For Better and Worse

by Margot Hunt

  “No, Tate was the first. I had a high-risk pregnancy with Zoë, and after that, the doctors didn’t think it was a good idea for us roll the dice again. But our family never felt complete. Peter and I thought about adopting a baby, and we were just about to start the process. But then I was at the library one day, and they had this whole display set up of kids who were in the foster system, looking for homes. I saw a picture of Tate, and I just...well, I just knew. He was the one. Peter thought I was crazy at first, but I talked him into it. We applied to be foster parents, jumped through all the hoops they make you go through. But it was worth it. Once Tate came to live with us, we all fell in love with him. He’s ours. He’s part of this family, and will be forever. But now...”

  Jennifer breathed in a deep, ragged breath as tears filled her eyes. “All I can think is that if I hadn’t insisted on bringing Tate into our family, this would never have happened to him. He would have lived somewhere else, with a different family, gone to a different school and probably would have gone on to have a happy life. But I had to be greedy and insist on having more children...”

  She let out a raspy sob and rocked forward, her hands clenched into fists.

  “Jennifer.” I leaned toward her and put my hand on her arm. “You can’t think about it that way. Terrible things happen for no reason. And just because they do, that doesn’t mean that you’re not a good parent or that Tate would be better off somewhere else. I’m sure he loves you just as much as you love him.”

  “Thank you for saying that.” She looked up at me with sad, wet eyes. “But I feel like I’ve failed him.”

  “You haven’t. Of course you haven’t,” I said.

  Yesterday, I had been sure Robert wasn’t capable of what he’d been accused of doing. That he could never, ever hurt a child. Today, talking to Jennifer, so distraught at the thought that her beloved child—and Tate was her child, whatever his legal status—had been hurt, I couldn’t be sure of anything. Could Robert have exploited this child whose life had been so hard until recently? Had he? I badly wanted to believe it wasn’t possible.

  “Anyway.” Jennifer dabbed at her eyes with a paper napkin, then drew in another deep breath, struggling to compose herself. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I need to know...if the State’s Attorney decides to prosecute...” she hesitated, as though she couldn’t bear to speak Robert’s name “...him. What will happen to Tate?”

  “What do you mean, exactly? Are you worried they’ll move him to a different foster home? I don’t practice family law, but I’m sure a good lawyer could stop that from happening. I can find a referral for you if you need one.”

  “Oh, no. That’s not it. We have a great adoption attorney, and she told us not to worry about that part of it. The paperwork we needed to complete to adopt him is mostly done. Tate said that it’s what he still wants, too. For us to adopt him, I mean. No, this is his home. Whatever else happens.”

  “Good.” I nodded, glad to hear it. Whatever had happened to Tate, nothing would be gained by his losing these good people as parents.

  “It’s just...you’re a criminal attorney, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I just need to know what we’re facing. Tate would be the main witness. Maybe the only witness. Tate said that...well, that there was touching. Jesus. But, that’s what we’re dealing with. No penetration, no...fluids.” She stopped to inhale raggedly. “Nothing that a doctor could testify to or that a lab could process. So, presumably, it would be Tate’s word against...his.”

  I was starting to realize, with an acidic churn of my stomach, why she was so eager to talk to me. She wanted me to assure her that Tate would make it through the criminal judicial process without being further traumatized. That the defense attorney would be gentle with him. That someone—someone exactly like me—wouldn’t ask him difficult questions.

  Or, worse—blame him outright.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said, trying to keep my voice as gentle as possible. “Every case is different, of course. But the basic role of a defense attorney is always the same. It’s to get the best possible result for your client. An acquittal, or at least, a favorable plea deal.”

  “What does that mean, exactly? I know what the words mean. But what would Tate be facing? What would he have to go through?”

  It was my turn to draw in a deep breath. “It’s entirely possible he’ll be asked tough questions.” That was the least of it, I thought. “They’ll try to frame the case in a way that changes the narrative. Someone, other than the defendant, will be at fault. Someone has falsely accused him, for example. Or someone is trying to entrap him. It can be...difficult.”

  The truth was, it could be hideous, for everyone involved. I’d defended people accused of sexually battering a minor. It was a first degree felony in the state of Florida, with a maximum possible sentence of life in prison. If the accuser had other issues, or lacked veracity—or if there was the chance someone was manipulating them to make up the testimony—I’d want to cover that on my cross-examination. Any decent, capable defense attorney would do the same. No one wanted to go after the child who was claiming the abuse. But most of the time, you couldn’t avoid it. Not if you were doing your job.

  “You’re saying they’ll blame Tate. They’ll claim he was asking for it, or he’s making it up?” Jennifer began to literally wring her hands, pulling at her fingers and scratching at her skin. “They’ll say that because he’s a foster child and has been in vulnerable situations, that it’s possible that...someone may have hurt him before...and that’s confused him.” Her voice broke and she was silent for a few beats. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “They’ll say he’s lying.”

  “I don’t know what the defense counsel’s strategy will be,” I said. “But it’s certainly possible. You have to understand—their job isn’t to protect Tate. It’s to keep their client out of jail, or at least to get him the most favorable sentence possible.”

  I wondered if I sounded as guilty as I suddenly felt. It was my job, too. One that I believed in. Or usually did.

  “Did you know what that man told Tate?” Jennifer asked abruptly. “He said that it was natural for older men to have sexual relationships with young boys. That it dated back to Greek times and was a normal part of every young man’s development. But that he had to keep it a secret, because it was something mothers wouldn’t understand. He’s a sick, horrible, twisted pervert. Now you say my son is going to be the one put on trial. Not the monster who did this to him?”

  She was crying again, the tears streaming down her drawn face.

  I stared at her, suddenly unable to breathe, almost as though I’d been sucker punched in the stomach.

  Robert was a history buff. And his particular area of interest was ancient cultures, like Greece and Rome. The last time we’d had dinner with Robert and Venetia before their divorce, he’d told us in great detail about a trip he’d taken to Washington, DC, specifically to go to a special exhibit of ancient Greek artifacts at the National Geographic Museum.

  Could Tate have known about Robert’s fascination with ancient history, and if so, had Tate made up the grooming story about sexual mores in ancient Greece in order to bolster his accusation? It was possible, I supposed.

  And yet it didn’t seem very likely. In fact, it seemed highly unlikely.

  Which meant...oh, dear God. Robert Gibbons really might have molested Tate. I hadn’t truly believed it was possible until right that very moment.

  “Are you okay? You look funny.”

  I glanced up at her. “What? Oh, no, I’m...fine. It’s just a difficult subject.”

  “Wait. You’re not representing him, are you?” Jennifer’s voice was sharp, and she suddenly sat erect in her chair. “He hasn’t hired you?”

  “No, of course not. I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I was. That would be completely unethica
l.”

  “But you have represented people—men—who’ve done this to children.” Jennifer stared at me, her eyes suddenly cold, her posture stiff.

  I set down my empty iced tea glass on the table and got to my feet. Rocket ran over to me and waited while I hooked the leash on his collar, my hands shaking.

  “Thank you for the iced tea,” I said.

  Jennifer didn’t look up at me. Instead, she stared down at the table.

  “How do you live with yourself?” she asked softly.

  I didn’t respond. Rocket and I saw ourselves out.

  Chapter 6

  I got to the office late that morning. I didn’t have court, but I did have to churn out some paperwork—a motion to suppress, some discovery requests. I had a hard time focusing on any of it. I kept flashing back to my conversation with Jennifer and her disturbing revelation that Tate claimed Robert had told him sexual relationships between men and boys were common in ancient Greece. And then I remembered the disgusted way she had looked at me when she realized I had defended the sort of monsters who target children. As if by doing so, I was equally culpable for their crimes. That I was a monster, too.

  Mandy called me just after lunch.

  “Do you have time to grab a coffee before school pickup?” she asked. “I have news that I think you’ll want to hear.”

  “What’s going on now?”

  “I’d rather tell you in person.”

  I felt a flutter of nerves. Just one day ago, my best friend asking to meet up for coffee wouldn’t have this effect on me. Now I was bracing for the next terrible revelation.

  “Sure, just give me twenty minutes to finish up what I’m working on. I’ll meet you at Roasted.”

  “Sounds good. If you get there ahead of me, order me a latte.”

  * * *

  Downtown Shoreham had a quaint, Old Florida feel to it, designed to attract tourist dollars. There were no chain restaurants or stores. Instead, all of the businesses were locally owned, from a seafood restaurant called the Salty Sailor, to cute nautical-themed boutiques, to an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. I beat Mandy to Roasted, our favorite coffee shop, so I ordered us each a latte at the counter, along with a giant chocolate chip cookie to share. Then I headed to the patio outside, which overlooked the Intracoastal Waterway.

  The water looked calm, and there was a lot of boat traffic on the river for a Tuesday afternoon. Fishermen heading out to deeper waters, eager to take advantage of the nice weather, I guessed.

  “Hey, you,” Mandy said, arriving just as the waitress appeared with our coffees and cookie. She looked pretty and breezy in a plum tunic top, white jeans and leather sandals. Her curly hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, and she was wearing gold aviator sunglasses.

  “Perfect timing,” I said.

  Mandy sat down across from me and smiled at the waitress, who handed her a white ceramic coffee mug. “Thank you. Is that cookie for you or for me?”

  “I got it for us to share.”

  “You are my favorite person in the world.” Mandy broke off a piece of the cookie and dunked it in her coffee before popping it in her mouth. “Yum.”

  I smiled. “Your affection is easily bought.”

  “Absolutely! Just ask my husband. So—” Mandy leaned in confidentially “—what have you heard?”

  “Nothing new since last night.” This wasn’t true, of course. There had been my illuminating conversation with Jennifer Swain. But I didn’t feel comfortable repeating what she had told me, not even to Mandy. Which also meant that I couldn’t tell her why my previous certainty that Robert Gibbons would never hurt a child had started to fade, replaced by a clanging alarm bell that was growing louder.

  “It really surprises me that you haven’t heard this. I thought you were more connected with what the police are investigating.” Mandy broke off another piece of the cookie.

  “I don’t know why everyone thinks that I have some sort of inside knowledge about active police investigations.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No. Although it would certainly make my job easier if the police detectives kept me up-to-date. Anyway, you said you had something to tell me?”

  “Yes,” Mandy said. “Do you know Gwen O’Brien? She’s a Franklin mom, but I knew her from before we had kids. We worked together at the hospital.”

  Mandy was a nurse, and back before she married and had her children, she’d worked in the operating room at St. David’s Hospital. She met her husband, Dan, an orthopedic surgeon, on the job, which they both tended to get the giggles about when they’d had too much wine. Mandy had confessed that in those heady, early days of their relationship, they’d made out all over the hospital, like a pair of teenagers.

  “You know how it is,” she’d said at the time, blushing and refilling her wineglass.

  I had felt a pang of regret, not at all sure I did know how it was. Had Will and I ever been like that? I remembered wondering. We must have been once, right? Yet somehow, I couldn’t quite recall it.

  “Anyway, Gwen’s a nurse, too, and back in our younger, wilder days, we were both always on the night shift, so I got to know her pretty well,” Mandy now said. “Her son, Aiden, is in the seventh grade at Franklin.”

  “I remember you mentioning that you knew her,” I said. “She’s always seemed really nice.”

  “Oh, yeah, Gwen’s a doll. Anyway, she called me today and told me that Aiden was on that same trip to St. Augustine, and that he shared a room with Tate Mason and two other boys. The police interviewed all three boys.”

  “Wow, already?”

  That meant the police were working quickly on the case, which was unusual. Everyone thinks that the real-life police are just like their television counterparts—two hard-charging detectives, assigned to one important case at a time, working around the clock to solve it. This almost never happens in real life, where detectives juggle multiple cases, often working on their own and taking months to close out even simple investigations.

  Mandy nodded. “And do you know what they all said? That they were all together—including Tate—the entire time. None of them would ever have had a chance to be alone with Robert Gibbons.” She pulled off her aviator sunglasses to give me a meaningful look. “They said Tate must be lying.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “That’s what Gwen told me. So, if Tate was never alone with Principal Gibbons—”

  “Then the State’s Attorney won’t be able to prove that it happened,” I finished.

  I knew I should have felt relief at this. If Tate had made the whole thing up, it meant my son hadn’t been attending a school run by a sexual predator. But instead, as I sat there with the sun warm on my face, gazing out at the postcard-perfect view of the water, I felt chilled. I was a criminal defense attorney, after all. I knew all too well that the state not being able to prove its case didn’t mean that a crime hadn’t occurred.

  “So what happens now? Will the police drop the investigation?” Mandy asked.

  “Not necessarily. A lot depends on Tate and his parents. If they’re resolute that the abuse happened, the state is more or less obligated to continue the investigation, and possibly to prosecute Robert.”

  “Are you serious?” Mandy stared at me. “Even if there are witnesses who say it couldn’t have happened?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head and shrugged. “It’s hard to speculate. If the state thinks that the other boys’ testimony is more credible than Tate’s, they might drop it. Or they might offer Robert a plea deal.”

  “That’s ridiculous. If Principal Gibbons is innocent, and Tate Mason just made up this whole thing because he has emotional issues, or he’s had a rough life, or whatever the excuse is...well, they shouldn’t let him ruin an innocent man’s life!”

  Mandy seemed almost angry with me, as thou
gh I were the appointed representative of the criminal judicial system, personally responsible for all its injustices.

  “Why don’t we wait and see what happens,” I suggested.

  “If they do drop the charges, Principal Gibbons will be allowed to come back to the school, won’t he?”

  “I don’t know,” I said again for what felt like the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours. I don’t know what to think about the allegations. I don’t know what will happen to Robert. No, I don’t know who to believe. “Did you talk to Beatrice and Amelia about any of this?”

  Beatrice was eleven, the same age as Charlie, and her younger sister Amelia had just turned eight a few weeks earlier. We’d gone to her birthday party and given her a Lego kit that Charlie had picked out.

  “I brought it up at breakfast this morning, but I didn’t want to go into too much detail, obviously. I asked them if they’d ever been alone with Principal Gibbons, and they both said no. Then I told them about how their bodies are private, that no one should touch them in a way that makes them uncomfortable.” Mandy sighed. “I’ve told them that all of that before, of course, but it seemed like a good time for a refresher.”

  “How did they take it?”

  “They were fine. And then Amelia fed her toast to the dog, and Bea tattled on her. Amelia complained that it wasn’t fair that her toast had a cinnamon swirl in it, because she hates cinnamon more than anything in the world. Bea said that it wasn’t fair that she had to put up with an annoying little sister. That she wished she was an only child like Charlie, which meant that of course Amelia had to burst into dramatic tears. You know, it was a typical morning at my house.”

  I smiled. Mandy’s daughters were as high-spirited as she was.

  “I haven’t talked to Charlie yet,” I admitted. “I’m going to bring it up with him after school. I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Don’t worry, it will be fine. I was dreading talking about it with the girls, but they were totally unfazed. Wait!” She looked down at the empty plate in dismay. “Did you have any of that cookie or did I just eat the entire thing myself? I did, didn’t I? How could you have let me do that? I thought you were my best friend?”