Jodie Picoult - Plain Truth

Leda sank into a chair, her pocketbook slipping off her shoulder to thump on the floor. She closed her eyes, silent.

“You’re scaring me,” Ellie said with a nervous laugh. “What’s the matter?”

Visibly straightening her spine, Leda got up and began to rummage through the refrigerator. She pulled out cucumbers, lettuce, and carrots and set them on the counter. She washed her hands, withdrew a chopping knife, and began to cut the vegetables into precisely measured bits. “We’ll have salad with dinner,” she said. “What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s only three in the afternoon.” Ellie walked forward, took the knife from Leda’s hand, and waited until the older woman met her gaze. “Talk.”

“My niece is in the hospital.”

“You don’t have another-oh!” Understanding dawned as Ellie realized this was the family Leda did not speak of; the ones she left behind. “Is she . . . sick?”

“She almost died having a baby.”

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that. She could think of nothing more tragic than to give birth, and then not be able to enjoy the miracle.

“She’s only eighteen, Ellie.” Leda hesitated, spreading her fingers on the chopping block. “She isn’t married.”

A picture slowly revolved in Ellie’s head of a young, unwed girl, trying to rid herself of a fetus. “It was an abortion, then?”

“No, it was a baby.”

“Well, of course it was,” Ellie hastened to add, thinking that Leda’s background would not have made her pro-choice. “How far along was she?”

“Almost eight months,” Leda said.

Ellie blinked. “Eight months?”

“It turns out that the baby’s body was discovered before anyone even knew that Katie was pregnant.”

A small spark rubbed at the base of Ellie’s spine, one she told herself to ignore. This was not Philly, after all; this was no crack mother, but an Amish girl. “Stillborn, then,” Ellie said with sympathy. “What a shame.”

Leda turned her back on Ellie, silent for a moment. “I told myself during the drive home that I wasn’t going to do this, but I love Katie just as much as I love you.” She took a deep breath. “There is a chance that the baby wasn’t stillborn, Ellie.”

“No.” The word flushed itself from Ellie, low and hot. “I can’t. Don’t ask me to do this, Leda.”

“There isn’t anyone else. We aren’t talking about people comfortable with the law. If this were up to my sister, Katie would go to jail whether she was guilty or not, because it’s not in her nature to fight back.” Leda gazed at her, eyes burning. “They trust me; and I trust you.”

“First of all, she hasn’t been formally charged. Second of all, even if she were, Leda, I couldn’t defend her. I know nothing about her or her way of life.”

“Do you live on the streets like the drug dealers you’ve defended? Or in a big Main Line mansion, like that principal you got acquitted?”

“That’s different, and you know it.” It did not matter whether Leda’s niece had a right to sound legal counsel. It did not matter that Ellie had defended others charged with equally unpalatable crimes. Drugs and pedophilia and armed robbery did not hit as close to home.

“But she’s innocent, Ellie!”

It had been, long ago, the reason Ellie became a defense attorney-for the souls she was going to save. However, Ellie could count on one hand the number of clients she’d gotten acquitted who had truly been wrongfully accused. She now knew that most of her clients were guilty as charged-although every last one of them had an excuse they’d be shouting all the way to the grave. She might not have agreed with her clients’ criminal actions, but on some level, she always understood what made them do it. However, at this moment in her life, there was nothing that could make her understand a woman who killed her own child.

Not when there were other women out there who so desperately wanted one.

“I can’t take your niece’s case,” Ellie said quietly. “I’d be doing her a disservice.”

“Just promise me you’ll think about it.”

“I won’t think about it. And I’ll forget that you asked me to.” Ellie walked out of the kitchen, fighting her way free of Leda’s disappointment.

Samuel’s big body filled the doorway of the hospital room, reminding Katie of how she sometimes would stand beside him in an open field and still feel crowded for space. She smiled hesitantly. “Come in.”

He approached the bed, feeding the brim of his straw hat through his hands like a seam. Then he ducked his head, bright color staining his cheeks. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” Katie answered. She bit her lip as Samuel pulled up a chair and sat down beside her.

“Where’s your mother?”

“She went home. Aunt Leda called her a taxi, since Mam didn’t feel right riding back in her car.”

Samuel nodded, understanding. Amish taxi services, run by local Mennonites, drove Plain folks longer distances, or on highways where buggies couldn’t go. As for riding in Leda’s car, well, he understood that too. Leda was under the bann, and he wouldn’t have felt comfortable taking a ride from her, either.

“How . . . how are things at home?”

“Busy,” Samuel said, carefully choosing his words. “We did the third cutting of hay today.” Hesitating, he added, “The police, they’re still around.” He stared at Katie’s fist, small and pink against the polyester blanket. Gently he took it between his own hands, and then slowly brought it up to his jaw.

Katie curved her palm against his cheek; Samuel turned into the caress. Her eyes shining, she opened her mouth to speak again, but Samuel stopped her by putting a finger over her lips. “Sssh,” he said. “Not now.”

“But you must have heard things,” Katie whispered. “I want-”

“I don’t listen to what I’ve heard. I’ll only listen to what you have to say.”

Katie swallowed. “Samuel, I did not have a baby.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then squeezed her hand. “All right, then.”

Katie’s eyes flew to his. “You believe me?”

Samuel smoothed the blanket over her legs, tucking her in like a child. He stared at the shining fall of her hair and realized that he had not seen it this way, bright and loose, since they were both small. “I have to,” he said.

The bishop in Elam Fisher’s church district happened to be his own cousin. Old Ephram Stoltzfus was such a part of everyday life that even when acting as the congregational leader, he was remarkably accessible-stopping his buggy by the side of the road for a chat, or hopping off his plow in the middle of the field to make a suggestion. When Elam had met him earlier that day with the story of what had happened at the farm, he listened carefully and then said that he needed to speak to some others. Elam had assumed Ephram meant the church district’s deacon, or two ministers, but the bishop had shaken his head. “The businessmen,” he’d said. “They’re the ones who’ll know how the English police work.”

Just after suppertime, when Sarah was clearing the table, Bishop Ephram’s buggy pulled up. Elam and Aaron glanced at each other, then walked outside to meet him.

“Ephram,” Aaron greeted, shaking the man’s hand after he’d tied up his horse.

“Aaron. How is Katie?”

It was slight, but Aaron stiffened visibly. “I hear she will be fine.”

“You did not go to the hospital?” Ephram asked.

Aaron looked away. “Neh.”

The bishop tipped his head, his white beard glowing in the setting sun. “Walk with me awhile?”

The three men headed toward Sarah’s vegetable garden. Elam sank down on a stone slab bench and gestured for Ephram to do the same. But the bishop shook his head and stared over the tall heads of the tomato plants and the climbing vines of beans, around which danced a spray of fireflies. They sparked and tumbled like a handful of stars that had been flung.