  “Redirect, Your Honor?” John pushes his chair back from the table. At the judge’s nod, he rises and walks over to the witness stand. “Ruby, who is the father of the baby you are carrying?”

  Noble jumps to his feet and shouts his objection before Ruby can answer. “Relevance, Your Honor?”

  “The prosecution has put Ms. Leander’s state of mind into issue, Your Honor,” John says. “If you give me a little latitude, this testimony goes to the heart of the matter.”

  Ruby can feel the judge’s eyes studying her before he turns back to John. “Go ahead.”

  As John tosses out questions about her relationship with Chaz, she tries to quell the shame of being pregnant and unmarried. She focuses on Chaz’s face behind the defendant’s table, allows herself to be calmed by the trust and encouragement she finds the
re.

  “Weren’t you worried about dating a cop?” John folds his arms, cocks his head toward the jury. “Weren’t you worried he’d find out about Lark? That he’d turn you in? Or that you’d put him in a compromising position between his job and you?”

  “I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. Until I found the article.” Ruby locks her eyes on Chaz’s face. “I should have…I didn’t tell him the truth. But not because I thought I was a criminal.”

  John’s voice softens. “Ruby, until the time you found that article, what was the ‘truth’ as you understood it?”

  As if she were at the communion rail at the little Episcopal church, Ruby clasps her hands on the bar of the witness stand. “That Lark had been abandoned. That there was no one who would be looking for her.”

  “Did you intend to kidnap her?”

  “No. Never.”

  John thanks Ruby, helps her from the stand. She knows he wants to depict her as a fragile pregnant woman, but frankly, his arm is welcome. Her legs are shaky; her head throbs. She feels, well, like a fragile pregnant woman.

  SIXTY-SIX

  The jurors file out the back door to make their deliberations, and Ruby stands beside John as the judge leaves his throne. Before she can sit again, strong hands spin her around, and she tilts into Chaz’s embrace. Her head acts on its own, seeking out the sweet spot between collarbone and collar. “You came.”

  “I came.”

  Chaz’s Adam’s apple slams against Ruby’s cheek. Behind them, the main doors swish open and swoosh closed, reporters stepping out to make phone calls, have a smoke. Ruby’s hot tears soak Chaz’s shirt. “I don’t…I don’t know why I’m crying now.” She spits words between hiccups.

  John hands Chaz a travel pouch of tissues, and Chaz mops up Ruby’s face, settles her in a chair.

  “This may take awhile,” John says. “Why don’t you two take a walk, grab a soda.”

  “I’d rather just sit here.” Ruby doesn’t want to have to walk back into this courtroom, up to this table, ever again.

  “I’ll go check my voice mail then.” John pats her hand, stuffs some papers into his briefcase, moves through the swinging gate to the gallery.

  Ruby and Chaz stay at the defense table while the court clerk removes the judge’s water glass and note pad, while Noble’s assistant packs her files and notebooks back into her box. Noble himself was first out the door.

  When the courtroom is empty, Ruby turns to Chaz. She unravels her voice from the knot in her chest, tells him about Lark, about the Tinsdales. She omits Lark’s parting words to her; these she needs to keep inside her, their razor edges cutting into her, not so much in an act of flagellation as to ward off the bone-weary numbness. If she can hold on to that burn, like a million paper cuts up and down her spine, then she can hang on to her plan.

  Before she can tell him the rest, John comes back through the courtroom door. “We have to talk,” Ruby says to Chaz. “Not now. But I have to tell you something.”

  “We’ve got forever to talk.” Chaz brushes a straggler tear from her cheek as John steps up to the table.

  John gestures toward the judge’s bench, where a clerk is placing a pitcher of water. “They need us out of here. The judge has an afternoon docket call.” He hands Chaz a pager, like the ones hostesses dole out at busy restaurants. “I’ll be in the lawyer’s conference room. You two go feed that baby of yours.”

  Later, Ruby sits in the conference room where she had her visit with Lark. Chaz alternates between sitting next to her and pacing the hall outside the large window. Across the table, John bends his head over a stack of papers with dense type, making notes in green ink.

  Time is a snail in the stuffy room. By late afternoon, Ruby is in a stupor. She knows she ate, but she couldn’t say what. She must have gone to the bathroom, several times, with a baby pummeling her bladder, yet she has no memory of leaving the conference room.

  Ruby thinks about the closing arguments, John stressing that she had no intent to harm, no malice in her actions, Noble painting her as the devil incarnate. She thinks about the judge’s instructions to the jury, telling them that, although they may feel acutely the pain that the parents of the child must have suffered these nine years, as well as the good the defendant thought she was doing, in the end, their decision must be grounded in the law.

  She tries to think about what might happen; she tries not to think about what might happen. She again folds her hands, prayerlike, over her belly, but this time she actually whispers a prayer, “What ever happens or doesn’t happen to me today, just let Lark and this baby be okay.”

  Finally the pager beside her flashes and jiggles and spins in a circle.

  Chaz and John walk on each side of her as she makes that long trek back up the courtroom aisle. The room seems to buzz with anticipation. The back doors swish and swoosh as the reporters rush to their seats. A cloud of coughing, chattering, rustling rises behind Ruby, but all noise ceases when the jury files into their seats. The room tastes metallic, like a green Iowa sky just before a tornado.

  Ruby has seen this part on TV so many times that she wants to giggle at watching it live, the judge asking the jury whether they have reached a verdict, the taller black woman standing, handing the bailiff a slip of paper, the bailiff walking the paper to the judge, back to the forewoman. The scene seems so clichéd that Ruby has to force herself to remember that her life, her freedom anyway, really is defined by that paper.

  At the judge’s prompting, she stands up beside John. She worried about this moment, about swooning like a movie-of-the-week actress, but she feels incredibly calm.

  The forewoman lifts animal-print reading glasses from the chain around her neck. “On the charge under the United States Code…of kidnapping, we find the defendant…”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  John grabs Ruby’s hand. She can feel the whole courtroom take a collective breath.

  “Not guilty.”

  Unlike the TV shows, the court does not erupt after these words. The Tinsdales don’t scream out or keen. And Ruby doesn’t faint in relief. There is only a swell of whispers behind her.

  “On the charge under the United States Code…of transporting a minor across state lines, we find the defendant…not guilty.” John squeezes Ruby’s hand, like a Montero amen.

  The forewoman clears her throat before continuing. “On the charge under the United States Code…for possession of false identification documentation, we find the defendant…guilty.”

  Ruby wipes away a splatter of tears from the tabletop as the bailiff returns the paper to the judge. She drops to her chair, too numb to know whether she is crying from relief at the big not guilty or fear about the conviction for using the fake birth certificate, which still could result in jail time, especially in this post-9/11 world.

  The judge sets the paper down in front of him, then dismisses the jury. The main door starts swishing and swooshing again as the reporters dash to meet deadlines. The judge turns to the clerk sitting at a desk to the side of the dais, says something or other about scheduling, jots down a few words on his note pad. He looks again at Ruby, but at the rise of belly above the table rather than at her eyes. “Mr. Noble, I will expect a presentencing report within two weeks. Now, is there anything else to come before this court today, Counselors?”

  Noble stands, puts on his earnest face. “Your Honor, at this time we would move to revoke the defendant’s bail—”

  The judge interrupts, clearly irritated. “Surely you are trying to add levity to these proceedings, Mr. Noble. This defendant came forward voluntarily, accepted service voluntarily, waived extradition, appeared here today. Surely you are not going to attempt to convince me that she’s a flight risk?”

  “She’s been convicted of a felony, Your Honor. It is incumbent upon this court to revoke bail.”

  The judge clears his throat. “Now, Mr. Noble, I’m quite sure that you did not mean to tell this court what it must do. Rather you meant to suggest
a course of action.”

  “Yes, yes. With apologies to the court, Your Honor.” Noble’s head dips for a moment, like a parishioner bowing to a cross, then pops back up. “But the issue remains—”

  “I understand your issue, Mr. Noble.” The judge turns to Ruby. “Miss Leander, did you surrender your passport at the extradition hearing in Santa Fe?”

  Amazingly, Ruby’s legs allow her to stand again. “I don’t have a passport, sir.”

  The judge chuckles. “And you don’t intend to procure one illegally now, do you?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Well, there you have it. Motion denied.” He leans back in his chair, folds his arms. “Now I’m going to ask both Miss Leander and the Tinsdales to go home and love their children.” He picks up the wooden gavel, oak Ruby thinks, and raps it once on the benchtop. “This court is adjourned.”

  “All rise,” the bailiff intones, and the judge leaves through the door behind the dais to the accompaniment of shuffling feet and rustling papers. The remainder of the journalists scurry out the main door.

  Ruby stays seated, looks at John. He smiles, clasps his hands in front of him. “We can still appeal the birth certificate charge, argue that the five-year statute of limitations has run on your one use and that you are no longer in possession of it.”

  She still is too dazed to know how to respond, what to think.

  “This was the best we could have hoped for,” John says, “under the circumstances.”

  “Under the circus-stances,” as Lark once said the word. Ruby pictures herself under a giant tent, striped black and white like an old-timey prisoner’s uniform, and the heavy canvas of circumstances held up by her own tired arms.

  SIXTY-EIGHT