Selena Kitt - Grace

The judge nodded, writing things down and even smiling at her occasionally when she dared to look his way. It seemed to be going so perfectly, Leah couldn’t believe it. She tried to remind herself, Donald had warned her not to get too excited, not to anticipate what might happen, but after her lawyer’s questioning had gone so well, she couldn’t help it.

Then the lawyer for the state got up to cross-examine her.

Leah took a deep breath, looking at the kindly man who approached the bench. He was an older man, probably in his fifties, maybe sixties, and he introduced himself to her as Frank Talley, “But you can call me Frank,” he assured her with a wink. He wore a brown suit and a yellow tie, and when he smiled at her, his teeth matched his tie. He wore glasses that made his eyes appear much larger, making Leah think of a fish. How bad could this be, she mused, watching him look at his notes on the legal pad in his hand.

His questions weren’t any harder than Donald’s. He wasn’t mean, he didn’t badger her like her lawyer had during their practice. His questions were asked in a non-threatening way. In fact, he seemed to sympathize with her when she told him about her breakdown, how much she missed her baby, how she woke up at night sometimes, thinking she heard her cry.

“Does that still happen, dear?” Frank asked kindly, leaning on the edge of the witness box.

Leah nodded, her eyes welling with tears. “Sometimes.”

He seemed very interested when she told him she felt as if she was being followed around all the time, like there was a shadow behind her she couldn’t quite catch, a ghost-baby in the house.

Whenever she looked away from him-up to the judge or over to where her family was sitting, or to where Donald sat in front of them-Frank would redirect her, smiling and dropping a wink, saying, “I’m right here, Dear. Can you focus on me? Good girl. There we go. Hi there! Are you back? There you are!”

It made Leah laugh, the way he did that, and then he would continue his questions. He had a lot of them written down on that yellow legal pad.

Even when he asked her about the altercation at Hudson’s, he didn’t get angry or confrontational. He was very interested when she told him that “everything went black” when the argument started, and that she couldn’t remember much about the actual argument itself.

“But I’m very sorry,” Leah interjected before he could ask anything else. “I’m really very sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I just wanted to know where my baby is, that’s all.”

“I understand, Dear.” Frank even patted her hand where she was clutching the railing in front of her.

When she sat back down next to Rob, she smiled up at him and whispered, “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, putting his arm around her shoulder, but he didn’t say anything. She couldn’t understand why they all looked the way they did, her mother and Erica and even Clay-like someone had died and they were attending a funeral.

Then Frank asked the ghoul to take the stand and Leah watched her world crumble around her ears. She thought they’d been playing the game perfectly, but the ghoul, with Frank’s help, created a sudden tornado that knocked down their house of cards.

The Frank who had cross-examined Leah disappeared. That kindly, sympathetic old gentlemen became a direct, confident lawyer, asking the ghoul questions about her experience of Leah at Magdalene House -“rebellious, defiant, clearly sexually deviant” -and after Grace’s birth- “depressed, belligerent, anxious.” He asked her matter-of-factly about the assault-that’s what he called it, “the assault,” and he kept calling it that, saying it so many times Leah lost count-detailing her injury, asking her about the diagnosis and treatment, whether or not the doctor said she would be permanently disfigured.

Donald objected- “Hearsay, your honor!” -and that was sustained, so Frank started asking the ghoul, in her “professional opinion,” what kind of person assaults an elderly woman in such a way? Donald objected to that too, but the judge allowed it, saying the witness was, after all, a professional and it spoke to the point. So Leah had to sit there and listen to the ghoul throw out diagnosis after diagnosis- neurosis, borderline, depression -doing just what Donald said they would do, proving to everyone that Leah was unfit to be Grace’s mother, she was unfit to be anyone’s mother, and the more they talked, the more she started to believe them herself. Frank asked the ghoul if she believed a psychological evaluation was warranted, and of course the ghoul recommended one be done immediately, because Leah just wasn’t a danger to herself and others she knew, she was a much bigger danger to “society at large.”

Leah looked at the judge, who had been smiling before, but not anymore. By the time Donald got up to cross-examine the ghoul, Leah felt so small she was sure she was invisible next to her husband, whose jaw was working again. She could hear his teeth grinding. But of course there was nothing they could but sit there, sit there and wait for them to nail the coffin shut and seal her in.

It didn’t seem to matter what Donald asked, the woman was as slippery as a fish.

“Mrs. Goulden, I didn’t ask you your opinion of Mrs. Nolan’s mental state, I asked you where her baby had been placed.”

“As you know, that information is confidential.”

The ghoul looked bored, Leah thought. No, not quite bored-she looked like she had better things to be doing than being cross-examined by Donald Highbrow.

“It’s only confidential after the adoption has been finalized.” Donald corrected her with a wag of his finger. “Until the mother has signed over her rights, she is allowed visitation. Was Mrs. Nolan informed of her rights to visit her child?”

“In my opinion, Mrs. Nolan isn’t fit to visit her child.” The ghoul sneered, emphasizing the Mrs. in Mrs. Nolan as if Leah was misrepresenting herself as a married woman. “She’s a danger to herself and others. I have the scars under here to prove it.”

The ghoul tore off her bandage and, as if on cue, the whole courtroom gasped. It felt so staged and dramatic to Leah, she wondered if the ghoul and Frank had planned it somehow. Not that it mattered. Leah sank down further in her seat, feeling everyone’s eyes on her.

“She could have blinded me, you know!” the ghoul snapped, tossing the bandage aside.

“Again, I didn’t ask your opinion of Mrs. Nolan’s mental state.” Donald ignored the woman’s drama, not looking at her but at the judge. “Can you please direct the witness to answer the question, Judge Solomon?”

The judge frowned at the ghoul, leaning over and asking, “Mrs. Goulden, where is the baby now?”

The ghoul touched her cheek, which was healing, Leah saw, just in the two days since their altercation. Erica said there was a lot of blood and there were gouges on the woman’s face-she made it sound like mincemeat-but from where Leah was sitting, it didn’t look that bad. Like surface scratches made from fingernails maybe.

The ghoul sighed and relented, looking up at the judge. “We placed her in foster care at our facility on the other side of the state. She needed special care, Your Honor. We believe she’s exhibiting signs of her mother having some sort of drug habit. The doctor’s aren’t sure.”

Leah had had enough. She sat bolt upright, protesting out loud, “That’s not true!”

Judge Solomon frowned, glancing in her direction. “Mrs. Nolan, please be seated.”

Leah leaned forward, feeling Rob’s hand on her shoulder. “Your honor I’ve never even smoked a cigarette!”