The Furthest City Light

by Jeanne Winer

  ***

  The night before Emily’s trial, I lay as still as I could trying not to wake my beloved who slept soundlessly on the far edge of the bed in order to give me as much psychic space as possible, something she always tried to do when I was in trial. That night, if she’d moved any farther away to give me my space, she’d have fallen onto the floor. Looking back, there were so many ways Vickie tried to give me enough space, but I always wanted more.

  At around four in the morning, Vickie asked if I was still awake.

  “Yes, but I’m resting,” I answered. “It’s okay, go back to sleep.”

  She rolled closer and put her hand on my shoulder, a test. If I shrugged it off, I still needed to suffer by myself; if I allowed it, I was ready to be comforted. I allowed it.

  “Is it late?” she asked.

  I sighed. “Very.” Four a.m. was my least favorite time of night—too early to get up, but too late even if I managed to sleep a few hours to avoid walking around the next day looking as if I’d been punched in the face.

  “Is there anything wrong other than that you can’t stop thinking?”

  “No, I’m just ready for it all to be over.”

  “Well then,” she ran an affectionate finger down the front of my body, “let’s do something to make you stop thinking.”

  I smiled and patted her arm. “I think I might be too tired.”

  “That’s all right,” she said, urging me to roll over onto my stomach. “How about I just do you? A freebie.”

  I resisted rolling all the way over. “That doesn’t sound very...equal.”

  “Fine,” she said, pushing me flat on my face. “If you feel like it afterward, you can reciprocate.”

  I gave up and lay motionless, slightly embarrassed, but not so much that I wanted her to stop. One should always try to be gracious in these kinds of situations.

  Suddenly I heard our Hitachi vibrator (the Cadillac of vibrators) start buzzing and imagined the worst: feeling as if without any foreplay or warning I’d stuck my finger into an electrical socket. But Vickie surprised me and began massaging my back and shoulders with the round vibrating knob.

  “What a novel idea,” I said and we both laughed. The packaging for each new Hitachi—we’d gone through several—always featured a June Cleaver look-alike holding the wand over her left shoulder, ready to massage her tired aching muscles. As if that was what anyone ever bought it for.

  After a while, I could feel the muscles in my back starting to relax. Up and down with nice firm pressure, Vickie worked both sides of my back, my shoulders, my lower back and—very matter-of-fact—my butt where I hadn’t realized how much tension I’d been holding. Up and down my torso, taking her time, slowly dissolving each successive layer of armor and getting down to the real body inside, to the one that might be willing to open its doors and let the right guest in. Mi casa es su casa. During the next ten or fifteen minutes, she allowed the vibrator to occasionally slip down between my legs, then back up again before I could get used to it. By then, my doors were flung wide open and I was feeling quite hospitable. As time went on, the vibrator slipped more often and I started begging her to stay.

  Finally, she leaned down and whispered, “Would you like my hand as well?”

  “Sweet darling,” I breathed, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She laughed, tousled my hair, then brushed some languid fingers down the length of my body, stopping for just a moment to pay homage to a small scar on my lower back (a bicycle accident when I was six) and then dropping out of sight.

  Within minutes, I came big with a slight otherworldly cry of pleasure. After the contractions died down, I rolled over and gratefully kissed her mouth, face, neck and breasts. “Now it’s your turn,” I whispered.

  “You really don’t have to. It’s late.”

  I licked the side of her neck. “Oh, but I want to. I wouldn’t feel satisfied if we stopped now.”

  In the early morning light, she looked shy and innocent but willing to be corrupted. “Well, all right.”

  I studied her face for perhaps the millionth time. She had a wide generous mouth, cheekbones to die for and a flawless olive complexion. Unlike me, she wasn’t vain, but unlike her, I wasn’t classically beautiful.

  “Something along the same lines?” I suggested, blowing softly in her ear. The pusher man.

  She reddened slightly. “Yes, but then I want to do you again.”

  I shook my head. “Then I’d want to do you again, too. It would be endless. We’d be stuck in lesbian hell.”

  “Is that what they call it?” she asked, smiling.

  I tried to look serious. “Yes, but not only that, we’re going to run out of time.” I pried the vibrator out of her hand. “And so I propose that after you, we make love together, the old-fashioned way.”

  “Nothing wrong with being old-fashioned.” She rolled onto her stomach.

  I gazed down at her and shook my head. “God, you have a lovely ass.”

  “Don’t embarrass me.”

  We made love until it was time to crawl out of bed and separate once again into two independent beings. In less than thirty minutes, I took a quick shower, got dressed, wolfed down some scrambled eggs and drove to the courthouse. If my face looked a little haggard, at least I’d enjoyed myself. I could have done without the gritty eyes, but as soon as I entered the courtroom, they were of no consequence—I was in trial. Like any good criminal defense attorney, the moment I stepped into my role as someone’s advocate, nothing in the world mattered except saving my client. Anything unconnected to that goal was simply extraneous. Tired eyes, civil uprisings, a nuclear explosion: all immaterial.

  This trial, however, meant more to me than all the others combined. By then, of course, I knew I’d violated a fundamental rule, one of the Ten Commandments for lawyers—thou shalt not love thy client. Too late, all I could do now was win. During the past twenty-four hours, as part of my preparations, I’d visualized the only acceptable outcome: Emily and I standing shoulder to shoulder as Judge Thomas read the not guilty verdict. For the next couple of weeks, I’d simply have to work backward to make it happen.

  Over the weekend, I’d laid out enough outfits to cover the first six days of trial. After that, I’d have to resort to some clever mixing and matching. Jeff, on the other hand, had enough suits to last him through Labor Day. This morning, I’d worn my favorite, the one I almost always wore on the first day of trial, a gray silk suit with matching pumps, a rose-colored blouse and my lucky trial necklace (a gift from my mother that came in the mail without any card or explanation; it took me a week using the process of elimination to figure out who sent it). To be honest, I didn’t much care what I wore. Dressing for court was like donning a costume. If my role required me to appear naked, I’d have done it.

  At the motions hearing, I’d received permission for Emily to wear her own clothes during the trial. As she was being escorted in by a male guard, also in street clothes, I saw that she’d chosen a green linen suit for the occasion, something she might have worn to an afternoon concert of classical music at the Boulder Public Library. Her blond hair was pulled back as usual, but held in place by a lovely green barrette.

  “You look beautiful,” I told her as she sat down next to me at the defense table.

  “So do you.” As if we were sisters at a ball in a Jane Austen novel.

  My investigator, however, was not even close to beautiful. He had a large boil on the side of his neck that I could only hope would burst or go away before he had to testify. Maybe I could find him a scarf, some Hollywood-style cravat? To his credit, Donald had bought a brand-new white shirt, which still had the creases in it, but his pants were much too tight, and the hula girls were still gamely swaying across his wide stained tie. I told him to sit in the back of the courtroom and that I’d confer with him later.

  Right before we started, Jeff walked over to the defense table with his hand outstretched as if this were a friendly tennis match. Bu
t it wasn’t and I couldn’t force my hand to take his, even for a moment. Although he didn’t know it yet, I’d already metamorphosed into the vicious guard dog that had been trained to attack and kill all intruders.

  “Well good luck,” Jeff said. A true sport, not like me.

  I nodded.

  He waited a few more seconds and then retreated. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emily’s little moue of disapproval.

  “What?” I asked. “Should Churchill have wished Hitler good luck?”

  Emily shook her head and laughed. “I know you won’t like the comparison, but sometimes you sound just like Hal. He had a mordant sense of humor, just like yours.”

  I made a face but didn’t say anything. Although she knew perfectly well what I thought of her life with Hal and her lingering feelings of love and loyalty, we both pretended she could always express her true feelings.

  “I miss him, Rachel. I’m sorry but I still miss him. I wake up every night at three fifteen, the only time the jail is ever quiet, and for a few blissful seconds I can’t remember where I am. And then when I remember, I feel so sad. I can’t believe I killed him. I know I did, but I can’t believe it.”

  I finished arranging my files into short neat stacks on the table. “Do you think you ever would have left him?”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it. I’ve never been very good at standing up for myself. When I was seven, I wanted to go to school like all the other girls, but my mother had her mind set on keeping me at home and teaching me herself. I deferred to her until I was sixteen.”

  “You were brought up to be obedient,” I said.

  She nodded. “So how come I’m on trial for murder?”

  “You defended yourself, Emily. Even good obedient people have the right to defend themselves.”

  Behind us, the courtroom was packed with at least fifty potential jurors, numerous reporters, a few of Hal’s relatives and the usual assortment of spectators who show up at well-publicized jury trials for the free entertainment. There was one row of tough-looking, husky men who I assumed were from the Weld County Sheriff’s Department where Hal had once worked. Nobody, I realized, besides my debonair investigator and me, was there for Emily. Alice Timmerman, Emily’s best and only friend, wouldn’t be flying in until the weekend.

  “Maybe I wasn’t defending myself,” Emily whispered.

  I sighed. “Okay, maybe you killed him for the money.”

  At least that made her laugh. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I think I’m very nervous. Thank God you’re my lawyer. No matter what happens, I want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. You have no idea how much it’s meant to me.”

  “Cut it out, Emily. We’re going to win.”

  Finally, Judge Thomas entered the courtroom and everyone rose to their feet. Emily stared straight ahead as if she were facing a line of soldiers, their guns pointed at her head.

  After we sat down, it took everything I had to ask, “Do you want to take the deal, Emily? If you do, you have to tell me now.”

  My client placed her pale slender hand next to mine on the table. “No thank you. I’m ready.”

  ***

  It took a full day to pick the jury, partly because no one under sixty wanted to spend a couple of weeks being a juror, and partly because a number of women, given the choice, wished to speak privately in the judge’s chambers about their experiences with domestic violence. This, of course, was a good sign for the defense. In chambers, Jeff tried as hard as he could to convince the judge that all of these women were biased and therefore inappropriate for this kind of case, whereas I did everything possible to rehabilitate them, arguing that they could still be fair to both sides. Unfortunately, Judge Thomas was the kind of man who erred on the side of caution; he’d let in more evidence than many judges, but he’d also dismiss more jurors for cause if they didn’t sound completely neutral.

  After bumping a particularly sympathetic juror for cause, Jeff said to me, “Gosh, I had no idea how many women—”

  “Don’t,” I said, cutting him off.

  Both the judge and the court reporter had left the room and we were alone.

  “Don’t what?” he asked.

  “Don’t say another word or I’ll have to stab you with my pen.” I was only half kidding.

  Jeff looked concerned. “I think you’re taking this one a little too seriously, Rachel. It’s your client who’s on trial, not you.” He ran a hand through his black wavy hair and then risked an encouraging smile. Christ, he was much too handsome. I needed jurors who could empathize with the defendant but not be swayed by the prosecutor’s good looks. Twelve intelligent lesbians would have been perfect.

  I took a deep breath. Jeff was right. Not about my taking it too seriously (you can never take a trial too seriously), but that my feelings were too intense. I needed to back off a little. To be effective, I had to project confidence and sincerity, not desperation.

  “You’re right,” I told him. “I guess I’ve been more hostile than necessary. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I know you care about her. I think she’s guilty, but I certainly don’t think she’s evil. Did you ever consider any kind of mental state defense?”

  I stood up, grabbing my yellow pad off the judge’s desk. “Goddamn it, Jeff. She’s not guilty and she’s not crazy. She’s a battered woman who defended herself.”

  He put his hands up as if fending off a rabid dog. “Look, Rachel, maybe we shouldn’t talk until the trial is over.”

  “Good idea,” I said and stormed out.

  As is often the case, the jury we ended up with, six men and six women, represented a compromise for both sides. Jeff and I each used up all of our peremptory challenges weeding out the jurors we considered most likely to buy our opponent’s arguments. Jeff dumped teachers, social workers and yuppies, the obvious liberals who might be sympathetic or even identify with the defendant. I scratched the accountants, engineers and born-again Christians, the kind of people who tended to discount the mysterious paradoxical aspects of the human psyche, or in the case of the two born-agains, those who might condemn Emily’s dissatisfaction with her marriage, never mind the way she’d finally ended it.

  In his opening statement, Jeff assumed a low-key, this-is-the-way-it-is-folks tone of voice, saving the prosecutorial passion for his closing argument. Now he was just doing his job upholding the rule of law. For fifteen minutes, he laid out all of the inarguable facts that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that after deliberation Emily had intentionally stabbed her husband.

  When Jeff finally sat down, Judge Thomas asked if the defense wished to make an opening statement as well.

  “Yes Judge,” I said, then stood up and walked to the podium. Sincerity and confidence, I reminded myself, not desperation.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, “this case is about the right of a battered woman to defend herself. In order to understand why Emily Watkins stabbed her husband, whom she both loved and feared, you will need to understand a psychological phenomenon that I hope none of you knows anything about firsthand. It’s called the battered woman syndrome. Almost a decade ago, in the late seventies, experts in the field of domestic violence began recognizing that women who were physically and psychologically battered over an extended period of time exhibited remarkably similar characteristics. In this case, the evidence will show that Hal Watkins battered his wife Emily over the course of their ten-year relationship and that she, too, exhibits these characteristics.

  “During the second half of the trial, an expert, Dr. Karen Midman, will take the stand and explain the syndrome so that those of us who may be unfamiliar with domestic violence will be able to understand it. Ultimately, Dr. Midman will testify that in her opinion Emily Watkins has been suffering from this syndrome for years. Even more importantly, Dr. Midman will testify that in her expert opinion, when Emily Watkins stabbed her husband, she was acting in self-defense.”

  I paused to let the information sink in, the
n spent the next ten minutes listing some of the more important witnesses I intended to call, explaining how each person’s testimony would help the jury understand how and why my client had acted in self-defense and was therefore not guilty.

  “All beings,” I concluded, “are entitled to defend themselves when it reasonably seems as if they are in imminent danger of being killed or of receiving great bodily harm. That is certainly the law in Colorado. At the end of this trial, Emily and I will be relying on you to uphold the law, to safeguard her right to defend herself, and to find her not guilty. Thank you for listening and thank you in advance for your patience and attention throughout the trial. It means a great deal to us.”

  Although it’s hard to sit down when you have a jury’s complete attention, the last thing you want to do is bore them. They can’t walk out on you like an ordinary audience, but they can convict your client. I’d said enough and projected as much sincerity as I could. Any more, and they’d think I was running for office. Reluctantly, I turned and walked back to the defense table.

  ***

  For the rest of the week, Jeff slowly and methodically built his case against Emily. While she sat very still, her hands clasped on the table in front of her, an endless succession of policemen, detectives, emergency medical technicians, doctors and crime scene investigators all testified about the first seventy-two hours of the investigation.

  Although I’d memorized everyone’s reports and knew what to expect, still there was something about hearing it out loud from real live witnesses. The problem with reading police reports over and over is that inevitably the reader becomes inured to the horrible reality of blood and death being graphically described. By the third or fourth reading, it doesn’t sound so bad; it just sounds familiar. The jurors, of course, are hearing this information for the first time and the look on their faces (shock, horror, disgust) is often a wake-up call for the lawyer who’s been living with these facts for months—oh right, getting stabbed to death with a pair of scissors is actually pretty gruesome.