The Furthest City Light

by Jeanne Winer

  ***

  During the following month, I settled my sexual assault case, tried a hopeless burglary and won it, and thought about various pre-trial motions—all of them losers—that I could file on Emily’s behalf. Donald, meanwhile, had located a couple of witnesses who were willing to testify that Hal used excessive force when he’d arrested them. Two more bricks, but still not enough. If Emily was going to risk her life, I needed something more to tip the balance solidly in her favor: a missing witness or some crucial piece of evidence.

  I started waking up in the middle of the night imagining the looks on the jurors’ faces when they found out Emily hadn’t actually been attacked on the night she stabbed her husband. I’d seen those looks when I was a baby lawyer, before I figured out that jurors wouldn’t acquit my clients just because I begged them. Reasonable doubt involved crafting a strong understandable defense that would hold up against the worst facts in the case. Without something more, Emily’s claim might get overrun. Finally, on a cold February morning, while Vickie and I were making love on our king-sized bed, I found it.

  Eureka! I would get an expert who could testify about battered woman syndrome, someone who would educate the jury about the general characteristics common to women who have been psychologically and physically abused over a lengthy period of time. I could then ask my expert a series of questions about Emily’s behavior and ask her to explain why Emily may have acted the way she did. If I called the expert before my client took the stand, the jury would be much less skeptical during Emily’s testimony. Yes, it would work!

  Of course, I still had to find an expert and convince Judge Thomas to let me put her on. It was 1986, about ten years since the first battered women’s shelter opened in North America. Although a few states had already recognized battered woman syndrome, Colorado wasn’t one of them. But these were merely obstacles. What was the name of the psychologist who wrote the book on battered women? Lenore Walker, that was it. She lived in Denver, didn’t she?

  “Rachel?”

  “Huh?” I said.

  Vickie’s head was about six inches below my navel. She’d stopped doing what she was doing and was now looking up at me. “Where did you go?” she asked, sounding slightly petulant.

  I was so ashamed, I told the truth. “I’m sorry, Vickie. I was thinking about my case.”

  She slid her strong slender body all the way back up until our faces were only a couple of inches apart. Her eyes were glazed and her lips were the color of pink coral. With her jet-black hair tucked carelessly behind her ears, she looked especially beautiful.

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeated.

  “I want you to come back,” she said, brushing her breasts against mine.

  “I’m already back.”

  “Because,” she continued, pressing her pelvis into mine and then gently grinding herself against me, “this is the last refuge we have against the world and all its sorrows.”

  “I understand.” I attempted to kiss her, but she averted her face and was biting my ear.

  “Once we let it in,” she whispered, “there’s no place left where there isn’t pain and sadness.” She pushed my legs apart with her knees. “No place left where there’s only the pure physicality of our love for each other.”

  “Okay,” I said, panting a little as heat rushed to my face.

  She slipped a couple of fingers inside me. “This is the only time when I demand your complete attention.”

  “Not a problem,” I gasped, then pulled her down to me and kissed her until the world and all its sorrows was back where it was supposed to be, right outside the door, waiting patiently for us to finish.

  Chapter Three

  “Remind me again why I love climbing,” I told Maggie as I prepared to lead the fourth pitch of a climb on the Redgarden Wall in Eldorado Canyon, a world famous climbing area about ten miles south of Boulder.

  “Because you like being scared?” my best friend asked, clipping her belay device (a small metal contraption through which the rope is threaded) into a locking carabiner attached to her harness. “You’re on belay.”

  It was a gorgeous Sunday in March, unseasonably warm and cloudless. According to the almanac, spring was only two or three snowstorms away. Although the motions hearing in Emily’s case was coming up fast, requiring considerable preparation, I still had enough time to take an occasional day off to play. I’d been climbing for three years and had just begun leading at the end of last summer.

  I loved everything about the sport, even the danger. If I’d been single or in a relationship with someone who shared my passion, I would have climbed every weekend. But Vickie was a hiker and a gardener whose sense of adventure was more than satisfied by a pleasant stroll in the foothills during which she’d have to stop every couple of yards to look at the wildflowers and try to identify them. Because she was also an internist who treated accident victims, including the occasional climber, she thought lead climbing was both crazy and dangerous. For the sake of harmony, we’d agreed to disagree on the subject.

  The climb today was six pitches long and we were alternating leads. This would be the hardest pitch I’d ever led, but Maggie thought I was ready. I studied the thirty-foot traverse in front of me. The handholds looked good, but the footholds looked nonexistent. I stared at the smooth granite until I could detect a few tiny bulges along the face that might hold me if I placed the balls of my feet on them and allowed friction to keep me from slipping. Maggie, of course, was tied into three bombproof anchors. If I slipped, I’d swing, but I wouldn’t go far and she’d be able to haul me up.

  “No, that’s not the reason,” I said, referring to Maggie’s mock serious suggestion. “I actually hate being scared.”

  Maggie nodded, then played out enough rope so that I could begin climbing. I stepped out onto the rock and stuck a few fingers into the horizontal crack above me. “A bit tenuous,” I muttered.

  Maggie laughed. “You’ll feel better as soon as you get a piece in.”

  I reached down with my right hand, unhooked a small camming device from my harness, and placed it into the crack. Maggie let out some more rope and I quickly clipped in. For the moment, I was secure.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, at the risk of offending you, I’m just going to say I know you can do this, but if you don’t feel like it for whatever reason, I’m happy to do it instead. The next pitch is easier, but still quite exciting.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” I tiptoed my left foot across the face until I found a little nub, then slid both hands to the left. After adjusting my weight, I moved my right foot over as well, a mad little caterpillar inching my way across a large expanse of rock hundreds of feet above the ground. There were three or four black birds flying in circles below my feet.

  After clipping into my second piece, I looked back toward Maggie. “The precise reason I love climbing is because I could die at any moment, which makes me feel so alive.”

  “Makes perfect sense,” Maggie said, “but don’t try explaining that to a non-climber. Our girlfriends would have us committed.”

  “Right. So how come we aren’t involved with other climbers?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I came on to you about ten years ago and you turned me down. Remember?”

  “Oh yeah.” I slithered another eight feet to the left, found a delicate ledge to stand on, and stopped to put another piece in. “You aren’t still holding that against me, are you?”

  “No,” she called. “In fact, I’m very glad.”

  “Humph,” I said, but we both knew the conversation was merely to keep me company while we were still in sight of each other. As soon as I climbed around the corner, I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to and I’d be on my own. Just me and my devilishly inventive mind.

  I finished the traverse and was approaching the corner. My left foot slipped a few inches, but then it held. The next move was the crux and then I’d be around. I turned my face toward Maggie. “Once my murder trial is over,” I called,
“let’s climb as much as possible. It’s the only way I’ll ever improve.”

  “I’m going to Nicaragua, remember?”

  I slid my arm around the corner searching blindly for something to grab onto. “Oh right. Nicaragua. Weren’t you supposed to go this winter?”

  “Yes, at the beginning of February,” she answered, “but we had to postpone it. There was too much fighting.”

  “What’s the name of your group again?” I was still groping for my next hold.

  “The Boulder-Jalapa friendship brigade.” She paused. “Just make the move, Rachel. It’s not as bad as you think.”

  I hugged the wall and edged around the corner. She was right. After getting another piece in, I stopped to consider the steep vertical crack above me. Maggie had described it as eighty feet of sustained crack climbing.

  “Eek,” I said out loud, which would have been funny if someone else had been there to hear it. I forced myself to take a deep breath, to look around, and appreciate the spectacular view.

  We’d started our approach to the climb at eight thirty when it was still quite chilly in order to get down before dark. I glanced at my watch. It was already a quarter to one. Time flies when you’re busy squandering adrenaline.

  Okay, baby doll, time to start moving. I shinnied up about eight feet, fumbled around on my harness until I found the piece I wanted, unclipped it with sweaty fingers, and stuck it in the crack. As I clipped in, I rolled my neck, and made the mistake of looking down. Jesus Christ. Maybe I only loved climbing in retrospect, after it was all over and we were safely on the ground. Maybe I only loved the idea of climbing. All right, that’s enough; best not to think. I nodded (you can do things like that when you’re all alone), then hauled myself up the next forty feet without incident, singing an old Pete Seeger tune, “If I Had a Hammer.”

  I was just pulling up the rope to clip into a small cam when I heard a voice from somewhere above me scream, “Rock!” The climbers ahead of us must have accidentally dislodged it. Immediately, I pressed my body as close to the crack as I could and simultaneously felt a large boulder whiz past my right shoulder. Without thinking, I’d let go of the extra rope and grabbed onto my piece. A second later, I heard the boulder smash into the ledge below me.

  “Are you okay?” Maggie yelled.

  “Missed me,” I yelled back.

  “What?”

  “I’m fine,” I yelled louder.

  “All right, good.”

  My right hand was bleeding—I must have scraped it against the rock—but other than that, I was unscathed. I clipped in and tried to stop myself from imagining what might have happened if I hadn’t grabbed the cam, or if the boulder had fallen a few inches to the left. You’re fine, I told myself, keep moving, but I couldn’t. I was paralyzed, not so much by fear as by a surfeit of imagination. Holy Mother of God, what the hell was I doing here? I remained absolutely still for what seemed like hours but was probably about ten minutes.

  “What’s happening?” Maggie yelled.

  “Nothing. I’m just resting.”

  There was a pause. “Resting is good. Take your time. I’ve got you.”

  When your climbing partner tells you resting is good, it’s not. She means it’s time to start climbing again, even if every cell in your body begs you to stay put on the side of the mountain, build a cozy little nest full of bird feathers and live there forever.

  Climbing was occasionally dangerous, I reminded myself. If I couldn’t handle the risks, I had no business being there. Maybe my doctor girlfriend was right—that I spent too much time in the fast lane courting disaster—and my body knew it even if my intellect didn’t. Was it trying to warn me? Maybe I was more susceptible than I thought, like my father who died way too young at fifty-six. And just because I couldn’t climb didn’t mean I couldn’t hike or ski. I could still have all kinds of outdoor adventures. Hell, I could make my beloved very happy and join her on her slow meditative walks, learn the names of every wildflower that grew in the region. Who knew, I might even come to like it.

  Luckily, that did it. I scrambled up the last thirty feet in less than five minutes, set up my anchors, and yelled a triumphant, “Off belay.” About twenty minutes later, Maggie crawled into view.

  “God, it took forever to get that small cam out,” she said. “It must have been the one you were hanging on. So, other than that, how was the climb?”

  “Great,” I said, and decided that Vickie, blinded by love or fear, was dead wrong about me. I wasn’t particularly sensitive and I didn’t need to slow down and smell the flowers. I was my mother’s daughter: tough, thick-skinned, indomitable.

  The last two pitches went smoothly and despite a long tedious down climb, we managed to get to the car before dark. I was tired, dirty, a little bloody and very happy.

  ***

  The next day, at the jail, Emily asked about all the cuts on my right hand.

  “Crack climbing,” I explained. “I probably should have taped my hands before we started.”

  We were sitting in one of the larger group rooms near the women’s module. There was an old, beat-up piano in the room, and a blackboard with a number of AA slogans scrawled across it. The table between us was strewn with Christian pamphlets geared toward prisoners who might be tired and desperate enough to let Jesus into their lives.

  “You don’t read this stuff, do you?” I asked, pointing to one of the pamphlets with a picture of a shepherd surrounded by a flock of obedient-looking sheep.

  She glanced at it, then said, “I read everything I can get my hands on.”

  Immediately, I felt ashamed. “Sorry. I have no idea what it’s like to be locked up day after day.”

  “No, you don’t.” Even as she reproached me, my client’s face remained kind and serene, like Sally Field’s in The Flying Nun.

  I had a feeling she was referring to more than just her incarceration in the Boulder County Jail. I did a quick calculation. Emily had been an inmate for five months. Unlike the majority of my clients, however, she never complained. Was that a good sign, or a bad one? Did it mean she was tough and resilient, or more like one of those sheep on the pamphlet?

  “Don’t give up, Emily,” I warned.

  She smiled at me. “Do you know how many times you’ve said that to me?”

  I smiled back. “No, how many?”

  She placed her hand lightly on top of mine, the first time she had ever touched me. “At least a hundred times.”

  I shrugged. “Well, it’s very important.”

  She nodded, and then gently slid her hand away.

  “So,” I said, “what did you think of Dr. Midman?”

  Karen Midman was a psychologist who specialized in treating battered women. She’d come highly recommended by Lenore Walker who wouldn’t be available until early summer. I’d sent Dr. Midman to interview Emily a few days earlier and planned to meet with her myself at the end of the week. I was hoping to submit an affidavit signed by her as an offer of proof at the motions hearing and then ask Judge Thomas to allow me to call her as an expert on battered woman syndrome at trial.

  “I thought she was a warm, intelligent woman,” Emily answered. “I liked her very much. She’ll make an excellent witness.”

  I laughed. “You should have been a lawyer.”

  Emily stood and walked over to the piano. “I should have been a lot of things, but I chose to be Hal’s wife instead and now I have to live with it.”

  I shook my head. How could anyone be so calm and matter-of-fact about making such a drastic mistake? Because I was speaking to Emily, not some desperate drug addict or three-time felon who wanted some reassuring pap, I chose my words carefully. “Well, you’re right. You’ll always have to live with it, but hopefully not behind bars. If the judge allows Dr. Midman to educate the jury about battered woman syndrome, we’ll have a decent chance to win and then you’ll have the rest of your life to make better choices.”

  “My goodness.” She rubbed her face. “I can
’t imagine that.”

  “You have to,” I said, “or you’ll lose.”

  Suddenly, Emily sat down at the piano and played a couple of chords that sounded sad and bluesy.

  I was surprised. “I didn’t know you could play the piano.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at me, but continued playing. “There are still a couple of things about me you don’t know.” Her expression was one I’d never seen before, proud and aloof.

  I thought she was kidding, pretending to be flirtatious. Piano bar patter. “Like what?” I asked.

  She played for another few minutes and then stopped. “You know,” she said, “it doesn’t seem quite fair that I’ll get to tell the jury my side of the story, but Hal won’t be able to.”

  We’d been over this before, but she obviously wasn’t done with it. “Fair?” I tossed one of the pamphlets across the table. “What’s fair about him hitting you whenever he drank too much or got frustrated with his life?”

  “He didn’t hit me all the time, you know. Sometimes he could be very tender.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It wasn’t a daily thing, or even a weekly one. When I think back about it, we got along fairly well almost all of the time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She stood up from the piano to face me. “Stop saying ‘uh-huh’ as if you know something I don’t.”

  “Then stop revising reality.”

  Someone else might have taken offense at my remark, but not Emily. Everyone has a temper, but for obvious reasons she’d had to send hers far away. Who knew if they even kept in contact?

  “I’m not revising anything,” Emily said. “Every few months, Hal lost control of himself and hurt me. But did he deserve to die?”

  I kept my face impassive. With Emily, I seemed to have infinite patience. “That’s not the question you ought to be asking yourself. Would you please sit down?”