Joyce Oates - Sourland

“‘Assess my case’ — what do you mean?”

“I am not authorized to release you, ma’am. You will be released by the Surrogate.”

“But — how can I be ‘released’ — am I in custody? Am I arrested? ”

“Ma’am, you are in the custody of the Probate Court. You are not arrested. ” The bailiff scowled as if Adrienne had tried to be amusing and had failed, lamely.

“But when will this be? When can I go home?”

“Ma’am, I have no way of knowing. Ma’am you will wait here.”

Adrienne re-entered the cubicle, to put back on her clothes. Her hands were trembling badly. The pain between her legs had begun to throb like fire. A trickle of liquid high on the inside of her thigh, trickling down — blood? She wiped it away quickly not daring to look.

Her clothes — where were her clothes? — on the floor was her black cashmere coat — on the bench, her dark silk shirt and beige sweater she’d worn over it, no longer folded neatly as she’d left them but looking as if they’d been examined and flung down. There, on the floor, partway beneath the partition to an adjacent cubicle, her trousers — fine light cashmere wool, so charcoal-gray as to appear black. But her underwear was gone — no brassiere, no panties — and her rings — where were her rings?

On the floor also, as if they’d been examined, pilfered and kicked aside, were Adrienne’s handbag and her husband’s briefcase. Papers spilled out of the briefcase, Adrienne shoved inside without taking time to sort them. She couldn’t recall if her husband’s will had been returned to her or if Capgrass had confiscated it…

Hurriedly and haphazardly she dressed. She couldn’t button the shirt evenly; the zipper of her trousers caught partway, scraping the flesh of her belly; both her dark stockings were tangled beneath the bench, stiff with dirt, but her boots — the expensive black leather boots! — were missing.

In her desperate state Adrienne was grateful for the paper slippers.

How strange it felt, to be naked inside her clothes. How strange her body had become to her, slick with perspiration, exhausted yet aroused like a hunted animal. She thought He is dead. He is not only dead he is gone. I am alone here.

In that instant Adrienne felt a thrill of something like elation, triumph. Though she was distraught, and humiliated — though the lower part of her body throbbed with pain — yet she felt this thrill of triumph. She thought Already I am someone he could not have imagined.

To escape the Probate Court, and to return home — this would be bliss to her, the most intense relief, happiness.

Nothing more than that! — only just to escape, and to return to the empty house, that had been chill and appalling as a sepulcher to her only hours ago.

When Adrienne stepped out of the cubicle, she saw that the examination room was empty. The sooty-skinned bailiff had left. Anxiously Adrienne tried the door — the door that led back to the corridor outside the waiting room — but it was locked.

“Hello? Hel lo ? Is anyone there?”

Adrienne rapped on the door hesitantly. She didn’t want to incur the wrath of the sooty-skinned bailiff. She stood, then sat — then stood again — ten minutes, fifteen. Her skin had begun to itch, where the bailiff had touched her. And the soft flesh of her breasts, and the soft flesh between her legs, throbbing with pain.

She happened to notice at the farther end of the room a second, smaller door. It was the kind of door that is permanently shut. Even as Adrienne went to try it, thinking Of course this is locked. I am locked in the doorknob turned, and the door opened.

Quickly Adrienne stepped outside. She was in a corridor — a familiar-looking corridor — she’d come this way when she’d arrived at the Office of the Surrogate, it seemed like hours ago.

In her overwarm coat and the absurd paper slippers, Adrienne made her stealthy way to the staircase.

No looking back! No glancing to the side! Could the widow leave Probate Court so easily? Was no one going to see her, apprehend her? Her heart was beating deliriously. Her body throbbed with the strange wild exhilaration of the hunted animal.

Descending now the broad baronial staircase. Gripping the railing, steeling herself as in the presence of danger.

“I am exiting the Courthouse. I have been in Probate Court, and now I am released” — Adrienne rehearsed her little speech, should one of the uniformed officers stop her.

And now again on the lower floor was the Office of the Public Defender — it seemed that there were fewer young captives in orange jumpsuits seated here at this time — but still there remained the young man with the savage tattooed face and rat-tail at the nape of his dingy neck — Edro Hodge? Adrienne hesitated only a moment before deciding to approach the man — his bleary bloodshot eyes swerved to her face, startled — Adrienne whispered hoarsely, “If you are ‘Edro’ — ‘Leisha’ has said she retracts her statement. She says — ‘Don’t plead guilty.’”

The young man with the tattooed face stared at Adrienne. Beside him was an older man, in a dark suit, a court-appointed attorney Adrienne supposed, and this man stared at Adrienne, too.

“Don’t! Don’t ‘plead guilty.’”

Before either man could speak to her, Adrienne turned and hurried back to the staircase.

Outside, it appeared to be late afternoon. Hours had passed, the overcast sky had darkened. A chill icy rain continued to fall and the fraught air smelled of the river. Adrienne was disoriented, she hadn’t thought so much time had passed in the courthouse though she was exhausted, wrung dry. Calmly she thought They can find me, they will know where I live. But not just now.

In her paper slippers she would have to walk in slushy ice, mud. The near-empty parking lot was the size of a city block, its outer perimeter lost in shadow. Adrienne looked around for the snub-faced girl in the faux -fox-fur jacket but of course no one was there, where the girl had been standing with the baby in her arms.

Yet, Adrienne heard a cry. A child’s cry, faint and plaintive — and to her astonishment she saw, near-hidden between the granite wall of the old courthouse and the parked police vehicle, the toddler in the stroller.

“Lilith?”

Adrienne hurried to the child, who was whimpering, feebly kicking her thin, wasted-looking legs. The little girl had managed to work her arms free of the tight-wrapped blanket and flailed them now in the frantic way of a bird with broken wings.

“Oh — God! This is terrible! What has happened to you! Has your mother left you here? — abandoned you?”

Adrienne could not believe this — yet it seemed to be so. Had the child been left for her ?

What to do! What was Adrienne to do! She could not bring herself to re-enter the courthouse — which in any case seemed to be shutting down for the evening. Already the higher floors had dimmed their lights, each floor in succession was growing dimmer, like a rotted wedding cake, candles going out.

Adrienne’s mind worked rapidly. If the girl who called herself Leisha had abandoned her two-year-old daughter in such a way, clearly she was an unfit mother ; the child would be taken from her by county welfare authorities, and put into a foster home. In the city of Trenton, what a fate!

“You poor baby! Poor dear — darling — Lilith…”

Adrienne picked the child up in her arms. She wasn’t accustomed to a child’s weight, made heavier by the child’s kicking and thrashing. It did seem to comfort the distraught little girl that Adrienne knew her name, and was smiling at her.