Plain Truth

by Jodi Picoult

  "You said that you would let me tell the truth."

  "I said that I wouldn't use an insanity defense. You said that you'd tell the truth. And if you recall, I basically said that we'd see." She looked into Katie's eyes. "If you step out there, George is going to cut you to ribbons. We'll be lucky if he doesn't destroy the thread of the defense while he's doing it. This is an English world, an English court, an English murder charge. You can't win if you play by Amish rules."

  "You have an Amish client, with an Amish upbringing, and Amish thoughts. The English rules don't apply," Katie said quietly. "So where does that leave us?"

  "Just listen to what the prosecutor does and says, Katie. Right up till the minute you're supposed to get on the stand, you can change your mind." Ellie gazed at her client. "Even if you never speak a word in court, I can win."

  "If I never speak a word in court, Ellie, I'll be the liar that Mr. Callahan says I am."

  Frustrated, Ellie turned away. What a catch-22: Katie wanting her to sacrifice this case on the altar of religious honesty; Ellie knowing that the last place honesty belonged was in court. It was like navigating a car in an ice storm--even if she'd been entirely sure of her own abilities, there were other parties on the road speeding by her, crossing lines, crashing.

  Then again, Katie had never driven a car.

  "You're not feeling well, are you?"

  At the sound of Coop's voice, Ellie raised her face. "I'm just fine, thanks."

  "You look awful."

  She smirked. "Gee, I bet you have to beat girls off with a stick."

  He hunkered down beside her. "I'm serious, Ellie," he said, lowering his voice. "I have a personal stake in your welfare, now. And if this trial is too much for you--"

  "For God's sake, Coop, women used to give birth in the fields and then keep on picking corn after--"

  "Cotton."

  "What?"

  He shrugged. "They were picking cotton."

  Ellie blinked at him. "Were you there?"

  "I was just making a point."

  "Yeah. A point. The point is that I'm fine. A-OK. Perfect and one hundred percent. I can win this trial; I can have this baby; I can do anything." With horror, Ellie realized that tears were pricking the backs of her eyes. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to end the war in Bosnia and stop hunger in a few Third World countries before court reconvenes." Pushing to her feet, she shoved past Coop.

  He stared after Ellie, then sank into the chair she'd vacated. Katie was rubbing her thumbnail over the top sheet of a legal pad. "It's the baby," she said. "It can make you all ferhoodled ."

  "Well." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm worried about her."

  Pressing deeper with her nail, she left a mark on the paper. "I'm worried, too."

  Ellie slipped into the seat beside Katie just as the judge was coming back into the courtroom. Ellie's face was flushed and a little damp, as if she'd been splashing water on it. She would not look at Katie, not even when Katie touched her lightly on the hand beneath the defense table, just to make sure everything was all right.

  Ellie murmured something then, something that sounded like "Don't worry," or "I'm sorry," although the latter didn't make any sense. Then she rose in one fluid stream, in the sleek, dramatic way that made Katie think of smoke curling from a chimney. "The defense," Ellie said, "calls Adam Sinclair."

  Katie had heard wrong, surely. She sucked in her breath.

  "Objection," the prosecutor called out. "This witness wasn't on my list."

  "Your Honor, he was out of the country. I discovered his whereabouts only days ago," Ellie explained.

  "That still doesn't tell me why Mr. Sinclair didn't make it to your witness list," Judge Ledbetter said.

  Ellie hesitated. "He represents some last-minute information I've found."

  "Your Honor, this is unconscionable. Ms. Hathaway is twisting legal procedure to suit her own needs."

  "I beg your pardon, Judge," Ellie countered, "and I apologize to Mr. Callahan for the short notice. This witness isn't going to win my case for me, but he will be able to provide an important piece of background that's been missing."

  "I want time to depose him first," George said.

  Katie did not hear the rest. All she knew was within moments, Adam was in the same room as her. She began to take short, shallow breaths; each one rustling, as if she might unwrap it to find the candy of his name. Adam placed his palm over the Bible and Katie pictured it, instead, pressed against the flat of her own belly.

  And then he looked at her. There was a sorrow in his gaze that made Katie think anguish had risen within him like a sea, leaving a watermark that cut right across the blue of his eyes. He stared at her, kept staring at her, until the air went solid and her heart thudded in her chest, hard enough for there to be a recoil.

  Katie bit her lip, pulling shame tight as a shawl. She had done this, she had brought them to this point. I'm sorry.

  Don't worry.

  She lifted shaking hands to cover her face, thinking like a child now: if she could not see Adam, surely she would be invisible.

  "Ms. Hathaway," the judge said. "Would you like to take a moment?"

  "No," Ellie answered. "My client is fine."

  But Katie wasn't fine. She couldn't stop trembling, and the tears were coming harder, and for the life of her she couldn't look up and see Adam again. She could feel the stares of the jury members like so many tiny pinpricks, and she wondered why Ellie wouldn't do this one thing for her--let her run out of here, and never look back.

  "Please," she whispered to Ellie.

  "Shh. Trust me."

  "Are you sure, counselor?" Judge Ledbetter asked.

  Ellie glanced at the jury, at their open-mouthed expressions. "Positive."

  At that moment, Katie thought she truly hated Ellie.

  "Your Honor," came his voice; oh, Lord, his sweet, deep voice, like the hum of a buggy running over the pavement. "May I?" He picked up the box of tissues on the stand, and nodded in Katie's general direction.

  "No, Mr. Sinclair. You will stay where you are," the judge ordered.

  "I have to object to this, Your Honor," the prosecutor insisted. "Ms. Hathaway put this witness on for purely dramatic value, and nothing of true import."

  "I haven't even questioned him yet, George," Ellie said.

  "Counsel--approach," Judge Ledbetter said. She began to whisper angrily to Ellie and the county attorney, their voices rising in small spurts. Adam looked from the bench to Katie, who was still weeping. He picked up the box of tissues and opened the gate to the witness stand.

  The bailiff stepped forward. "Sir, I'm sorry, but--"

  Adam pushed past him, his footsteps growing louder as he approached the defense table. Judge Ledbetter looked up and called out his name. When he kept walking, she banged her gavel. "Mr. Sinclair! You will stop now, or I'll hold you in contempt of court!"

  But Adam did not stop. As the prosecutor's voice rose in outrage, wrapped around the angry warnings of the judge, Adam knelt beside Katie. She could smell him, could feel the heat coming off his body, and she thought: This is my Armageddon.

  She felt the soft stroke of a tissue along her cheek.

  The voices of the judge and lawyers faded, but Katie did not notice. Adam's thumb grazed her skin, and she closed her eyes.

  In the background, George Callahan threw up his hands and began to argue again.

  "Thank you," Katie whispered, taking the tissue from Adam's hand.

  He nodded, silent. The bailiff, following orders, grasped Adam's arm and wrenched him to his feet. Katie watched him being led back to the witness stand, every slow step a mile between them.

  "I'm a ghost hunter," Adam said, responding to Ellie's question. "I search for and record paranormal phenomena."

  "Can you tell us what that entails?"

  "Staying overnight in places that are assumed to be haunted; trying to detect some change in the energy field either by dowsing or by a specialized typ
e of photography."

  "Besides your Ph.D. from Penn State in parapsychology, do you hold any other degrees?"

  "Yes. A bachelor's of science and a master's degree from MIT."

  "In what field, Mr. Sinclair?"

  "Physics."

  "Would you consider yourself a man of science, then?"

  "Absolutely. It's why I know paranormal phenomena have to exist--any physicist will tell you that energy can't be lost, but only transformed."

  "How did you get to know Jacob Fisher?" Ellie asked.

  "We met in a class at Penn State--I was a teaching assistant, he was an undergraduate. I was immediately attracted to his focus as a student."

  "Can you elaborate?"

  "Well, obviously, given the field I'm in, I can't afford to make light of my work. I've found that the best way to go about my business is to put my nose to the grindstone and just do my research and not worry about what everyone else thinks. Jacob reminded me of myself, in that. For an undergraduate, he was far less interested in the social scene on campus than the academic side. When it came time to sublet my house, since I'd be traveling to do research, I approached him as a potential tenant."

  "When did you meet Jacob's sister?"

  Adam's gaze moved from Ellie to Katie and softened. "The first time was the day I got my Ph.D. Her brother introduced us."

  "Can you tell us about that?"

  "She was beautiful and wide-eyed and shy. I knew she was Amish--I had learned that from Jacob some time back--but she wasn't dressed that way." He hesitated, then lifted his palm. "We shook hands. Perfectly ordinary. But I remember thinking that I didn't want to let go."

  "Did you have the opportunity to meet Katie again?"

  "Yes, she visited her brother once a month. Jacob moved into my house a few months before I officially moved out, so I got to see Katie when she made her trips to State College."

  "Did your relationship progress?"

  "We became friends very quickly. She was interested in my work, not in the National Enquirer hack way, but truly respectful of what I was trying to do. I found it very easy to talk to her, because she was so open and honest. To me, it was like she wasn't of this world--and in many ways I guess that was true." He shifted in his seat. "I was attracted to her. I knew better--God, I was ten years older than her, experienced, and clearly not Amish. But I couldn't stop thinking about her."

  "Did you become lovers?"

  He watched Katie's cheeks bloom with color. "Yes."

  "Had Katie ever slept with anyone before?"

  "No." Adam cleared his throat. "She was a virgin."

  "Did you love her, Mr. Sinclair?"

  "I still do," he said quietly.

  "Then why weren't you here for her when she became pregnant?"

  Adam shook his head. "I didn't know about it. I'd postponed my research trip twice, to stay close to her. But that night after ... after the conception, I left for Scotland."

  "Have you come back to the States between then and now?"

  "No. If I had, I would have gone to see Katie. But I've been in remote villages, unreachable areas. Saturday was the first time I've been on American soil in a year."

  "If you had known about the baby, Mr. Sinclair, what would you have done?"

  "I would have married Katie in a heartbeat."

  "But you'd have to be Amish. Could you convert?"

  "It's been done, I know, but I probably couldn't. My faith isn't strong enough."

  "So marriage wouldn't really have been an option. What else would you have done?" Ellie asked.

  "Anything. I would have left her among family and friends, but hoped that I could still have some future with her."

  "What kind of future?"

  "Whatever she was willing or able to give me," Adam said.

  "Correct me if I'm wrong," Ellie continued, "but a shared future between an Amish woman and a worldly man seems awfully unlikely."

  "A saguaro can fall for a snowman," Adam mused softly, "but where would they set up house?" He sighed. "I didn't want to be a star-crossed lover. I would have been perfectly happy to find some corner of the universe where Katie and I could just be Katie and I. But if I loved her, I couldn't ask her to turn her back on everything and everyone else. That's why I took the coward's way out last year. I left, hoping that by the time I returned, things would have magically changed."

  "Had they?"

  Adam grimaced. "Yes, but not for the better."

  "When you came back on Saturday, what did you learn?"

  He swallowed. "Katie had given birth to my child. And the child had died."

  "That must have been very upsetting to hear."

  "It was," Adam said. "It still is."

  "What was your first reaction?"

  "I wanted to go to Katie. I was certain she must have been as devastated as I was, if not more. I thought we could help each other."

  "At the time, did you know that Katie had been accused of murdering the baby?"

  "Yes."

  "You heard that your baby was dead, and that Katie was the one suspected of killing him--yet you wanted to go to her to give and receive comfort?"

  "Ms. Hathaway," Adam said, "Katie didn't kill our baby."

  "How could you know for certain?"

  Adam looked into his lap. "Because I wrote a dissertation on it. Love's the strongest kind of energy. Katie and I loved each other. We couldn't love each other in my world, and we couldn't love each other in her world. But all that love, all that energy, it had to go somewhere. It went into that baby." His voice broke. "Even if we couldn't have each other, we would have both had him."

  "If you loved her so much," George said midway through his cross-examination, "why didn't you drop her a line every now and then?"

  "I did. I wrote once a week," Adam answered. From beneath his lashes, he watched Ellie Hathaway. She had warned him not to talk about the letters that had never found their way to Katie, because then it would come out that Jacob had not wanted his sister to have a future with Adam--a strike against the star-crossed lover defense.

  "So during all this pen-pal time, she never told you she was pregnant?"

  "As far I understand, she never told anyone."

  George raised a brow. "Couldn't the reason she kept her pregnancy from you be because she didn't care as much about your relationship as you apparently did?"

  "No, that wasn't--"

  "Or perhaps she had gotten her wild ride and now intended to go back to her Amish boyfriend with no one the wiser."

  "You're wrong."

  "Maybe she didn't tell you because she planned to get rid of the baby."

  "She wouldn't have done that," Adam said with conviction.

  "Pardon me if I've misunderstood, but were you standing in the barn the night she gave birth?"

  "You know I wasn't."

  "Then you can't say for certain what did or did not happen."

  "By the same logic, neither can you," Adam pointed out. "But there's one thing I do know that you don't. I know how Katie thinks and feels. I know she wouldn't murder our child. It doesn't matter whether I was there to witness the birth or not."

  "Oh, that's right. You're a ... what did you call it? Ah, a ghost hunter. You don't have to see things to believe them."

  Adam's gaze locked onto the prosecutor's. "Maybe you've got that backward," he said. "Maybe it's just that I believe things you can't see."

  *

  Ellie gently closed the door of the conference room. #x201C;Look," she began with trepidation. "I know what you're going to say. I had no right to spring him on you. As soon as I knew where Adam was, I should have told you. But Katie, the jury needed to know about the father of your baby in order to understand that the death was a tragedy. They needed to see how much it hurt you to watch Adam walk into the room. They needed to build up sympathy for you so that they'll want to acquit you, for whatever reason they can find." She folded her arms. "For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry."

  When Katie turned
away, Ellie tried to make light of the situation. "I said I was sorry. I thought if you confessed, you were forgiven and welcomed back to the fold."

  Katie looked up at her. "This was mine," she said quietly. "This memory was the only thing I had left. And you gave it away."

  "I did it to save you."

  "Who said I wanted to be saved?"

  Without another word, Ellie walked to the door again. "I brought you something," she said, and turned the knob.

  Adam stood there hesitantly, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Ellie nodded at him, then walked out, closing the door behind her.

  Katie rose, blinking back tears. All he had to do was open his arms, and she would fall into them. All he had to do was open his arms, and they'd be back where they were before.

  He took a step forward, and Katie flew to him. They whispered their questions into each other's skin, leaving marks as sure as scars. Katie wriggled closer, surprised to see she didn't quite fit, as if some small object was caught between their bodies. She glanced down to see what had pressed up between them, and found nothing except the invisible, hard fact of their baby.

  Adam felt it too, she could tell by the way he shifted and held her at arm's length. "I tried to write you. Your brother didn't give you my letters."

  "I would have told you," she answered. "I didn't know where you were."

  "We would have loved him," Adam said fiercely, the tone as much a statement as it was a question.

  "We would have."

  His hand stroked over her hair, catching at the edge of her kapp. "What happened?" he whispered.

  Katie stilled. "I don't know. I fell asleep, and woke up, and the baby was gone."

  "I understand that's what you told your lawyer. And the police. But this is me, Katie. This is our son."

  "I'm telling you the truth. I don't remember."

  "You were there! You have to remember!"

  "But I don't!" Katie cried.

  "You have to," Adam said thickly, "because I wasn't there. And I need to know."

  Katie pressed her lips together and gave a tight little shake of her head. She sank down into a chair and curled forward, her arms crossed over her stomach.

  Adam reached for her hand and kissed the knuckles. "We'll figure this out," he said. "After the trial, somehow, it's all going to work out."

  She let his voice wash over her with the same spiritual cleansing that she'd felt at Grossgemee, communion services. How she wanted to believe him! Lifting her face to Adam's, she started to nod.