by RJ Crayton
“Yes,” my father says.
“Was she in a serious relationship?”
“Not that I know of.” The lie comes out smoothly, effectively; it seems fairly honest. I wonder briefly if Uncle Albert feels compelled, as an officer of the court, to report my father’s perjury. Though, it occurs to me at this very moment, Albert told me that to put me at ease. He was never worried about his duty as an officer of the court to report perjury. He was worried that I would not be able to lie effectively. It is why he chose my father to testify. Haleema is better at being honest, forthright and sincere. That would come through to a jury. But, when she tried to force a lie, if she were even willing to do that on my behalf, it would come through to the jury, too. My father, on the other hand, is better at lying, while appearing honest, forthright and sincere.
Bickers freezes and stares at my father a moment. “You did just tell us that you and your daughter were close. Would it be possible for her to have a steady boyfriend and you not know of it?”
My father raises his hand to his chin, as if to ponder the question. This is a great stalling tactic he uses often during the campaign. He smiles, then almost chuckles. “We’re close,” he says to Bickers. “But, I have to admit, like a lot of fathers who want to protect their daughters from unsavory characters, I have not been the most inviting to men who try to woo her. Therefore, she tends not to bring them around unless they’re ready for a little serious scrutiny.”
It’s a good answer. Close, but not so close my daughter brings me every dreg she dates.
“So,” Bickers says in a voice that is a little too condescending, even in just that one word. “You and your daughter are not close, when it comes to her love life?”
My father smiles, and tries not to appear defensive. “Well, I’m not sure how much other daughters tell their fathers about their love life. But, I don’t think Kelsey was any more reticent than other women her age. It’s not really the subject she wanted to discuss with me, unless necessary.”
Bickers nods. “Do you know who the father of your grandchild is?”
My father pauses. “No, I don’t.”
“Really?” Bickers demands.
My father’s face flushes slightly, clearly irritated. “Sir, I do not know.”
Bickers smiles briefly. He walks to his table, takes a paper from his briefcase, walks back to my father, and hands him the sheet. “Please read the top line, Senator Reed, then read the highlighted section.”
My father pulls a pair of reading glasses from his suit-jacket pocket and puts them on. Whatever he is on the paper has turned him incredulous. He looks to Uncle Albert, then the judge. “Your honor,” my father says to the judge, “this is a transcript of a privileged conversation I had with my daughter. This is not admissible.”
Uncle Albert stands, then approaches the bench. The judge bangs his gavel, and calls a short recess to discuss this matter. My father sits in the witness chair, while Uncle Albert, Bickers and the judge leave the room. The men are gone five minutes. When they return, Albert is wearing his game face, but his eyes seem dejected. He sits next to me and writes a note: “Your father’s first conversation with you was not privileged. Will explain later. May mean trouble. No matter what happens, don’t show any emotion. Game face, Kelsey.”
I want to scream. Game face! How am I supposed to keep on my game face when things are clearly falling apart.
“Senator Reed, please read the transcript,” Bickers says crisply. “This is not privileged.”
Uncle Albert stands, opens his mouth to speak. The judge waves him down. “Harrell,” the judge says. “Your objection in my chambers is duly noted for the appeals process. However, I do rule this to be admissible.” Albert sits.
My father begins reading. “Transcript of conversation, Thursday, May 14, for inmate Kelsey A. Reed.”
“And the highlighted section,” Bickers prods.
My father reads the brief snippet of our conversation that first time he saw me, the conversation where he and I discussed notifying the father of the baby, and I admitted it was the boy I’d introduced him to, John.
“So, Senator Reed,” Bickers says, smugly, triumphantly. “When I asked you if you knew who the father was, why did you lie?”
My father has been caught in the lie. There is no denying it now. “I didn’t lie,” my father responds.
There is a moment of stunned silence among the courtroom, as everyone appears riveted by my father’s words. Then Bickers narrows his eyes, sharpens his voice so it comes out almost shrill, and definitely accusatory. “You’re saying this transcript is inaccurate?”
My father looks him in the eye. “No, it’s accurate.”
Annoyed now, Bickers asks. “Then you know the father is this John fellow.”
“No,” my father says firmly, in a tone hinting Mr. Bickers is an idiot for not understanding. “I spoke with John. He said he and Kelsey dated briefly, but had not been intimate. Given John’s state of mental clarity and Kelsey’s state of psychosis, I took him at his word, and feel confident he is not the baby’s father. As I stated before, I do not know who the baby’s father is.”
If my father’s answer has flustered Bickers, he doesn’t show it. He simply takes the transcript from my father and returns it to the table. Then, he walks back to where my father sits. “Do you think your daughter knows who the father of her baby is?”
“Somewhere in her mind, yes. I think she does. I think the psychosis has hidden it, though.”
Bickers laughs. “Pregnancy psychosis does not create memory loss, Senator Reed. Is it possible your daughter hasn’t told you who the father is because she sleeps around and doesn’t know?”
“My daughter is not promiscuous,” my father shouts. Bickers has clearly roiled him with the last statement. It is rare for my father, public man that he is, to appear so angry in front of the voting public.
“How would you know? Didn’t you say your daughter didn’t discuss all of her paramours with you?”
“I did say that,” my father says, managing to have calmed himself that quickly.
“Then, isn’t it possible, she was having sex with many different men and you wouldn’t know.”
“It’s possible she was secretly discovering a cure for cancer too, but I think it’s highly improbable.”
Bickers sighs with impatience. “This a yes or no question, Senator Reed. Is it possible your daughter was having sex with several men, and does not know who the father of this baby is?”
My father responds quietly. “Yes.”
Bickers smiles ever so slightly, then returns serious. “Isn’t it true that you thought your daughter’s promiscuity that resulted in pregnancy is what caused her to flee her marking?”
“No,” my father declares.
Bickers gives him a disapproving look. “Did you tell the psychiatrists who initially interviewed your daughter in the holding facility that you thought she ran because she feared her situation would be a detriment to your campaign?”
My father does not answer immediately. He is trying to figure out how to spin this, but he knows he doesn’t have a lot of time. Hopefully, no one but me, who has seen so many of his expressions, sees the moment of uncertainty cross his face before he answers. “Yes, I did, but the situation I was referring to was her pregnancy.”
Bickers nods curtly. “I see,” he says, then turns toward his table, walks to it, and sits down on the edge of it, facing my father. Bickers raises a hand to his chin, as if he were the model in that famous Rodin sculpture, the Thinker. “Hmm. Wouldn’t fleeing a marking be more of an embarrassment to your campaign than an unplanned pregnancy?”
“Yes, but I knew Kelsey wasn’t thinking clearly. I believe I stated that earlier.”
Bickers stands, then walks back toward my father. “Would a pregnancy where your daughter didn’t know who the father was be more detrimental to your campaign than one where she was happily in a relationship and on the path to marriage?”
&
nbsp; Albert objects. “Your honor, my client is not a psychic or an expert in public perception.”
The judge tells Mr. Bickers he can’t ask the question, and strikes it from the record. But, it is clear the jury is looking at me in a different light now. It is as if a wave of disgust is now emanating from the jury box. It is a noticeable and rapid change from how things were just moments ago. I am now a whore. That is about as antithetical to Life First as you can get. Most sexually transmitted diseases have been eradicated, but being a society borne from the survivors of pandemics, we are well aware that diseases don’t stay dormant forever. Monogamy and marriage are high values because of this. Deadly STDs are a concern, and anyone who values life would not be promiscuous and risk spreading disease. It’s just the way things are. And now, I’ve been painted with this label. This is awful. I try to keep my game face on as I watch Bickers return to his seat, then say pleasantly to the judge. “I’m done, your honor.”
Uncle Albert stands and attempts damage control. “Do you think your daughter knows who the father of her baby is?”
“Yes,” my father says, quickly.
“Have you ever seen any indication your daughter is promiscuous?”
“No,” he says emphatically. “She values herself and others. She would not be promiscuous.”
“When you told doctors you thought she fled due to the pregnancy, it was simply because you thought she was concerned the unwed pregnancy would negatively impact your campaign?”
“Yes, absolutely,” my father answers quickly. “Even when she was young, I told her that how she behaved could and would affect my campaign. I thought maybe she took it too much to heart, that she thought being pregnant and not married would hurt me and she tried to flee. I have never been concerned about promiscuity.”
Uncle Albert nods, then sits. This is the best he can do, I guess.
The judge orders a recess. When the jury is gone, my father joins us at the table. “I’m sorry, Kelsey,” he says.
I shake my head. “Nothing to be sorry about, Dad,” I say. “You did the best you could in a bad situation.”
Albert sighs, nods as if in agreement. But, it is clear by his posture and the barren look in his eyes that he thinks this is bad. If Albert gave me confidence earlier, he is giving me the exact opposite now: fear. I have to shake it off. “Why?” I ask. “Why were they able to use the transcript.”
“It wasn’t privileged,” Albert says, clearly distracted by thoughts of what happened.
“The judge said that,” I remind him, though more frustration seeps out than I want. I try to temper my next statement. “Why wasn’t it?”
“There are two types of bar licenses: active, for people who are practicing attorneys, and inactive, for people who have practiced, but are not practicing now and want to be able to practice law again, at some point in the future. Keeping an inactive license means you pay a fee, and don’t have to take the bar again when you decide to return to practicing. Being active means you do stuff like pro bono work, etc.”
He is rambling. My father’s testimony was worse than I thought if it has sent Uncle Albert into fits of rambling. “I get it, but what does this have to do with anything?”
“Up until last week, your father was inactive, which meant he couldn’t practice law. That’s one reason he couldn’t get in to see you. He tried as your attorney, and they said his bar was inactive. He went through the hoops to reactivate it, and then they let him in to see you. But, they let him in initially as your father, because his reactivation didn’t occur until the following day. Therefore, the conversation wasn’t privileged.”
“I’m sorry, Kelsey,” my father says, meaning it completely.
I shake my head. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I wanted you to tell him about the baby, and I didn’t realize it would be a problem. You saved me. It’s not your fault.”
My father closes his eyes and hangs his head. Finally, he looks up at me. “Still, I feel like I should have done something differently. I didn’t want anything from that day to come back to hurt you.”
I lean forward and hug my father. “It’s OK, Daddy, really.” I say, trying to sound soothing. I turn back to Uncle Albert, and the weight of my lie sets in. It isn’t OK. Really, it isn’t. But contributing to my father’s guilt is even more not OK. So, I take the lesser of the two evils and try to make him feel better. But, I fear my father’s testimony is going to lead any waffling juror to the conclusion that Kelsey is a bad person and needs to be convicted.
Chapter 30: Closing Arguments
Bickers stands, his pinched face drawn into a vengeful scowl. “Kelsey Reed has refused to do her duty. She refused this duty because she is a sociopath who wants to hurt society. The law is clear on what must happen. She comes in here, hoping to feed on your sympathies and talking out of both sides of her mouth.”
He walks in front of the jury box, looking at each juror as if trying to connect. “Her attorney and psychiatrist tell you she is suffering from an obscure condition known as pregnancy psychosis. That she is deluding herself. Yet, you saw her on the video, you heard her. She isn’t suffering from any psychosis. She just doesn’t want to do her duty. Doesn’t care if Mr. Lyons lives or dies. Not her problem,” he says, throwing a contemptuous look my way.
“This is a free society, one people choose to live in, to be a part of. If Ms. Reed didn’t believe in Life First, she was welcome to leave. Welcome to go off to Peoria or Nuriland, or some other place where civilization is on the decline and every man or woman is for himself. She had every opportunity to say good-bye. But, she didn’t do that.”
Bickers shakes his head in disgust. “Instead, she stayed here, took advantage of our society, of our excellent health care, of our food and policies dedicated to preserving life. She didn’t run off to join those Peorians. She stayed here and reaped the benefits of our society.
“That is, until she was called upon to perform her civic duty, to help her society survive and thrive, as it has done for the last century. Then, she decided our rules were bad and she didn’t want to follow them. She tried to flee, and didn’t give a damn that Mr. Lyons might die because of it.
“Now, her attorney will tell you that her fleeing didn’t matter in the end, that it was alright because Mr. Lyons required a new donor anyway. Ms. Reed, due to her pregnancy, was unable to give a kidney.
“He parades her out here, tells you she’s pregnant, reminds you that she will be a mother, one of our most revered roles in society: giver of life. He plays on your sympathy for mothers, plays on your regard for their safety and well-being. But, Kelsey Reed is not the normal mother of FoSS. She is not married or in a loving relationship that can nurture and raise a child. She is unmarried, and likely someone who is reckless with her body.”
Bickers pauses, then looks back at me, letting the jury savor his words a moment before continuing. “Her father testified. He told us she was a wonderful girl. Yet, he knew few of her suitors. And could not identify the father of her baby. The man she told him was the father was not. Does she sleep around? Whore herself? Disrespect her body? Potentially spread disease?”
Two people on the jury gasp. I hold my face as steady as I can, though I feel the anger rising in me. The idea that I am a whore who doesn’t know the father of my child is incensing. Especially when I know he is the sweetest, most caring person I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet.
“Her father admits it’s possible she is promiscuous. Though, he can never really know. And while her attorney claims this pregnancy psychosis disorder, Ms. Reed does not appear the least bit mentally distressed. Not as she sits here in this courtroom. And not in the recording where she was interviewed by Dr. Klein. Do you remember what she said when Dr. Klein asked her what would happen if they could not find another kidney for Mr. Lyons? Kelsey Reed looked at that doctor and said, ‘Then he would die.’ She was cold and callous and didn’t care. That was not pregnancy psychosis. That was a killer. A person who does not
put Life First.”
Bickers waits the appropriate amount of time for his words to sink in, for their weight to resonate with the jury, then continues. “Please, look at the facts here. Doctors Klein and Grant have called it right. Ms. Reed is not suffering from psychosis. She is a sociopath. Cold and hard at heart. A moocher from society. Please find her guilty, so she can pay her due. Save Ms. Reed’s child from her. Find her guilty and allow the court to have the baby removed. Then, Ms. Reed can dutifully pay the society she loved so much until recently, what she owes it.”
And with that, he returns to his chair.
I want to convict me. This is hopeless. I turn to Uncle Albert. He stands slowly, deliberately and walks toward the jury. His countenance is sober, yet he manages to not be grim or foreboding.
He takes in a deep breath, turns slightly, angling himself so the jury can see both me and him, and then he motions to me. “Mr. Bickers is trying to paint a picture of Kelsey Reed that just isn’t true,” he says with conviction.
“He wants you to think she’s a sociopath. That’s a lie. Ms. Reed is the backbone of our society. She is a giver of life. Right now in her womb, a life waits to be nurtured and loved. Unfortunately for Ms. Reed, with that new life has also come a sickness. A disease that has caused Ms. Reed not to be herself.”
He looks my way again, lamentful, then continues. “You’ve heard testimony from the psychiatrists, from Susan Harper, from Senator Reed. This is not the Kelsey Reed they know. This woman who fled is the result of psychosis. Think back to Ms. Harper’s testimony. You remember?” he asks, making eye contact with several members of the jury. “Ms. Harper pulled herself into that witness chair and told us how being marked caused her paralysis. Ms. Reed saw the result of that paralysis every day. Ms. Reed heard her friend lament going in for her procedure every day for almost a year. Then, Ms. Reed learned she would have to do the same thing.
“And due to her psychosis, she snapped. She internalized Ms. Harper’s plight as her own. She feared it and she fled. It was a mistake, a mistake caused by disease. This disease destroyed her reason. Don’t let it destroy her life, too.”
