Jodie Picoult - Plain Truth

“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. “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.