We stared at each other in knowing silence. I could see in his eyes that he knew I killed Corbin, which is why what he said next surprised me.
“The way I see it, we have two major goals to accomplish. First, we have to get you acquitted of a murder charge, and second, we have to get you custody of Eden. The second task may prove more difficult than the first since you obviously didn’t kill Corbin.”
“What? Of course, I killed him. The last thing I remember is going to get the gun so I could do just that.”
Senator McPhee shook his head. “No, Garrett, you didn’t kill Corbin. Your mother did.”
Chapter 30: Our Eden
“Holly? My mother? She’s in North Carolina. She couldn’t have done it.” I said, bolting out of the chair.
“She was in North Carolina,” Senator McPhee explained. “But when she got the call from the emergency room, she started driving back. She went straight to Corbin’s studio. According to her, she got there in time to see you fire a warning shot in the air. Then you apparently vomited and dropped the gun. She grabbed the gun and shot Corbin six times.”
I shook my head furiously. “No, that’s not true. It can’t be true.”
“Can you tell me with absolute certainty that it didn’t happen that way?”
“I…I…” I sat back down. Since I had no memory of that day, I couldn’t say for sure what really happened, but I knew with everything in me that I had been the one to kill him. I had to be. Something inside me needed to be the one that protected Eden.
“That’s what I thought.” The senator took out a sheet from a folder. “The evidence supports your mother’s statement. According to the police report, a bullet was found in the ceiling and your vomit was found next to the body.”
My mouth suddenly turned dry. I couldn’t speak. Was this possible?
“You really don’t remember?” he asked. I shook my head. “I really wish you could remember. It will help with the custody battle. No judge is going to want to give a child to someone who has just suffered a psychotic break.”
The senator stared at me with raised eyebrows. He wanted me to make some sort of conclusion, to come to a realization of my own. Then it hit me.
“You want me to lie? You want me to corroborate my mother’s story so it doesn’t look like I’m crazy?”
He nodded. “That might be the only way you can get Eden.”
I put my head in my hands and took deep slow breaths. “I can’t send my mother to jail on a lie. I don’t really know what happened.”
“Look, Garrett, your mother already confessed. The police have their murderer. The most they can pin on you right now is conspiracy or accessory. I’m sure they’ll be willing to drop the charges if you cooperate.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
The senator loosened his tie then whipped off his expensive looking suit jacket. “Look, Garrett, Eden’s father is in jail. Holly is going to jail as well for possibly a very long time. Your grandmother, Francis Whitman, doesn’t want her. I already checked. All Eden has is you. What is she going to do if you go to jail as well? Where will she go?”
Years in politics had certainly honed Senator McPhee's skills of persuasion. I actually considered lying to the police and claiming I remembered the shooting.
I thought about my sister’s plight. She definitely needed me and I needed to be there for her. But could I really send my mother to jail for something I quite possibly did myself?
I didn’t know what to do. I stood up from the table and paced the room.
Finally, I said, “I need to talk to my mother.”
My mother crossed the cell and embraced me as soon as I entered. I didn’t know whether to hug her back. I wasn’t sure where we stood. She had abandoned me and my sister leaving us to fend for ourselves. She had ignored the fact that her daughter had been sexually abused instead of protecting her. My mother had failed both of us so many times I couldn’t keep track. Was she now trying to redeem herself by claiming she killed Corbin when she didn’t?
She noticed my cold reception and slowly let me go. “I’ll understand if you hate me for the rest of your life. I’ve been a pretty awful mother, especially to Eden.” My mother wiped tears away with both her hands then took a seat on the bench that jutted out of the wall. I continued standing as I glared at her. She looked deathly pale except for the puffy red circles that had formed around her eyes. Her normally shimmering golden blond hair hung dull and lifeless down her back. She’d aged years since the last time I’d seen her either from two weeks of drinking and alcohol abuse or from the current stress of a murder charge.
“I think a part of me always loved you more, Garrett. I never really realized that until recently.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up at me. Why was she telling me this? It wasn’t helping the situation. I loved Eden more than anything in the world. For my mother to tell me she didn’t feel the same way did not raise my opinion of her.
Is that why you let Corbin rape her? You didn’t love her enough to protect her?”
“Garrett, that’s not-”
“She told you weeks ago and you did nothing!”
“I did do something! I…I killed him. I protected her. I finally acted like her mother.” She stood and tugged on my shirt while pleading like a child searching for approval.
I grabbed her wrists and stared at her trying to read her expression. Did she really believe she killed Corbin? I knew with everything inside me that I had pulled the trigger. But how could I be sure? Maybe I just wanted to be the one. Maybe I really didn’t do it.
My mother sensed my uncertainty. “You still don’t remember, do you?” I didn’t respond. I continued holding her wrists and staring into her eyes, the eyes that were exactly like mine, and tried to extract the truth from them. “Garrett, baby, you didn’t do it.” She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me again. “You’re innocent, baby, you can go on with your life. You can take Eden and…and be free, be happy. Forget about me.”
I gave in and hugged her back. She broke down and sobbed in my arms. “I can’t forget about you. You’re my mother.” I knew I should probably hate her for all that she had put me and Eden through, but I couldn’t. I loved her and something inside me would always love her.
“Listen very carefully,” my mother whispered into my ear as we embraced. Her tone had suddenly changed. She was no longer sad, tearful, and almost irrational. She sounded firm, determined, and completely lucid. For a moment I thought she had faked the entire episode including her new declaration of love for me. I started to pull away thinking my mother had transformed into some monster with a double personality when she pulled me closer and whispered, “You arrived at the apartment above Corbin’s studio at 7:15 in the morning. You woke him up with a gun shot into the ceiling. When he jumped out of bed, you pistol whipped him to his left temple. He fell to the floor unable to get up. The sight of the blood on his face made you nauseous so you puked and dropped the gun. He reached for it and you kicked it away.”
My mother paused as a uniformed police officer walked past the cell. He eyed us suspiciously until my mother let me go and we separated.
“Mom, why-”
“Shh!” She interrupted me. She waited until she couldn’t hear any more footsteps, then hugged me again and continued to whisper in my ear. “That’s when I came in. I grabbed the gun then shot Corbin in the crotch, then in the head, then four times in the face.”
Though my mother said these words with conviction, I still had a hard time believing her. I hated to think that I was so weak that I would vomit at the sight of blood. And if I had witnessed something as gruesome as Corbin getting shot in the face four times, surely I would remember it. But then again, maybe that was exactly why I couldn’t. Maybe it was too gruesome to endure.
“I was wearing my pink cashmere sweater and a pair of winter white pants.”
She continued to give me details of the shooting until the police officer came back and s
aid, “All right, that’s enough. Garrett, come with me.” He seemed irritated that we were still hugging, like instead he wanted us to fight and reveal a new piece of information for the case. That was probably why they let me be alone with her in the first place. They wanted to see how we interacted and if there was anything more to the story my mother had fed them.
My mother clung to me as the officer had to physically separate us. “Take care of our Eden,” she called as her hand slid out of mine. “She needs you more than she’s ever needed me.”
Those last few words hovered in my mind. It struck me the way she said “our Eden” she’d never referred to her that way before. But really, she was ours. Though my mother gave birth to her, I had been the one to raise her. I saw her take her first steps, I taught her to read, I tucked her into bed nearly every night of her life. She learned to say my name before she said ‘mama’ and whenever she had to fill out a form or something for school, she always listed me as her guardian instead of Holly.
Eden looked to me for protection, guidance, love, and security. In the past few months, I had failed her, but I would never let that happen again. I would be there for her for the rest of her life even if it meant sending my mother to prison.
Chapter 31: Finally Family
It wasn’t hard to prove what Corbin had done to Eden. Even though she still refused to talk, the investigators didn’t need to hear what happened. The DNA from the dead fetus proved with 99.7% accuracy that Corbin was the father. Given this evidence, the district attorney showed my mother leniency and allowed her to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter instead of charging her with first degree murder. I’d hoped that the judge would also be lenient and give her a reduced sentence, but that didn’t happen.
The judge sentenced her to eight years in prison with eligibility for parole in five. He felt that my mother couldn’t claim the knowledge of Eden’s abuse fueled her actions since she knew weeks beforehand.
At the sentencing, my mother resigned to her fate and showed no emotion. The way she nodded in quiet acceptance made it seem like she wanted to go to prison. I think she felt she needed to pay for all the years she was an inadequate mother.
Eden didn’t attend the hearing. In fact, she rarely left her room at the foster home where she now resided. I had succeeded in earning my emancipation and therefore did not need to live in a foster home again. But I wasn’t able to get custody of Eden just yet. I had to prove to the judge that I could take care of myself and provide a stable home for my little sister.
Senator McPhee let me stay in his condo in DC while I got a job and saved up enough to rent my own apartment. During the day I worked as a bicycle messenger for an accounting firm and in the evenings I worked as a busboy in an Italian restaurant. On the weekends I spent all my time with Eden trying to get her to open up to me.
Working 16-hour days during the week and camping out in Eden’s room on the weekends left me very little time to spend with Maddie. Not that it mattered since she still accompanied her father on interviews across the country as he tried to salvage his political career. He’d given up his run for the presidency, but he still sought support for his new foundation that attempted to protect young girls from sexual predators. Maddie and I talked on the phone as much as possible and took full advantage of the few times she came into town. Our relationship had developed into so much more than a high school crush and even went beyond first love. We knew we would always be a part of each other’s lives no matter what the future held.
Senator McPhee understood our connection and he never tried to hinder our relationship. Maddie felt silly for ever hiding it from him. He accepted me into their family without a second thought. He did, however, advise that we take it slow and not pressure each other into a lifetime commitment while we were both still so young.
After four months of saving every penny I earned, I finally had enough money to rent and furnish a small apartment in Manassas, Virginia. I also got my license, bought a car, and took the liberty of registering Eden in a nearby school. Now I just needed the judge to award me temporary custody so I could prove I could take care of her. Then maybe I could have permanent guardianship.
“The next time I see you, we’ll be in the judge’s chambers,” I told Eden one Sunday afternoon. I had just finished reading to her some poetry from Maya Angelou hoping to spark some sort of reaction out of her, but to no avail. Eden had continued her catatonic stare out the window the entire morning. “Judge Garner is going to decide whether or not you can come live with me.”
Eden looked at me for the first time that day. She didn’t need to speak for I knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to know if there was really a chance that she could get out of this place and go home with me.
“I’ve been working so hard, Eden, to prove that I can take care of you. I think the judge will see that. I think I have a pretty good chance.”
Eden reached for a pen and paper off the bedside table and wrote: You mean you still want me? The question tore at my soul and made even my bones ache. How could she ever doubt that I would want her in my life? What had that monster done to her self-image?
I embraced her and said, “You’re my baby sister. You mean everything to me. Of course, I want you.”
That afternoon, Bernice came over to my apartment in order to evaluate it and report back to the judge, “Everything looks great, Garrett. You’ve really done a wonderful job proving your competence. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, Bernice.” I smiled inside trying not to reveal just how elated I was to hear her say that. “Maddie helped me decorate this room. Purple is Eden’s favorite color,” I said as we walked into what would be Eden’s bedroom.
Bernice smiled at the purple walls then sat on the bed and picked up a large pink butterfly pillow. “Eden would definitely love this room,” she said staring at the pillow.
I didn’t like the uncertain way she said ‘would.’
“Why did you say it like that? Is there something I should know?”
Bernice sighed. “It’s just that. I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve done a great job over the past few months proving you can pay bills and take care of yourself, but let’s face the facts here. You’re 17, you have a questionable mental health history, you haven’t finished high school, and you’re working so many hours to make ends meet, when would you ever be home for your sister?”
I leaned against the dresser and stared at the bottles of body spritz and glitter lip gloss that Maddie insisted Eden needed. What would I do if I couldn’t have my sister with me? I couldn’t let her stay in a foster home for the next six years until she turned 18. I would kidnap her and run away before I let that happen. But then what kind of life would that be for her?
“I’ll do the best I can, okay?” Bernice squeezed my shoulder before exiting the room and leaving me with my thoughts.
Six o’clock the next morning, I opened my front door on my way to work and found Maddie on the ground searching through the contents of her purse.
“Garrett!” she whined as if I’d just spoiled her surprise. She closed her purse and stood up. “I think I lost the key you gave me.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in Texas this week.”
“I was, but my dad let me fly out here so I could be with you on your big day.” She jumped into my arms. I swung her around while planting kisses on her neck. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she said as she unfolded herself from my arms. She looked at my bike messenger outfit and said, “Where are you going?”
“I have to go to work.”
“But it’s the day of the hearing.”
“Yeah, but that’s not until three o’clock. I figured I can put in a few hours of work then change and get to the judge’s chambers in plenty of time.”
Maddie stared at me in disbelief. “Garrett, this is possibly one of the most important days of our lives. You can’t-”
“Our lives?” I repeated wi
th a slight grin.
“Yeah, our lives, I mean, I plan on being a part of your life for like a really long time. That is, if you want me to be, of course. And Eden is a part of your life so I figure she’s a part of my life too. I mean if you get custody of her and we get married one day or something…I mean, I’m not saying we’re gonna get married or anything. I mean, not any time soon at least. Not that I don’t want to marry you or anything. I’m just saying…well, I don’t really know what I’m saying but-”
I silenced her nervous rambling with a long kiss.
Several moments later, we pulled away both flustered and flushed. Maddie smiled and licked her lips. “Well, in any case,” she continued once she relaxed somewhat, “you can’t just show up all frazzled and sweaty from work. You need to make this day special for you and Eden. I thought we could pick her up and spend the day together. I have it all planned out.”
Guardian of Eden Page 20
