Karin Slaughter: Skin Privilege

'And it didn't occur to you that they could return for immediate treatment and perhaps save their child's life?' It was clear she didn't expect an answer. 'I would imagine that, given the choice, the Powells would rather have their son alive today instead of empty photographs of him standing around the Magic Kingdom.' She slid the picture in question across the table. It glided neatly past Beckey and Jim Powell, past Sara's two lawyers, and stopped a few inches from where Sara was sitting.

She shouldn't have looked, but she did.

Young Jimmy stood leaning against his father, both of them wearing Mickey Mouse ears and holding sparklers as a parade of Snow White's dwarfs marched behind them. Even in the photo, you could tell the boy was sick. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and he was so thin that his frail little arm looked like a piece of string.

They had come back from vacation a day early because Jimmy had wanted to be home. Sara did not know why the Powells had not called her at the clinic, brought in Jimmy that day so she could check on him. Maybe his parents had known even without the test, even without the final diagnosis, that their days of having a normal, healthy child were over. Maybe they had just wanted to keep him to themselves one more day. He had been such a wonderful boy – kind, smart, cheerful – everything a parent could hope for. And now he was gone.

Sara felt tears well into her eyes, and bit her lip so hard that the tears fell from pain instead of grief.

Buddy snatched away the picture, irritated. He slid it back to Sharon Connor. 'You can practice your opening statement in front of your mirror at home, sweetheart.'

Connor's mouth twisted into a smirk as she took back the photograph. She was living proof that the theory that women were nurturing caretakers was utter bullshit. Sara half-expected to see rotting flesh between her teeth.

The woman said, 'Dr. Linton, on this particular date, the date you got James's lab results, did anything else happen that stood out for you?'

A prickling went up Sara's spine, a spark of warning that she could not suppress. 'Yes.'

'And could you tell us what that was?'

I found a woman who had been murdered in the bathroom of our local diner.'

'Raped and murdered. Is that correct?'

'Yes.'

'That brings us to your part-time job as coroner for the county. I believe your husband – then ex-husband, when this rape and murder occurred – is chief of police for the county. Both of you work closely together when cases arise.'

Sara waited for more, but the woman had obviously just wanted to get that on the record.

'Counselor?' Buddy asked.

'One moment, please,' the lawyer murmured, picking up a thick folder and leafing through the pages.

Sara looked down at her hands to give herself something to do. Pisiform, triquetrum, hamate, capitate, trapezoid, trapezium, lunate, scaphoid… She listed all the bones in her hand, then started on the ligaments, trying to distract herself, willing herself not to walk into the trap the lawyer was so skillfully setting.

While Sara was in her residency at Grady, headhunters had pursued her so relentlessly that she had stopped answering her phone. Partnerships. Six-figure salaries with year-end bonuses. Surgical privileges at any hospital she chose. Personal assistants, lab support, full secretarial staff, even her own parking space. They had offered her everything, and yet in the end, she had decided to return home to Grant, to practice medicine for considerably less money and even less respect, because she thought it was important for doctors to serve rural communities.

Was part of it vanity, too? Sara had seen herself as a role model for the girls in town. Most of them had only ever seen a male doctor. The only women

in authority were nurses, teachers, and mothers. Her first five years at the Heartsdale Children's Clinic, Sara had spent at least half of her time convincing young patients – and frequently their mothers – that she had, in fact, graduated medical school. No one believed a woman could be smart enough, good enough, to reach such a position. Even when Sara bought the clinic from her retiring partner, people had still been skeptical. It had taken years to carve herself a place of respect in the community.

All for this.

Sharon Connor finally looked up from her papers. She frowned. 'Dr. Linton, you yourself were raped. Isn't that correct?'

Sara felt all of the saliva in her mouth dry up. Her throat tightened and her flesh turned hot as she struggled with an unwelcome shame that she had not felt since the last time a lawyer had deposed her about being raped. Just like then, Sara's vision tunneled and blurred in such a way that she saw nothing, just heard the words ringing in her ears.

Buddy shot to his feet, arguing something, stabbing his finger at the lawyer, at the Powells. Beside him, Melinda Stiles from the Global Medical Indemnity said nothing. Buddy had told Sara this would happen, that Stiles would sit silently by, letting opposing counsel tear into Sara, speaking only when she thought Global might be exposed. Another woman, another failed role model.

'And I want that on the goddamn record!' Buddy finished, pushing his chair away from the table as he sat down.

'Noted,' Connor said. 'Dr. Linton?'

Sara's vision cleared. She heard a whoosh in her ears, as if she had been swimming underwater and suddenly pushed herself to the surface.

'Dr. Linton?' Connor repeated. She kept using the title, making it sound like something vile instead of a position Sara had worked for all of her life.

Sara looked at Buddy, and he shrugged as he shook his head, indicating there was nothing he could do. He had predicted that the deposition would be nothing more than a fishing expedition with Sara's life as bait.

Connor said, 'Doctor, would you like a few minutes to collect your emotions? I know that your rape is a hard thing for you to talk about.' She indicated the thick file on the table in front of her. It had to be the trial transcript from Sara's case. The woman had read everything, knew every disgusting detail. 'From what I gathered, your assault was very, very brutal.'

Sara cleared her throat, willed her voice to not just work but to be strong, fearless. 'Yes, it was.'

Connor's tone turned almost conciliatory. 'I used to work at the district attorney's office in Baton Rouge. I can honestly say in my twelve years as a prosecutor, I never saw anything as brutal, as sadistic, as what you experienced.'

Buddy snapped, 'Sweetheart, you wanna quit with the crocodile tears and get to the question?'

The lawyer hesitated for just a second then continued, 'For the record, Dr. Linton was raped in the bathroom of Grady Hospital, where she was working as an emergency room intern. Apparently, the perpetrator accessed the women's room through the drop ceiling. Dr. Linton was in one of the stalls when he literally dropped down on her.'

'Noted,' Buddy said. 'You got a question in there, or do you just like giving speeches?'

'Dr. Linton, the fact that you were brutally raped figured greatly into your decision to return to Grant County, did it not?'

'There were other reasons.'

'But would you say that the rape was your primary reason?'

'I would say that it was one of many reasons that figured into my decision to return.'

'Is this going somewhere?' Buddy asked. The lawyers exchanged words again, and Sara reached for the pitcher of water on the table, poured herself a glass with hands she willed to be steady.

She felt rather than saw Beckey Powell stir, and wondered if the woman was feeling guilty, seeing Sara as a human being again instead of a monster. Sara hoped so. She hoped Beckey tossed and turned in her bed tonight, realized that no matter how much she and her lawyer vilified Sara, nothing would bring back her son. Nothing would change the fact that Sara had done everything she could for Jimmy.