Blind Turn

by Cara Sue Achterberg

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  He doesn’t look like he has happy news, whatever it is, he can barely speak the words. “Say it, whatever it is, please.”

  He looks at me. Terror on his face. “Jill is having a baby.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Relief floods my body followed by confusion.

  “It’s my baby.”

  “Huh? How is that possible? You told me…”

  “It’s possible because she did another in-vitro treatment.”

  “But why?”

  He shakes his head. “She wants a baby. The sperm bank contacted her to say we had to decide what to do with our remaining embryos. I told her we should consider donating them, but she got this crazy idea that now that she’s healthier, now it might work.”

  “But you’re divorced. Why would you agree to that?”

  “This all happened right about the time I first started seeing you.”

  I nod. Afraid to speak.

  “And when I insisted on the divorce, she said she’d sign the papers as long as I signed consent for her to try in-vitro again.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  He sinks back against the cushions, defeated. “Because I wanted the divorce. I wanted to be with you, and I was sure she was wasting her money. It hadn’t worked before. She’s over forty now. What were the odds?”

  “Apparently, quite good.”

  Kevin shakes his head and frowns.

  “So, what does that mean?”

  He shrugs. “Jill told me I can walk away. I don’t have to be part of the baby’s life.”

  “Do you want that?”

  He looks at his hands, shakes his head ever so slightly. “It’s what I’ve been trying to figure out ever since she told me. At first, I thought she was making it up. Some kind of crazy scheme because she was jealous of you.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He looks at me. “It’s what we wanted so desperately and could never have. How could I not want this baby?”

  I bite my lip, will myself not to cry.

  “This doesn’t change how I feel about you, but I realize it changes everything.”

  I nod. “It does.”

  “But it changes nothing with Jess’ case. I’m ready for tomorrow.”

  “I think I need some time.”

  “Of course. We can talk about it after the trial.”

  “No. I think I need a lot more than that.”

  “Oh.” He turns to me and reaches for my hand. I let him hold it, but all of me just wants to get away from him. Far away.

  “When did Jill tell you?” I ask.

  “In December, she told me she had done it. She didn’t know yet if the pregnancy would be viable. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I thought she was crazy. She’d never get pregnant.”

  “But miracles happen,” I say, trying to smile. Just not to me.

  He smiles, despite himself. “It is a miracle.”

  The office echoes with our silence. How can I be angry when he is talking about a new life? His child? How can I resent that? And yet, I am angry. Angry and hurt.

  “I think I’d better get home. Jess needs me there,” I tell him.

  “Liz, please, I can’t lose you.”

  “Can I ask you one question?”

  “Anything.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “It’s not that simple. Your relationship with Jake is complicated, too.”

  “Except, I’m not committing to spending the next eighteen years raising a baby with him.”

  He sighs.

  “Have you even thought about that? Having a baby with Jill, even if you are divorced, still means your life is tangled up with hers forever.”

  I stare at him. I cannot believe this is happening. I wanted him to be the one. I wanted him to be the good guy. The right guy.

  We talk in circles for another half hour before I insist I have to go. I promise we will talk again, after the trial, but I know we won’t.

  51

  JESS

  I laid out the clothes Mom bought for the trial before I went to bed. The high-collared shirt and neat sweater are supposed to make me look innocent. The last time I dressed in clothes I’d laid out the night before, I was in second grade. There’s probably a picture somewhere of my outfit—purple cowboy boots and jeans with stars embroidered all over them.

  I was innocent then. Am I now? If only my clothes could make it so. If only I could.

  It seems impossible that all these people—lawyers, policemen, judges, even Mr. Monroe in his job at the district attorney’s office will be there just to talk about what I did, something I don’t even remember doing. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a dystopian novel being controlled by a cosmic author who makes the characters do things no one would ever dream they would do—especially themselves.

  Kevin says Sheila is the prosecution’s star witness. I can already tell you what will happen. Sheila will look perfect. She’ll dress the part of the innocent friend. Her makeup will be flawless; her peachy skin will sparkle in the light because of the expensive foundation she drives to Dallas to buy. People cannot look away. That’s the way it always is with Sheila. I’ve watched her turn boys to putty and make teachers question themselves. So no matter what Sheila says, whether it’s the God’s honest truth or a tale she made up about aliens landing on the road in front of us, everyone in that courtroom will believe her. I don’t have a chance. No matter what I wear.

  These are the things I think about as we sit in the tiny alcove off the side of the courtroom, waiting to go in. Once again, they have to clear the courtroom because I’m a minor. I’m seventeen now, so they could try me as an adult, but Kevin says they go by your age at the time of the alleged crime. Everything with him is alleged.

  Finally, we’re escorted into the courtroom. It’s a bigger room than where the hearing or the pretrial conference were held. The windows are tall, and the chair rail that lines the room is dusty. I drag my finger down it as we enter.

  There’s no jury. Kevin made that decision. He said we could ask for one, but that we’d be better off with a judge. It would be hard to find an impartial person in this county. To find twelve of them, they’d probably have to move the trial. We drew Judge Harkins. He says she’s fair. She sits at a tall desk up front. I watch as she writes something, pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and then listens as the DA explains the case they’re about to present. Kevin says they get to go first, again.

  Once again, the police officer and the accident specialist have their say. It’s the same information, only this time Kevin asks them a lot more questions. It’s mostly technical stuff. Stuff about my cell phone, the position of the car in the roadway (on its side), how much room there was between the white line and the bank (2.7 inches and the line was obscured by overgrowth). He repeatedly asks about the exact time the text was opened and the exact time of the accident. The experts believe it to be nearly the same time. Why he keeps hammering at that I don’t understand. Doesn’t that just make me look more guilty? It takes the entire day. The cell phone information is especially tedious and I don’t understand most of it. At four, the judge says we’re done for the day. Kevin said the trial will only take a day or two, but at this rate, it could be weeks.

  We leave out a side door to avoid the crowd of MADD demonstrators out front. Dad goes ahead of us to be sure there’s none of them at the house, but they aren’t there. He and Mom sit at the kitchen table. He has a beer, and
she drinks coffee. They talk through the entire day’s testimony. I slip out the door, and go to Ms. Helen’s. She wasn’t there today, but her three kids were. They sat all in a line in the back. Dad and Mom know them. They all went to school together. I bet they never imagined they’d have a reunion like this.

  There’s a movement behind the curtains and by the time I reach the door, Ms. Helen has Sherman on his leash. He bounds outside, knocking into the screen door and nearly toppling me. Ms. Helen smiles and gives me his leash without a word. Sherman and I make several laps around the block.

  When we return, Ms. Helen is sitting at the top of the steps. She pats the place beside her, and I sit. I don’t know what Ms. Helen wants from me, but I don’t think it’s just to walk her dog.

  “He was better today,” I tell her.

  “He needs exercise,” she says. “Robert Jr thinks Sherman will force me to get out and get some exercise, too, but he pulls too much for an old woman.”

  “You don’t seem that old.”

  “Bless you, dear.”

  I want to ask her why she wasn’t at the trial, but I don’t.

  We watch Sherman dig up the edge of the yard.

  “When Robert and I were first married, he told me he wanted twelve children. Can you imagine?” She laughs and shakes her head. “I told him three was my limit. He loved having kids around. One time we had a player who was going through a rough time; his mother was sick, and his dad wasn’t around. Robert brought him home to stay with us. This was thirty years ago. They’d never allow that now.”

  Ms. Helen sighs. “Things were different then. James was his name. Likable kid, very bright. Do you know he graduated top of his class at Stanford?” Ms. Helen pauses, probably thinking about James. “Children made him happy. Sometimes he’d get sad, but kids would always lift his mood. Robert tutored him. Helped him fill out college applications. James went to Stanford on an academic scholarship. He never was very good at football, barely made the team at Jefferson.”

  Ms. Helen pats my knee and then gets up and takes Sherman inside. I wait a few minutes, but she doesn’t come back.

  — — —

  When I get home, Dad is gone.

  “What’s up with you and Kevin?” I ask Mom.

  “Nothing,” she says and asks, “How’re you doing?”

  She wouldn’t even look at Kevin today. It was weird at the courthouse. He kept trying to talk to her, and she kept avoiding him. Since she’s lying to me, I lie right back.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Do you know what you will wear tomorrow?”

  “Clothes.”

  “Jess….”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find something innocent looking,” I tell her and go to my room before she can ask any more.

  52

  JESS

  On Thursday, they bring Sheila in. The DA goes through her original testimony, line for line. When it’s Kevin’s turn to cross-examine her, he doesn’t ask her who answered the text, he asks, “What did the text say?”

  Sheila glances at the DA, looks confused. The judge tells her to answer the question.

  “It was from Casey, this guy Jess has had the hots for since, like, forever.” She smiles, laughs a little. “He asked her if she wanted to play pool on Wednesday.”

  I sit up. How does she know what the text says if I was the one who read the text? That’s Kevin’s point. Mom catches my eye and smiles.

  “And you know that because you read what was in the text message?”

  She nods.

  “Could you answer that question for the record?”

  She smirks. “Yes.”

  “So, when exactly did you read the text message on Jessica’s phone?”

  Sheila shrugs. The DA scribbles furiously on his notepad.

  “Did you read the message on Jessica’s phone before or after the car hit Coach Mitchell?”

  “I don’t know,” she says and smiles at the judge, like Duh, but the Judge furrows her brow, straightens her glasses, and makes a note.

  “If the crash happened moments after Jessica supposedly read the text, you couldn’t have read it before. But then again, I can’t imagine in the aftermath of that awful crash, that you took the time to locate Jessica’s phone and read the text.”

  She looks at the DA, who says, “Is there a question?”

  “So, should we assume that you read the text after the crash?”

  Sheila shrugs. “I read it whenever. I guess after.”

  Kevin steps back to the table where I am and pulls out a police report. He hands it to Sheila.

  “Could you read the highlighted portion?”

  She looks confused. Before the DA can object, Kevin explains to the judge that he only wants to show where the police found my cell phone.

  Finally, after much arguing between Kevin and the DA, she reads, “A cell phone belonging to Jessica Johnson was located fifteen feet north of the car, in the roadway.”

  “And if Jessica’s phone was fifteen feet from the car, from which paramedics had to extract you, I find it highly unlikely that you could have read what was in that text message.”

  “Again, is there a question here? Judge? Judge?” asks the DA. The judge doesn’t look up from the notes she’s writing. I almost smile because he sounds just like that scene from Ferris Bueller’s day off. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

  The judge tells him he can redirect. He tries to ask Sheila about the common knowledge of the text message and could she have known what was in the text because everyone at Jefferson High School does?

  For the first time, Sheila’s confidence falters, but she smiles and nods. “Yeah, that’s probably how I know. Everyone knows about the text Casey sent.” She looks at me pointedly, tilts her head, raises her eyebrows. Kevin is right, though. I don’t remember reading the text message, but I know what it said, and I didn’t tell anyone except Fish, so if the entire school knows what was in that text message, they only know because either Sheila or Casey told them. And I’m betting it wasn’t Casey.

  But if Sheila was the one who opened my text, why would I have hit Coach Mitchell? And why would she say I did it?

  53

  LIZ

  We break for lunch. Jake brings us sandwiches, but neither Jess nor I can eat. My body is reverberating like a tuning fork.

  “It’s going well, isn’t it?” I ask Kevin. It is the first time I have looked at him. I am still heartsick about the end of our relationship, but I push that aside. I focus on Jess.

  He is calm but quiet. “So far, so good,” is all he will say.

  He leaves us to go check his messages. Jake is all smiles now, so different from the man who called me this morning to suggest we ask for a mistrial and look for a different lawyer. Some ridiculousness about Kevin not being up to the task and there being a conflict of interest because of my relationship with him. He is singing a different tune.

  “Man, he got her!” he says. “Sheila is lying and now everybody knows it.”

  Jess sips on a water bottle, says nothing. I know her heart is breaking. Despite everything that has happened, she still misses her friend. Jake goes on and on like he does after a football game, recapping the highlights for us, even though we were there.

  Back in the courtroom, we take our seats. Jess sits next to Kevin at a table up front. I sit behind them, a railing separating us. Jake sits beside me. He is wearing clean jeans, a wrinkled shirt, and an out-of-date tie. He glances at me now and raises his eyebrows, silently asking if I am okay. I shake my head and look away. I will my heart to slow down and my tears
to stay inside. I have to keep it together for Jess. She is about to testify.

  When the door opens, I can hear all the people outside who want to come in but are not allowed because Jess is a minor. Gone is the assurance I gave Jess yesterday that things would go well today. Today I am gripped with terror. I wish I could sit next to her, but I trust Kevin to protect her. I know he will, no matter how angry I am with him.

  As if he senses me thinking of him, Kevin glances back at me and winks. I nod at him and watch as he whispers to Jess. Probably some last-minute advice, but she leans away from him. She is nervous and snappy like she is before a big meet or an oral report. She threw up her breakfast in the ladies’ room as soon as we got here this morning and refused to eat any lunch.

  Jake gets up and reaches across the barrier separating us to hand something to Jess. She smiles. It is a roll of lifesavers—butterscotch. She loved them when she was a kid. Jake used to leave them everywhere for her. It was sweet. I don’t think I have stumbled across a roll in years. I reach over and squeeze his hand. He leans his shoulder into mine. I am glad he is here.

  This morning Jess woke up surly and far, far away. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her it would be okay, but she stepped away from my embrace and I couldn’t find the words to say it will be okay, because surely I don’t know that it will be. She would not talk to me as we sipped coffee in the dark kitchen. Kevin wanted us at the courthouse two hours early to avoid the press. I changed my clothes at least three times before we left, finally settling on my navy suit, even though Jess told me I looked like a sausage in it. She is right; it is a little tight. I bought it for a job interview fifteen years ago.

  The side door of the courtroom opens, and the Mitchells walk in. I remember many nights drinking with Bobby Mitchell at the reservoir. It was hard to be Coach’s kid—everyone expected a lot, and Bobby was only a mediocre player. He was not the star that his brother Brian had been or that Jake would be. I don’t remember Karen that well. She was younger than me, only a freshman when I graduated.