Keep You Safe

by Melissa Hill

  Shit... Matt Townsend’s eyes opened wider as Dr. Pitt became more inflamed and passionate in his speech. McGuinness held up a hand to quiet the man, but to no avail.

  “You know, I have been watching the media coverage of this trial since the defendant sought out my help, and I have to say that that is one of the reasons I agreed to be here today,” the doctor continued. “There is so much misguided anger at anti-vaccination proponents like the Coopers, and this needs to be redirected—not at ordinary parents but at the authorities who herd us all like sheep and force us to needlessly consume chemicals and toxins so as to line their own pockets.”

  “Dr. Pitt, if you would allow me to redirect our conversation,” pleaded McGuinness, his words falling on deaf ears, Matt realized, worried.

  “We need to be angry at big corporations. Sugary cereals, cookies and cupcakes lead to millions of deaths worldwide every year. At its worst, chicken pox, for instance, kills one hundred people annually. Only one hundred! We should be calling up soft drink and candy companies and complaining—they are the real killers. Why aren’t we protesting their products, sending them hate mail? And that’s before we even consider the fast-food restaurants: tortured-meat burgers, fries dipped in pesticide, milk shakes pumped full of hormones. Honestly, measles is a mere drop in the ocean of our kids’ problems.”

  Townsend could feel a murmur go through the courtroom. At this point, Pitt looked almost ready to spring up and start pounding on his chest. And alongside him, Matt saw his clients shoot him horrified glares. He didn’t even want to look in Declan Roe’s direction; it was likely the guy was tap-dancing in his seat. Why didn’t McGuinness get this guy to shut up?

  “Dr. Pitt, if you would be so kind...”

  “And we should also be angry with the corporations for spewing pollution into the environment while they make our toxic laundry detergent to make our clothes smell nice while simultaneously poisoning us. It’s these chemicals that cause autism, heart disease and cancer.”

  “Dr. Pitt,” admonished the judge, now looking less than impressed, “I’ll advise you to lower your voice and sit down, or I’ll hold you in contempt.”

  “And we should also be angry at our parents, the mothers who didn’t breastfeed us or cosleep with us. Instead, they stuffed our faces with pizza! And washed our clothes with fancy detergent that will likely cause us to have brain cancer—”

  At that moment, a court bailiff, along with another security guard, approached Dr. Pitt and, without further ado, escorted him from the stand. They led him out of the room while he continued to insist that vaccines weren’t the problem, but that capitalism and the government were hell-bent on controlling everyone via chemical injections and Starbucks lattes.

  Matt Townsend stood with an open mouth, looking at the back of the courtroom, unable to believe what had just happened. He couldn’t believe that Pitt had been their first defense witness, or that the erudite man who’d presented so well over the phone in preparation for this trial was in fact certifiably unhinged.

  So much for not painting the Coopers as conspiracy theorists—their very first witness was the personification of one.

  As Judge Dowling demanded order in the court, and silence eventually reigned, Patrick Nevin stood up and humbly smoothed his tie.

  “Your Honor, I believe it’s fortunate that I have no questions.”

  44

  Later that evening, Madeleine and Tom sat across from their solicitor at their dining room table in Knockroe.

  The couple looked tired and dejected, and Matt Townsend equally so. They had been conducting a postmortem on the day’s events, Matt continuing to insist that they could rebound from the Pitt disaster.

  For her part, Madeleine stayed silent and Tom was visibly sheepish.

  “I can’t believe I’m the one who found him,” he moaned. “I just... He spoke so well when I first contacted him. And his credentials were so impressive. He seemed so spot-on—I trusted him.”

  “Well,” she said pointedly, “maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you read online.”

  Tom, who had had his head in his hands, looked up at her and nodded tiredly. He had no color in his face and Madeleine noticed some new lines on his forehead.

  “I really think that tomorrow we can regain some lost ground,” Matt insisted.

  Just then, Clara entered the room and climbed into her mother’s lap. Madeleine encircled her daughter in her arms and breathed in her smell. She had just taken a bath and smelled like strawberries.

  In the background somewhere, Tom and Matt carried on and she struggled to pay attention. She was thoroughly exhausted. Regardless of what their solicitor said, she had begun to consider the reality—face up to the fact they were going to lose once the judge ruled against them.

  The scope of it was truly mind-boggling.

  She had no idea what kind of damages amount Judge Dowling would award and whether or not, when it all came down to it, they would lose their house. She thought about their pension funds, their investments and savings and also about their kids’ college funds, wondering if they might be protected.

  She could just about stomach the idea that her and Tom’s future would be irreparably damaged, but her kids were innocent in all of this—they shouldn’t be party to the damages, surely? Jake and Clara were still entitled to their own futures, weren’t they?

  Maybe not. She was no longer so sure. It was hard enough to digest that if anyone felt wronged by another person, or was judgmental of their personal choices, they could simply take what didn’t belong to them.

  Although, maybe it was better if she and Tom did lose everything—their house included. The last year had been bad enough and she didn’t know how she was going to go on living in Knockroe after this was all over with anyway. Madeleine couldn’t fathom the idea of bumping into Kate at the supermarket or outside the school afterward.

  She suddenly tuned back into what Matt was saying. “So, if we focus the testimony of Dr. James—”

  She cut him off. “No, Matt, I think we’re finished with experts. In fact, we are finished—full stop,” she said resolutely.

  Tom and Matt both looked at her with confused expressions and her husband spoke first. “What do you mean, hon? We’ve only just gotten started.”

  She pulled Clara closer and rested her cheek on her little girl’s head. “I mean, that up until this point, I have gone along with the strategy you two have laid out. I have exposed my children to ugliness, I have suffered through personal character assassinations, I have had it up to my ears listening to ‘experts’ who turned out to be complete crackpots and, frankly, I’ve had enough.

  “Matt, with all due respect, I believe you are approaching this wrong and have been from the very start. You’ve approached it all on a legal and not a personal level. And, Tom, the last time I checked, you aren’t a solicitor. Neither am I. But if there is one thing I do know and have always believed, it is that it’s the personal—not the legal or medical—approach that is going to convince the judge, if we even still have a shot, that is. We need to show him—everyone—who Tom and I truly are, where we are coming from and why we’ve made the decisions we’ve made. And, to my mind, all of that talk about asking the other side to prove that Rosie picked it up from Clara feels wrong and is making us look even more unsympathetic.”

  She paused for a moment and considered her next words carefully. “I felt it myself when that doctor explained what Rosie’s suffered and what she could be facing for the rest of her life. I physically felt the fear that Kate as a mother must have felt all the way through this and now. Right then, I would have ruled against us.”

  The two men remained silent for a moment as her words sank in.

  “What do you want to do, then?” Tom asked, his voice soft.

  “I want to testify,” she said, her voice ce
rtain. “I know we hoped that Fiona would be enough, but I want to talk directly about our decision-making process—much like I tried to in that blog post you were so adamant I take down. I know you’re not keen on the idea, Matt, but I think I deserve a shot at explaining why painting us as monsters is just too simplistic and that we are not the villains everyone thinks. I want to explain that yes, we made certain choices for our kids, but there are so many factors involved here. Each day, the more damaging testimony I listen to, the more I myself think that maybe I am a terrible mother. But I know I’m not. And, as it stands, this is not justice. This is nothing more than a spectacle—which I never wanted, and quite frankly I don’t think Kate does, either.”

  Madeleine kissed Clara’s head and whispered, “Time for bed, sweetheart.”

  Then she rose, holding her daughter’s hand. “So that’s the way I feel, and that’s what we are going to do. I’ve stood by long enough being told by you two that we need to do things this way and that such and such is the best way forward. For me, it’s time to face the music. And I won’t take no for an answer.”

  With that, Madeleine exited the room with Clara in tow.

  As far as she was concerned, her long-ago imposed vow of silence was officially over.

  45

  The following morning, Fiona Marsh felt her hands shake as she was called to the stand.

  Not normally a nervous or anxious person, she supposed she was just taken aback by the enormity of what was going on. She was well aware that all this was not going well for her brother and sister-in-law—and she was truly worried about them, their welfare, as well as the futures of her niece and nephew. Therefore, when last year they had asked her to appear as a witness at this trial, there was no way she could say no.

  Yet, she still felt her stomach churn when she realized some of the questions she would be asked. Fiona cringed at the lens of scrutiny that her brother’s family had already been under, not to mention the criticism they had received from the media and the general public.

  She worried about opening herself and her own family up to the same type of hateful vitriol.

  “Thank you for taking the time to attend court today, Mrs. Marsh,” greeted Michael McGuinness, a pleasant smile on his face. Fiona still couldn’t get over the fact that they really did wear those gowns and funny wigs in the courtroom. It was like something out of an episode of Downton Abbey.

  “Thanks, and no problem.”

  “I also know your own family members greatly appreciate you sharing your personal story with the court.”

  Fiona nodded and glanced over to the defendants’ table, where Madeleine and Tom sat. They both offered her small, encouraging smiles.

  “So, Mrs. Marsh, you have two sons, I believe?”

  Trying to quell her nervousness, Fiona sat on her hands and said, “Yes, Cameron is nine and Brian, my youngest, is seven.”

  “Tricky ages for boys, I believe,” commented McGuinness smiling.

  Fiona shrugged and offered a genuine grin. “They have their days but are good boys. I’m very lucky.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said the barrister. “So, on to more...sensitive topics. It’s my understanding that your eldest, Cameron—”

  “Cam—he goes by Cam.”

  “Sure. It’s my understanding that Cam is vaccinated but Brian is not?”

  Fiona nodded. “That’s correct. When Cam was a baby, we followed HSE recommendations and had him vaccinated according to the usual childhood immunization program. MMR, meningitis...all of that. For Bian, though, we decided to take a different route with the MMR.”

  Michael McGuinness placed his hands on the waist-high wooden barrier that surrounded the witness stand. “And can you explain why you and your husband decided upon such different courses of action?”

  “Of course,” answered Fiona, some of her nervousness leaving her body. She felt herself regaining her confidence. She had no problem at all explaining her position with this. “When Cam was a baby, he was just the...loveliest...little boy. So affectionate, so caring, so—” she seemed to search for the word “—engaged. He was handsy.” She smiled. “That’s what we nicknamed him, Handsy. He was always touching you, asking for hugs, wanting to be held. We felt so incredibly lucky. I know I’m his mother, and all mothers think their kids are the best in the world, but he was so wonderful. He had these lovely little chubby cheeks, and just...” She gave a small laugh and blushed. “I’m sorry, that’s probably irrelevant. Anyway, he was just a joy. Such a lovely, pleasant baby—everyone said the same. Madeleine’s Jake is the same age, just a couple of months younger, but more of a handful at the time, and I remember her saying ‘Why can’t he be like Cam?’”

  She looked over at Madeleine, tears forming in her eyes at the memory.

  Then she cleared her throat. “Now, I should reiterate that my son is still wonderful and I love him just as much and just the same. It’s just that...he changed. When he was thirteen months old, we took him for the MMR vaccination as scheduled. And within a day or so—my husband, John, and I saw this happening with our very own eyes—this...almost...transformation of sorts occurred. That’s the best way to describe it. He became withdrawn...aloof, even. He stopped talking. Up until then, he was jabbering and chattering all the time, learning how to talk and communicate. And then he just...wasn’t. What’s more it was like a light went out behind his eyes, almost like someone had pulled a plug somewhere. He wasn’t expressive. Suddenly, in no time at all, he was a different child.”

  “And how did you and your husband react to this?”

  Fiona shook her head at the memory. “Well, to put it bluntly, we freaked out. This obvious and sudden change in his demeanor terrified us. At first we thought maybe he bumped his head or perhaps swallowed something poisonous, got into something he shouldn’t have. We took him to the GP and they ran all kinds of tests. And, eventually, we found out what was wrong.”

  McGuinness waited expectantly. “What did the doctors say?”

  “That my son was on the spectrum, the autism spectrum.” Fiona’s eyes welled with tears then, and she hastily wiped away one that had escaped her left eye. “It completely threw us for a loop. But you know, it’s not like we loved him any less after. Never anything like that. It just...caught us unprepared. You never expect to wake up one day and realize your entire life has changed. No parent wants to face that. Ever.”

  Fiona looked at Kate with sad eyes then and the exchange did not go unnoticed by the judge.

  Glancing at the media gallery, Matt Townsend was glad to see they were all paying rapt attention. Fiona’s story was affecting them. Touching them emotionally. This was a good thing.

  Finally.

  “So what did you do then?” asked the barrister, continuing on.

  “Well, we were really trying to figure out how this happened. What might have triggered it. Of course, we were first-time parents, but still, we felt like we were doing the right things with his development. And then my husband started doing some other research, and we kept coming back to the vaccine issue.” She paused. “Now, I don’t want it to sound like I’m antiscience. I’m not. That’s not the case at all. But something wasn’t adding up to us the more that we read, the more we learned. And yes, I am well aware that this sort of thing has been debated at length much like we are doing now. But I was facing this in real life—my everyday life. One day my child was fine, the next he wasn’t—and the only thing outside of the norm that had happened in between was the MMR vaccination. My GP assured us that this wasn’t the case and that vaccines couldn’t possibly cause this sort of condition. He quoted from medical journals and gave me all of these explanations. Yet I felt like I was being fed an official line.” She swallowed hard. “Don’t get me wrong, my husband and I weren’t looking to blame or sue anyone. That’s not our style. Wanting to hit back because we’re
angry.”

  Brilliant...Matt thought, as an almost perfectly timed pause allowed that idea to sink in.

  “In any case, we listened to what the doctors said, but when Brian was born, we went a different route, and to a different GP, actually. Someone who wouldn’t force us or try to guilt us into vaccinating again.”

  “And has Brian suffered any adverse effects from not being vaccinated?” inquired McGuinness.

  Fiona shook her head. “No. He’s a healthy, vibrant little boy who loves his brother, his cousins, everyone. He’s a great child. But Cam is, too. It’s just Cam, well, like I said, he’s a little bit different. But he’s still a fantastic boy, and we were lucky to find him a really good school. We deal with it. We encourage him. We let him know just how loved he is.”

  “How did your family members, specifically the defendants, react to the situation within your family?”

  Fiona looked at her brother and sister-in-law and smiled sadly. “Obviously I can’t speak for Tom and Madeleine personally. But I do know that Cam’s situation hugely affected their own approach.” She directed her attention back to the barrister. “Like I said, there’s only a couple of months between Jake and Cameron, and we were going through lots of the emotional stuff, trying to come to grips with what had happened, right when Jake was due his first MMR shot. So who could blame them for thinking twice?”

  At this, Patrick Nevin jumped up. “Objection...speculation.”

  “Fine, Mr. Nevin. Sustained. Mrs. Marsh, please continue without speculating on the defendants’ position.”

  “Sure, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... Look, all I know is, something happened to Cam, and Tom and Madeleine saw it happen—they were right next to me, supporting me. And when the time came for them to make a choice with their own children, they had to take it into account. And so they made a choice not to vaccinate. Just as my husband and I did with our youngest.”