Mitigating Circumstances

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  Shana laughed. “My mom said once that I would have to be a waitress because I didn’t study hard enough, but it was just to scare me. She didn’t mean it. That’s just the kind of thing parents say—you know, like they’re supposed to say things like that. Why don’t you talk to him and tell him how you feel?” Shana reached over and touched his arm. “He seemed so nice.”

  “You’re nice. My dad’s an asshole. But he’s okay. Everyone’s okay with me. I don’t care what they do.” Greg reached over and tousled her hair with his hand. “You’re only thirteen, aren’t you?” he said.

  Shana looked down at the blanket as she spoke. “I’m sorry I lied. I don’t feel that young, and it seems like all my friends are babies.”

  “Tell you what,” he said, standing and wiping sand off his body, stretching, “you’re gonna be a knockout.”

  Shana glanced down at her breasts, barely visible in the small bikini top, only little lumps under the fabric. She was embarrassed and wished she’d never come. Her skin was white next to his, her legs long and skinny. “Want to take me home?” she said softly.

  He picked up the blanket and Shana grabbed her clothes, her feet sinking in the deep sand as she followed him. When they reached the van, now surrounded by cars parked up and down the coast highway, he turned and picked her up in a bear hug, and then put her back down. “Wanna get some donuts? I’m starving.”

  “Me too,” she said. She grabbed her purse from the back of the van and began brushing her hair as they drove.

  “I asked you to come today because my dad said you’d been having problems.”

  Shana felt her breath catch in her throat. Everyone did know about the rape, just as she had thought all the time. It was sickening. How could her mother tell everyone?

  “He said your parents were getting a divorce and still living together. Boy, is that tough. I know what you’re going through because my mom and dad just split up and I’m living with my mom and some amazon tennis player. It’s not even our house, it’s hers.”

  The muscles in her back started to relax. Then she thought he still might know. Searching his soft brown eyes, she saw sympathy yet it was impossible to know if he merely felt sorry for her over her parents’ divorce or if he knew. Every time she started to feel comfortable with someone, the same thoughts entered her mind and she couldn’t even remember what they said because she was too busy trying to figure out if they knew. She pressed her fingers to her temples and held them there, thinking her head was about to explode. Suddenly she turned to him and blurted out, “I was raped.”

  He turned off the engine; they were in front of a donut store. “Does your mother know?” he said. “Was it an older guy? Someone you went out with?”

  “My mother was there…she was raped too…he broke into our house…he had a knife. He’s in jail now. We picked him from a lineup that day I met you.” When she stopped, it felt as though a hard knot in her stomach had dissolved. This was one person she didn’t have to wonder about anymore. Her mother had said that keeping things inside was the worst, and having admitted what had happened, she believed her. It was great to talk about it openly. Suddenly she felt a wonderful emptiness in her stomach, for the first time since the rape. She allowed her head to fall back on the headrest. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I haven’t even told my best friends.”

  “Well, my mom is a lesbian. If you want to talk about heavy stuff, you picked the right guy. I haven’t been discussing that with my friends either. Come on,” he said, taking her hand, “let’s go get some donuts.”

  Shana ate two chocolate-covered donuts and Greg ate three. They had to drink ice water instead of milk because between them, they only had $4.50. It was hot in the van and Shana sat there eating her donuts, letting the crumbs fall onto her bare stomach. She then started talking and couldn’t stop.

  “My mom…you know, she was so brave. Before this, we didn’t get along. She was always working late and Dad made it seem like she didn’t care that much about me. But that night…she was great. She tried to get the knife from him and he almost stabbed her. It was terrible.” She watched as Greg tossed the empty donut sack in the backseat. “I mean…maybe you can talk to your dad about things. I don’t think of Mom in the same way anymore. She’s like my very best friend.”

  “Do you know what a lesbian is?” he asked, reaching for Shana’s brush and running it through his own long hair.

  “Sure I know. I’m thirteen, not in the third grade. Did your mother tell you? What did she say?”

  “That’s the point: she didn’t tell me shit. And Dad didn’t tell me shit.” His voice was abrupt and filled with anger. “Three years ago, I came home one day and my mom and this woman were in the bedroom, coming out of the shower together, both of them wrapped in towels. She didn’t know I saw them. Then I saw them kissing a few days later and it totally blew my fucking mind.” He looked at Shana, sorry that he’d used the word fuck, but she was undisturbed and leaning toward him in the seat, locked on every word. “It was so sick…you know, to see your own mother kissing some woman right on the lips like a man. I knew this thing and Dad didn’t know, and I didn’t know what it all meant. Anyway…”

  “Well,” Shana spoke up, “being a lesbian is not so awful. It’s not like a crime or something, and it’s not like sick. It’s just different, that’s all. I mean, if your mom loves this woman, then that’s her business and not yours. How would you like it if she told you who you could love?”

  She felt so grown-up, so mature. She’d never had a real conversation with a boy before. She looked up and found him studying her.

  “I have a girlfriend, you know.”

  “Oh,” she said, her heart sinking to the bottom of her stomach. “That’s nice.” She turned and stared out the passenger window, watching people in the parking lot.

  “Hey, the things you said to me made a lot of sense. I mean, about my mom and all.”

  Shana didn’t answer. She refused to look at him.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened to you. I know it took a lot for you to tell me.”

  “Yeah,” she said, feeling tears dampen her cheeks.

  “I like you. I want us to be friends. I might have a girlfriend, but I don’t have a friend like you, someone I can really talk to. You know?”

  “I know.”

  The smile fell from his face and was replaced by a look of concern. He reached over and touched her hand. “Anyone gives you a problem, you call me. Call me even if they don’t. Next time, I’ll take you farther out. We’ll ride some real waves.”

  CHAPTER 36

  After speaking with Cunningham and learning of Manny Hernandez’s death and the recovery of what could be the murder weapon in the McDonald-Lopez homicides, Lily finished cleaning the bedroom and was ready to attack the kitchen. John had gone out the night before, and with Shana at her friend’s, she had spent the entire night alone in the house. Richard had tried to talk her into coming over, or even going to a club to listen to jazz, but she’d refused. After an agonizing, sleepless night, she knew she had to tell him. The man was planning a life for the two of them, living for the day when they would be together. Even if her actions were never uncovered, she could not go on without telling him. She had to give him the option of walking away. She loved him.

  She had her little bucket of cleaning products sitting by the door in the bedroom, but her eyes kept returning to the bedside phone. Compulsive cleaning was her way of avoiding the last unanswered question, and it wasn’t working. She dialed the records department at the jail.

  “This is Lily Forrester with the district attorney’s office, and I need booking and release times on a case. Let’s see,” she said, pretending she was trying to locate the information, “the suspect’s name is Bobby Hernandez. Looks like the booking was near the end of April.”

  The clerk put her on hold and then returned. “He was booked on April 18th and released on April 29th. Do you need the charges?” she asked.


  “I need the time he was released on the 29th,” Lily replied. Her hands were perspiring and she changed the phone to the other hand. She could hear the taps of the computer terminal while she waited.

  “Here we go,” the clerk said. “It looks like he was released about eight o’clock.”

  She had been holding her breath and now let it out and her body relaxed. There was still hope that Curazon was not the rapist. Starting to thank the girl and disconnect, she heard her add, “But wait, we didn’t release him then; that’s the time we got the paperwork processed. Here it is: he was released at eleven-fifteen that night.”

  “Are you certain?” Lily asked.

  “It’s right here on the computer. They had about fifty releases to process that night—you should see them. That guy was lucky he got out. Some of them weren’t released until the following day.”

  She had shot the wrong man.

  “Do you need any additional information?” the girl asked.

  Her voice to Lily was faraway, bodiless, surreal. “No. Thanks,” she said, letting the phone fall from her hand to the carpeted floor. There was no doubt about it now. When she had gone into the kitchen that night, the bedroom clock had read eleven o’clock. Bobby Hernandez had still been in the Ventura County Jail.

  Lily closed the drapes in the bedroom and opened her purse and swallowed two Valiums. She threw herself on the bed and waited for the pills to work, hoping that she would fall asleep and not have to think. Holding the bottle in her hands, she dumped out the pills on the bedspread and counted them, moving each one aside with her fingers, finding them sticking to her skin, damp with perspiration. It would be so easy, she thought, so incredibly easy. One by one, the pills could go from her sticky fingers to her tongue and then roll down her throat. The blackness called to her with a seductive whisper. Through a slim slit in the black-out drapes, a razor beam of light fell across the row of pink pills like an omen. She pressed down on a pill and placed it on her tongue, leaning her head back and swallowing it like a delicious piece of fruit or candy. There were only twelve remaining. It was not enough.

  And there was her daughter and Richard and even John to consider. She had too many obligations to commit suicide; it would only cause more pain.

  Possibly if she confessed and threw herself on the mercy of the court, she could purge herself. By submitting to punishment, even imprisonment, the guilt might subside. But that would be suicide in another way, for she could never practice law, never be the person she was today, and it would inflict tremendous psychological damage on Shana. There were really no alternatives. She saw herself as a jigsaw puzzle that someone had thrown on the ground, a million tiny pieces. The one missing piece was locked in the lifeless hand of Bobby Hernandez, and he would never release it. In killing him, she had killed a part of herself.

  CHAPTER 37

  Shana had Greg drop her off a block from her house and she walked home. Her father was in the garage, trying to fit together pieces of pipe from what she guessed was the sprinkler system. “Where’s Mom?” she asked.

  “Her car’s here, so she must be inside somewhere. I haven’t seen her. I just got home.”

  “Did you leave her here alone last night?” she said accusingly. “What’d you do, spend the night with your girlfriend?”

  Her father dropped the pipe and stood, wiping his hands on a rag. “I won’t allow you to talk to me like that. Do you hear me? I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. Your mother and I are separated. She moved out, remember?”

  Shana didn’t answer and hurried into the house, slamming the door behind her. “Mom,” she yelled, but there was no answer.

  She walked into the darkened bedroom and saw her mother on the bed curled up in a ball. “Mom,” she said, her concern rising with each second, “are you okay? What are you doing in bed in the middle of the day?”

  Lily remained motionless on the bed. Shana ran over and started shaking her. “Wake up. Mom, can you hear me? What’s wrong?”

  Lily rolled over and moaned. She then apparently went back to sleep. Shana saw her open purse on the floor and pulled out the bottle of pills. “That’s it,” she yelled, this time getting her mother’s attention. “I’m flushing these stupid pills down the toilet.”

  Sitting up in the bed, Lily pleaded, “Don’t, Shana, please. I need those pills to sleep. You’re being absurd.”

  It was too late. The toilet flushed.

  Shana came back into the room and pulled the drapes, letting the afternoon sun flood the room. “Get up,” she said. “Go take a shower and put on some makeup. You and I are getting out of here.” She faced her mother and put her hands on her hips. “And if I see you take any more pills, I’ll just throw them away too. And if you keep using them, I’ll start using drugs. I’ll buy them at school. It’s easy.” Her arms fell to her side, but her chest rose and fell with emotion.

  Dragging herself from the bed, Lily looked at her daughter and couldn’t believe that the child was chastizing her as if their roles were reversed. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “We’ll go out to dinner somewhere and go to a movie. I’ll look for one in the paper and you get dressed.”

  Shana found the newspaper rolled up in a cylinder with the rubber band still on it on the kitchen counter. She pulled off the band and glanced at the front page before looking at the bottom for the entertainment guide. Then she saw the photo layout.

  There were three pictures, one of Manny Hernandez, Bobby Hernandez, and the police officer involved in the shooting. She read through the text quickly, until she got to the paragraph that stated that Bobby Hernandez had been shot by an unknown assailant on April 30—the morning after the rape, Shana thought. It then stated that the suspect was described as a white male, five-ten, wearing a blue knit ski cap and driving a red compact car. Shana dropped the paper on the counter as though it were on fire, her mind spinning.

  Her mother had lied about the date this man had been killed. Her mother drove a red compact car. Other details were forcing their way to the surface. Shana remembered that she’d been gone all night and had returned only the next morning. The picture of her mother crouching down behind the Honda when she had come into the garage and the strange odor, like paint or paint thinner, was as clear as the day it occurred. What had she been doing?

  She heard footsteps on the wood flooring and quickly rolled the paper back up and placed it in the trash. Now was not the time for questions. All she knew was that something was wrong: her mother was in trouble. Looking at her as she entered the room, she could see the strain in her face and the dark circles under her eyes.

  “You look great,” she lied. “Let’s go. I couldn’t find the paper, so we’ll just drive over and see what’s on at the mall.”

  “The paper was right on the counter,” Lily said, looking around, her eyes glassy and swollen. “Maybe your dad took it. I don’t know.”

  “Come on, it doesn’t matter. We have to eat anyway. I’m starving.”

  They stopped and ordered hamburgers at Carl’s Junior on the corner. Lily drank a cup of black coffee and took only two bites from her sandwich before she set it aside.

  “Eat it all,” Shana insisted. “You told me I had to eat or I’d get sick. Well, you haven’t been eating. What is it? Is it okay for you and not for me?”

  Lily put her hands over her ears and smiled in spite of herself. “God, is this what a mother sounds like? I’ll eat it. You’re pretty tough, you know.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I got it from you.” She then leaned over the small table and looked her mother square in the eye. “At least you used to be tough…before you started taking pills all the time.”

  Looking around the restaurant to make certain no one heard them, Lily said, “Don’t get carried away with this pill stuff. I’m not an addict or anything. A lot of adults take tranquilizers, particularly people in very stressful jobs. You know I’ve never taken anything before—”

  “I know
you’ve been taking a lot of them lately. I’ve seen you and I’ve seen them in your purse.” Shana remembered the day she’d first seen the pills, the same day she had discovered the photograph of the man in the newspaper today, the man who looked almost like a brother to the man in the lineup. She wanted to ask her about him, but she held back, refusing to let her imagination run wild.

  They left the restaurant and walked to the parking lot. The sky was clear, the sun shining, and the temperature was at least seventy-five degrees. This was the type of day to spend outside in the sunshine, Shana thought. It was the kind of day that should make you happy to be alive.

  In the car, Shana tuned in a rock station and rolled down the window, letting the fresh air caress her face and blow her hair. “I know,” she said. “Why don’t we go look for houses again? It’s too pretty to go to a movie. We can always go later when it gets dark.”

  For the first time that day Lily’s face lit up. “I have some houses for us to see. I’ll have to call the real estate agent to meet us there, though. They may be out, but we can try.”

  “You know, Mom, you need to move out of the house. What’s driving you crazy is living with Dad when you guys aren’t really married anymore. I mean, I know you’re married, but you know…”

  “But I still don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to change schools right now. Maybe if you waited until school was out. It’s only another month. I doubt if we can even get a house until then anyway.”

  “Here’s the deal,” Shana announced. “We move as soon as possible, like yesterday, okay? But I’ll stay in my school for the remainder of the year. You can drive me a few days and I’ll stay with Dad a few nights, so…”

  “That just might work,” Lily replied, breaking her tight grip on the steering wheel and fanning her fingers before closing them again. “We’ll see.”

  They stopped at a pay phone and were able to make arrangements to see two homes, both in the foothills of Ventura. As they had an hour to kill, Lily stopped and purchased a portable cellular phone.