Plain Truth

by Jodi Picoult

  "According to the prosecutor, Katie killed the baby. I don't believe that either."

  I scuffed my sneaker along the cement floor of the milk room, contemplating how much I should confide in her. "She might have," I said carefully. "I'm going to have a psychiatrist come out and talk to her."

  Leda blinked. "A psychiatrist?"

  "Katie's not only denying the pregnancy and the birth--but also the conception. I'm beginning to wonder if she might have been raped."

  "Samuel is such a fine boy, he--"

  "The baby wasn't Samuel's. He's never had sex with Katie." I took a step forward. "Look, this has nothing to do with the defense. In fact, if Katie was raped, it gives her an emotional motive to want to get rid of the newborn. I just think that Katie might need someone to talk to--someone more qualified than me. For all I know, Katie comes in contact with the guy every single day, and God only knows how that's affecting her."

  Leda was quiet for a moment. "Maybe the man wasn't Amish," she said finally.

  I rolled my eyes. "Why not? Samuel may be one thing, but that doesn't mean there isn't some Amish boy out there who got carried away in the heat of the moment and forced Katie to do something she didn't want to. And besides, I can count on one hand the number of English people Katie's talked to since I've been here."

  "Since you've been here," she repeated.

  Leda was shifting in her seat, a miserable mottled flush rising over her cheeks. Clearly, being on the farm had clouded my mind, or I would have realized that with an excommunicated aunt, Katie probably had more access to worldly people and places than most Amish girls. "What haven't you told me?" I said quietly.

  "Once a month she goes to State College on the train. To the university. Sarah knows about it, but they tell Aaron that Katie's come to visit me. I'm her cover, and since Aaron isn't about to come to my house to check up on his daughter, I'm a good one."

  "What's at the university?"

  Leda exhaled softly. "Her brother."

  "How on earth do you expect me to defend Katie when no one's willing to cooperate?" I exploded. "My God, Leda, I've been here nearly two weeks, and nobody bothered to mention that Katie has a brother she visits once a month?"

  "I'm sure it wasn't intentional," Leda hurried to explain. "Jacob was excommunicated, like me, because he wanted to continue his schooling. Aaron took the high road, and said if Jacob left the church, he wouldn't be his son any longer. His name isn't mentioned in the house."

  "What about Sarah?"

  "Sarah's an Amish wife. She yields to her husband's wishes. She hasn't seen Jacob since he left six years ago--but she secretly sends Katie as her emissary, once a month." Leda jumped as the automatic stirring machine came to life, mixing the milk in the bulk tank. She raised her voice over the hum of the battery that powered it. "After Hannah, she couldn't have any more children. She'd had a batch of miscarriages between Jacob and Katie, anyway. And she couldn't stand the thought of losing Jacob like she'd lost Hannah. So, indirectly, she didn't."

  I thought of Katie taking the train all the way to State College by herself, wearing her kapp and her pinned dress and her apron, attracting stares. I imagined her fresh-faced innocence lighting the room at a frat party. I pictured her fighting off the groping hands of a college boy, who at nineteen knew more about the ways of the world than Katie would learn in a lifetime. I wondered if Jacob knew that Katie had been pregnant; if he could tell me the father of the baby. "I need to talk to him," I said, wondering whether it would be faster to drive or take the train.

  Then I groaned. I couldn't go; I had Coop coming sometime this afternoon to interview Katie.

  If I had learned anything in ten days, it was that the Amish way was slow. Work was painstaking, travel took forever, even church hymns were deliberate and lugubrious. Plain people didn't check their watches twenty times a day. Plain people didn't hurry; they just took as much time as it needed for something to be done.

  Jacob Fisher would simply have to wait.

  "Why didn't you tell me you have a brother?"

  Katie's hands froze on the hose that she was hooking up to the outside faucet. She looked away, and if I hadn't known better I would have believed she was deciding whether or not to lie to me. "I had a brother," she said.

  "Rumor has it he's alive and well and living in State College." I tied the ends of the apron I'd borrowed from Sarah, shucked off my sneakers, and stepped into the rubber barn boots she'd loaned me. I wasn't going to win any fashion awards, but then again, I was on my way to hose down heifers. "Rumor has it you visit him from time to time, too."

  Katie wrenched the faucet open, then tested the nozzle of the hose. "We don't talk about Jacob here anymore. My father doesn't like it."

  "I'm not your father." Katie began walking into the field with the hose, and I fell into step behind her, swatting away a patch of mosquitoes that circled my face. "Isn't it hard, visiting Jacob on the sly?"

  "He takes me to movies. And he bought me a pair of jeans to wear. It's not hard, because when I'm with him, I'm not Katie Fisher."

  I stopped walking. "Who are you?"

  She shrugged. "Just anyone. Just any other girl in the world."

  "It must have been very upsetting when your father kicked him out of the house."

  Katie yanked again on the hose. "It was upsetting even before that, when Jacob was lying about his schooling. He should have just confessed at church."

  "Ah," I said. "The way you're going to. Even though you're innocent."

  The mosquitoes hovered in an arc above Katie, a halo. "You don't understand us," she accused. "Just because you've lived here for ten days doesn't mean you know what it's like to be Plain."

  "Then make me understand," I said, turning so that she had to stop, or walk around me.

  "For you, it's all about how you stand out. Who is the smartest, the richest, the best. For us, it's all about blending in. Like the patches that make up a quilt. One by one, we're not much to look at. But put us together, and you've got something wonderful."

  "And Jacob?"

  She smiled wistfully. "Jacob was like a black thread on a white background. He made the decision to leave."

  "Do you miss him?"

  Katie nodded. "A lot. I haven't seen him in a while."

  At that, I turned. "How come?"

  "The summer here, it's busy. I was needed at home."

  More likely, I thought, she wouldn't have been able to hide a pregnant belly in a pair of Levi's. "Did Jacob know about the baby?"

  Katie continued walking, tugging on the hose.

  "Was it someone you met there, Katie? Some college boy, some friend of Jacob's?"

  She mulishly set her jaw, and finally we came to the pen where the one-year-old cows were kept. On days this hot, they were sprayed with water to be made more comfortable. Katie twisted the nozzle, letting the water trickle onto her bare feet. "Can I ask you something, Ellie?"

  "Sure."

  "Why don't you talk about your family? How could you move out here and not have to make a phone call to them saying where you'd be?"

  I watched the cows milling in the field, lowering their heads to the fresh grass. "My mother's dead, and I haven't spoken to my father in a few years." Not since I became a defense attorney, and he accused me of selling out my morals for money. "I never got married, and my boyfriend and I just ended our relationship."

  "How come?"

  "We sort of outgrew each other," I said, testing the answer on my lips. "Not surprising, after eight years."

  "How can you be boyfriend and girlfriend for eight years and not get married?"

  How to describe the intricacies of 1990s dating to an Amish girl? "Well, we started out thinking we were right for each other. It took us that long to find out we weren't."

  "Eight years," she scoffed. "You could have had a whole bunch of kids by now."

  At the thought of all that time wasted, I felt my throat close with tears. Katie dipped her toe in the small puddle of mud
forming beneath the nozzle of the hose, clearly embarrassed at having upset me. "You must miss him."

  "Not Stephen, so much," I said softly. "Just that bunch of kids."

  I waited for Katie to make the connection, to say something about her own circumstances in relation to mine--but once again she surprised me. "You know what I noticed when I was with Jacob? In your world, people can reach each other in an instant. There's the telephone, and the fax--and on the computer you can talk to someone all the way around the world. You've got people telling their secrets on TV talk shows, and magazines that publish pictures of movie stars trying to hide in their homes. All those connections, but everyone there seems so lonely."

  Just as I started to protest, Katie handed me the hose and hopped over the fence. Reaching for the nozzle again, she turned the water on and waved it over the cows, who bellowed and tried to dodge the spray. Then, with a grin, she turned the hose on me.

  "Why, you little--!" Soaked from my hair to my ankles, I climbed the fence and started to run after her. The cows got between us, milling in circles. Katie shrieked as I finally grabbed the hose and saturated her. "Take that," I laughed, then slipped on the wet grass and landed on my bottom in a slick of mud. "Excuse me? I'm looking for Ellie Hathaway." At the sound of the deep voice, both Katie and I turned, the nozzle in my hand spraying the shoes of the speaker before he managed to jump out of the way. I stood up, wiping mud off my hands, and grinned sheepishly at the man on the other side of the heifer pen, a man staring at my boots and apron and the muck all over me. "Coop," I said. "It's been a while."

  Ten minutes later when I came downstairs fresh from a shower, I found Coop sitting on the porch with Katie and Sarah. A platter of cookies was on the wicker table, and Coop held a sweating glass of ice water in his hand. He stood up as soon as he saw me.

  "Still a gentleman," I said, smiling.

  He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, and to my surprise a hundred memories rushed at me--the way his hair had always smelled of wood smoke and apples, the curve of his jaw, the imprint of his fingers splayed over my back. Dizzy, I stepped back and did my best not to look uncomfortable.

  "These ladies have been kind enough to keep me company," he said, and Katie and Sarah bent their heads together, whispering like schoolgirls.

  Sarah came to her feet. "We'll leave you to your caller," she said, nodding at Coop as she walked back into the house. Katie headed toward the garden, and I sat down. After twenty years, Coop had grown into his looks. His features--just a little too sharp in college--had roughened with time, chiseling his skin with a scar here and a laugh line there. His black hair, which once hung to his shoulders, was neatly trimmed and feathered with gray. His eyes were still that clear pale green that I had only seen twice in my life: on Coop, and once from the window of a plane when I was traveling to the Caribbean with Stephen.

  "You've aged well," I said.

  He laughed. "You make it sound like I'm a bottle of wine." Leaning back in his chair, he grinned at me. "You look pretty good, yourself. Especially compared to about fifteen minutes ago. I'd heard defense litigation was a dirty business, but I never took it literally."

  "Well, it's sort of like method acting. The Amish aren't a particularly trusting lot, when it comes to outsiders. When I look like them, work with them, they open up."

  "Must be hard, being stuck here away from home."

  "Is that John Joseph Cooper the psychiatrist asking?"

  He started to say something, then shook his head. "Nah. Just Coop, the friend."

  I shrugged, deliberately looking away from his careful gaze. "There are things I miss--my coffee maker, for one. Downshifting in my car. The X-Files, and ER ."

  "Not Stephen?"

  I had forgotten that the last time I saw Coop, we'd been with our significant others. We met in the lobby during the intermission of a performance by the Philadelphia Symphony. Although we'd been in touch occasionally for business reasons, I had never before met his wife, who was fine-boned and blond, and fit against his side as neatly as a matched jigsaw puzzle piece. Even after all those years, just the sight of her was a sucker punch.

  "Stephen isn't in the picture," I admitted.

  Coop regarded me for a moment before saying, "I'm sorry to hear that."

  I was a grown-up; I could get through this. Taking a deep breath, I summoned a smile and clapped my hands on my knees. "Well. You didn't come all the way out here to talk to me--"

  "But I would have, Ellie," Coop said, his voice soft. "I forgave you a long time ago."

  It would have been easy to pretend that I had not heard him; to simply launch into a discussion about Katie. But you can't speak to someone partly responsible for making you who you are without unearthing a little bit of that history. Maybe Coop had forgiven me, but I hadn't.

  Coop cleared his throat. "Let me tell you what I found out about Katie." He dug in a briefcase and pulled out a pad of yellow legal paper covered with his chicken-scratch handwriting. "There are two camps of psychiatric explanations for neonaticide. The minority attitude is that women who kill their newborns have gone into a dissociative state that lasts throughout the pregnancy."

  "Dissociative state?"

  "A very concentrated focus state, where a person blocks out all but the one thing they're doing. In this case, these women fracture off a bit of their consciousness, so that they're living in a fantasy world where they're not pregnant. When the birth finally occurs, the women are totally unprepared. They've dissociated from the reality of the event, experiencing memory lapses. Some women even become temporarily psychotic, once the shock of the birth slams through that shell of denial. In either case, the excuse is that they're not mentally present at the moment of the crime, so they can't be held legally accountable for their actions."

  "Sounds very Sybil to me."

  Coop grinned and handed me a list of names. "These are some psychiatrists who've testified the past few years with the soft approach. They're clinical psychiatrists, you'll see--not forensic ones. That's because the majority of forensic psychiatrists who deal with neonaticides say the women are not in a dissociative state--just detached from the pregnancy. They feel dissociation might occur at the moment of birth. Plus, even I'd tell you that some dissociation is entirely normal, given the pain of childbirth. It's like when you cut yourself chopping vegetables, and you kind of stand there for a second and say, 'Wow, that's a deep one. ' But you don't go chopping off your hand after that to eliminate the problem."

  I nodded. "Then why do they kill the babies?"

  "Because they have no emotional connection to them--it's like passing a gallstone. At the moment of murder, they aren't out of touch with reality--just frightened, embarrassed, and unable to face an illegitimate birth."

  "In other words," I said flatly, "patently guilty."

  Coop shrugged. "I don't have to tell you how insanity defenses go over with a jury." He handed me another list, this one three times as long as the first. "These psychiatrists have supported the mainstream view. But every case is different. If Katie's still refusing to admit to what's happened in the face of a murder charge and medical evidence of pregnancy, there may be something more at work creating that defense mechanism."

  "I wanted to talk to you about that. Is there any way to find out if she was raped?"

  Coop whistled. "That would be a hell of a reason to get rid of a newborn."

  "Yeah. I'd just like to be the one to find out, instead of the prosecutor."

  "It's going to be tough, so many months after the fact, but I'll keep it in mind when I'm talking to her." He frowned. "There's another option, too--that she's been lying all along."

  "Coop, I'm a defense attorney. My bullshit meter is calibrated daily. I'd know if she was lying."

  "You might not, El. You have to admit you're a little close to the situation, living here."

  "Lying isn't one of the hallmarks of the Amish."

  "Neither is neonaticide."

  I thought
of the way Katie would blush and stammer when she was confronted with something she didn't want to talk about. And then I thought of how she'd looked every time she denied having a baby: her chin jutting straight, her eyes bright, her focus right on me. "In her mind, that baby never happened," I said quietly.

  Coop considered this. "Maybe not in her mind," he answered. "But that baby was here."

  Katie fisted her hands in her lap, looking as if she'd been sentenced to an execution. "Dr. Cooper just wants to ask you some questions," I explained. "You can relax."

  Coop smiled at her. We were all sitting by the creek, far enough away from the house for privacy. He slipped a tape recorder out of his pocket, and I quickly caught his eye and shook my head. Unfazed, Coop reached for his pad instead. "Katie, I just want to start off by telling you that whatever you say isn't going to go beyond us. I'm not here to tattle on you; I'm just here to help you work through some of the feelings you must be having."

  She looked at Ellie, then back at Coop.

  He grinned. "So--how are you feeling?"

  "All right," she said, wary. "Good enough that I don't need to talk to you."

  "I can understand why you feel that way," Coop responded pleasantly. "A lot of people do, who've never spoken to a psychiatrist. And then they figure out that sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger about personal things than it is to talk to a family member."

  I knew Coop was watching the same things I was--how Katie's spine had become just a little less stiff, how her hands had uncurled in her lap. As his voice continued to wash over her, as his eyes held hers, I wondered how anyone stood a chance of keeping secrets from him. There was an affability to Coop, an effortless charm, that immediately made you feel like you had an intimate connection to him.

  Then again, I had.

  Shaking my attention back to my client, I listened to Coop's question. "Can you tell me about your relationship with your parents?"

  Katie looked at me as if she didn't understand. What was a perfectly normal question for a clinical interview seemed silly, given the Amish. "They are my parents," she said haltingly.

  "Do you spend a lot of time with them?"

  "Ja, out in the fields or in the kitchen, at meals, at prayer." She blinked at Coop. "I'm with them all the time."

  "Are you close to your mother?"