by Jodi Picoult
We watched her taillights disappear down the road, and then I turned to her, arms crossed. “What’s this about?”
Katie started walking. “I just wanted to be alone for a bit.”
“Well, I’m not leaving—”
“I meant alone with you.” She stooped to pick a tall, curly fern growing along the side of the road. “It’s too hard, with the rest of them all needing a piece of me.”
“They care about you.” I watched Katie duck beneath an electric fence to walk through a field milling with heifers. “Hey—we’re trespassing.”
“This is Old John Lapp’s place. He won’t mind if we take a shortcut.”
I picked my way through the cow patties, watching the animals twitch their tails and blink sleepily at us as we marched across their turf. Katie bent down to pick tufted white dandelions and dried milkweed pods. “You ought to marry Coop,” she said.
I burst out laughing. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me alone? Why don’t we worry about you first, and deal with my problems after the trial.”
“You have to. You just have to.”
“Katie, whether I’m married or not, I’ll still have the baby.”
She flinched. “That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“Once he’s gone,” she said quietly, “you don’t get him back again.”
So that was what had her so upset—Adam. We walked in silence for a while, ducking out the other side of the pasture’s electric fence. “You could still make a life with Adam. Your parents aren’t the same people they were six years ago, when Jacob left. Things could be different.”
“No, they couldn’t.” She hesitated, trying to explain. “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean the Lord has it in His plan for you to be together.” All of a sudden we stopped walking, and I realized two things at once: that Katie had led me to the little Amish cemetery; and that her raw emotions had nothing to do with Adam at all. Her face was turned to the small, chipped headstone of her child, her hands clenching the posts of the picket fence. “People I love,” she whispered, “get taken from me all the time.”
She started crying in silence, wrapping her arms around her middle. Then she bent forward, keening in a way she had not the whole time I had known her: not when she was charged with murder, not when her infant was buried, not when she was shunned. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t, Katie.” I gently touched her shoulder, and she turned into my arms.
We stood in the lane, rocking back and forth in this embrace, my hands stroking her spine in comfort. The wild weeds Katie had gathered were strewn around our feet, an offering. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, choking on the words. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
My blood froze, my hands stilled on her back. “Didn’t mean to do what?”
Katie lifted her face. “To kill him.”
SEVENTEEN
By the time Katie ran up the driveway, a stitch in her side, the men were doing the milking. She could hear the sounds coming from the barn and she found herself drawn to them. Around the edge of the wide door she could see Levi pushing a wheelbarrow; Samuel stooping to attach the pump to the udders of one of the cows. A suck, a tug, and the thin white fluid began to move through the hose that led to the milk can.
Katie clapped her hand over her mouth and ran to the side of the barn, where she threw up until there was nothing left in her stomach.
She could hear Ellie calling out as she limped her way up the drive. Ellie couldn’t run as fast as she could, and Katie had shamelessly used that advantage to escape.
Slinking along the side of the barn, Katie edged toward the nubby, harvested fields. They were not much use for camouflage now, but they would put distance between her and Ellie. Lifting her skirts, she ran to the pond and hid behind the big oak.
Katie held out her hand, examining her fingers and her wrist. Where was it now, this bacteria? Was there any left in her, or had she passed it all on to her baby?
She closed her eyes against the image of her newborn son, lying between her legs and crying for all he was worth. Even then, she’d known something was wrong. She hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but she had seen his whole chest and belly work with the effort to draw in air.
But she hadn’t been able to do anything about it, just like she hadn’t been able to keep Hannah from going under, or Jacob from being sent away, or Adam from leaving.
Katie looked at the sky, etched with sharp detail around the naked branches of the oak. And she understood that these tragedies would keep coming until she confessed.
* * *
Ellie had defended guilty clients, even several who had patently lied to her, but somehow she could not recall ever feeling so betrayed. She fumed up the drive, furious at Katie for her deception, at Leda for leaving them three miles away, at her own sorry physical shape that left her breathless after a short jog.
This is not personal, she reminded herself. This is strictly business.
She found Katie at the pond. “You want to tell me what you meant back there?” Ellie asked, bending down and breathing hard.
“You heard me,” Katie said sullenly.
“Tell me why you killed the baby, Katie.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to make excuses anymore. I just want to tell the jury what I told you, so this can be over.”
“Tell the jury?” Ellie sputtered. “Over my dead body.”
“No,” Katie said, paling. “You have to let me.”
“There is no way in hell that I’m going to let you get up on that stand and tell the court you killed your baby.”
“You were willing to let me testify before!”
“Amazingly enough, your story was different then. You said you wanted to tell the truth, to tell everyone you didn’t commit murder. It’s one thing for me to put you on as a witness if you don’t contradict everything else my strategy has built up; it’s another thing entirely to put you on so that you can commit legal suicide.”
“Ellie,” Katie said desperately. “I have to confess.”
“This is not your church!” Ellie cried. “How many times do you need to hear that? We’re not talking six weeks of suspension, here. We’re talking years. A lifetime, maybe. In prison.” She bit down on her anger and took a deep breath. “It was one thing to let the jury see you, listen to your grief. To hear you say you were innocent. But what you told me just now . . .” Her voice trailed off; she looked away. “To let you take the stand would be professionally irresponsible.”
“They can still see me and hear me and listen to my grief.”
“Yeah, all of which goes down the toilet when I ask you if you killed the baby.”
“Then don’t ask me that question.”
“If I don’t, George will. And once you get on the stand, you can’t lie.” Ellie sighed. “You can’t lie—and you can’t say outright that you killed that baby, either, or you’ve sealed your conviction.”
Katie looked down at her feet. “Jacob told me that if I wanted to talk in court, you couldn’t stop me.”
“I can get you acquitted without your testimony. Please, Katie. Don’t do this to yourself.”
Katie turned to her with absolute calm. “I will be a witness tomorrow. You may not like it, but that’s what I want.”
“Who do you want to forgive you?” Ellie exploded. “A jury? The judge? Because they won’t. They’ll just see you as a monster.”
“You don’t, do you?”
Ellie shook her head, unable to answer.
“What is it?” Katie pressed. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“That it’s one thing to lie to your lawyer, but it’s another to lie to your friend.” Ellie got to her feet and dusted off her skirt. “I’ll write up a disclaimer for you to sign, that says I advised you against this course of action,” she said coolly, and walked away.
* * *
“I don’t believe it,” Coop sa
id, bringing together the corners of the quilt that he was folding with Ellie. It was a wedding ring pattern, the irony of which had not escaped him. Several other quilts, newly washed, flapped on clotheslines strung between trees, huge kaleidoscopic patterns of color against a darkening sky.
Ellie walked toward him, handing him the opposite ends of the quilt. “Believe it.”
“Katie’s not capable of murder.”
She took the bundle from his arms and vigorously halved it into a bulky square. “Apparently, you’re wrong.”
“I know her, Ellie. She’s my client.”
“Yeah, and my roommate. Go figure.”
Coop reached for the clothespins securing the second quilt. “How did she do it?”
“I didn’t ask.”
This surprised Coop. “You didn’t?”
Ellie’s fingers trailed over her abdomen. “I couldn’t,” she said, then briskly turned away.
In that moment, Coop wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms. “The only explanation is that she’s lying.”
“Haven’t you been listening to me in court?” Ellie’s lips twisted. “The Amish don’t lie.”
Coop ignored her. “She’s lying in order to be punished. For whatever reason, that’s what she needs psychologically.”
“Sure, if you call life in prison therapeutic.” Ellie jerked up the opposite end of the fabric. “She’s not lying, Coop. I’ve probably seen as many liars as you have, in my line of work. Katie looked me in the eye and she told me she killed her baby. She meant it.” With abrupt movements, she yanked the quilt from Coop and folded it again, then slapped it on top of the first one. “Katie Fisher is going down, and she’s taking the rest of us with her.”
“If she’s signed the disclaimer, you can’t be held responsible.”
“Oh, no, of course not. It’s just my name and my accountability being trashed along with her case.”
“No matter what her reasoning, I doubt very much that Katie’s doing this right now in order to spite you.”
“It doesn’t matter why, Coop. She’s going to get up there and make a public confession, and the jury won’t give a damn about the rationale behind it. They’ll convict her quicker than she can say ‘I did it.’”
“Are you angry because she’s ruining your case, or because you didn’t see this coming?”
“I’m not angry. If she wants to throw her life away, it’s no skin off my back.” Ellie grabbed for the quilt that Coop was holding but fumbled, so that it landed in a heap in the dirt. “Dammit! Do you know how long it takes to wash these things? Do you?” She sank to the ground, the quilt a cloud behind her, and buried her face in her hands.
Coop wondered how a woman so willow-thin and delicate could bear the weight of someone else’s salvation on her shoulders. He sat beside Ellie and gathered her close, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. “I could have saved her,” she whispered.
“I know, sweetheart. But maybe she wanted to save herself.”
“Hell of a way to go about it.”
“You’re thinking like a lawyer again.” Coop tapped her temple. “If you’re afraid of everyone leaving you, what do you do?”
“Make them stay.”
“And if you can’t do that, or don’t know how to?”
Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. In fact, you’ve done it. You leave first,” Coop said, “so you don’t have to watch them walk away.”
* * *
When Katie was little, she used to love when it rained, when she could skip out to the end of the driveway where the puddles, with their faint sheen of oil, turned into rainbows. The sky looked like that now, a royal purple marbled with orange and red and silver, like the gown of a fairy-tale queen. It settled over all these Plain folks’ farms; each piece of land butting up against something lush and rich that seemed to go on forever.
She stood on the porch in the twilight, waiting. When the hum of a car’s engine came from the west, she felt her heart creep up her throat, felt every muscle in her body strain forward to see if the vehicle would turn up the driveway. But seconds later, through the trees, the taillights ribboned by.
“He isn’t coming.”
Katie whirled at the sound of the voice, followed by the heavy thumps of boots on the porch steps. “Who?”
Samuel swallowed. “Ach, Katie. Are you gonna make me say his name, too?”
Katie rubbed her hands up and down her arms and faced the road again.
“He went into Philadelphia. He’ll be back tomorrow, for the trial.”
“You came to tell me this?”
“No,” Samuel answered. “I came to take you for a walk.”
She lowered her gaze. “I don’t figure I’d be very good company right now.”
He shrugged when Katie didn’t answer. “Well, I’m going, anyway,” Samuel said, and started down from the porch.
“Wait!” Katie cried, and she hurried to fall into step beside him.
They walked to a symphony of wind racing through trees and birds lighting on branches, of owls calling to mice and dew silvering the webs of spiders. Samuel’s long strides made Katie nearly run to keep up. “Where are we going?” she asked after several minutes, when they had just reached the small grove of apple trees.
He stopped abruptly and looked around. “I have no idea.”
That made Katie grin, and Samuel smiled too, and then they were both laughing. Samuel sat, bracing his elbows on his knees, and Katie sank down beside him, her skirts rustling over the fallen leaves. Empire apples, bright as rubies, brushed the top of Katie’s kapp and Samuel’s brimmed hat. He thought suddenly of how Katie had once peeled an apple in one long string at a barn raising, had tossed the skin over her shoulder like the old wive’s tale said to see who she would marry; how all their friends and family had laughed to see it land in the shape of the letter S.
Suddenly the silence was thick and heavy on Samuel’s shoulders. “You’ve sure got a good harvest here,” he said, removing his hat. “Lot of applesauce to be put up.”
“It’ll keep my mother busy, that’s for certain.”
“And you?” he joked. “You’ll be in the barn with us, I suppose?”
“I don’t know where I’ll be.” Katie looked up at him, and cleared her throat. “Samuel, there’s something I have to tell you—”
He pressed his fingers against her mouth, her soft mouth, and let himself pretend for just a moment that this could have been a kiss. “No talking.”
Katie nodded and looked into her lap.
“It’s near November. Mary Esch, she’s got a lot of celery growing,” Samuel said.
Katie’s heart fell. The talk of November—the wedding month—and celery, which was used in most of the dishes at the wedding dinner, was too much to bear. She’d known about Mary and Samuel’s kiss, but no one had said anything more to her in the time that had passed. It was Samuel’s business, after all, and he had every right to go on with his life. To get married, next month, to Mary Esch.
“She’s gonna marry Owen King, sure as the sunrise,” Samuel continued.
Katie blinked at him. “She’s not going to marry you?”
“I don’t think the girl I want to marry is gonna look kindly on that.” Samuel blushed and glanced into his lap. “You won’t, will you?”
For a moment, Katie imagined that her life was like any other young Amish woman’s; that her world had not gone so off course that this sweet proposition was unthinkable. “Samuel,” she said, her voice wavering, “I can’t make you a promise now.”
He shook his head, but didn’t lift his gaze. “If it’s not this November, it’ll be next November. Or the November after that.”
“If I go away, it’ll be forever.”
“You never know. Take me, for example.” Samuel traced his finger along the brim of his hat, a perfect black circle. “There I was, so sure I was leaving you for good . . . and it turns out all that time I was
just heading back to where I started.” He squeezed her hand. “You will think about it?”
“Yes,” Katie said. “I will.”
* * *
It was after midnight when Ellie silently crept upstairs to the bedroom. Katie was sleeping on her side, a band of moonlight sawing her into two like a magician’s assistant. Ellie quietly dragged the quilt into her arms, then tiptoed toward the door.
“What are you doing?”
She turned to face Katie. “Sleeping on the couch.”
Katie sat up, the covers falling away from her simple white nightgown. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“It’s bad for the baby.”
A muscle tightened along the column of Ellie’s throat. “Don’t you tell me what’s bad for my baby,” she said. “You have no right.” She turned on her heel and walked down the stairs, hugging the bedding to her chest as if it were an armored shield, as if it were not too late to safeguard her heart.
* * *
Ellie stood in the judge’s chambers, surveying the legal tracts and the woodwork, the thick carpet on the floor—anything but Judge Ledbetter herself, scanning the disclaimer that she’d just been given.
“Ms. Hathaway,” she said after a moment. “What’s going on?”
“My client insists on taking the stand, although I’ve advised her against it.”
The judge stared at Ellie, as if she might be able to discern from her blank countenance the entire upheaval that had occurred last night. “Is there a particular reason you advised her against it?”
“I believe that will make itself evident,” Ellie said.
George, looking suitably delighted, stood a little straighter.
“All right, then,” the judge sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
* * *
You could not grow up Amish without knowing that eyes had weight, that stares had substance, that they could sometimes feel like a breath at your shoulder and other times like a spear right through your spine; but usually in Lancaster the glances came one on one—a tourist craning his neck to see her better, a child blinking up at her in the convenience store. Sitting on the witness stand, Katie felt paralyzed by the eyes boring into her. A hundred people were gawking at once, and why shouldn’t they? It was not every day a Plain person confessed to murder.
