Richard Patterson - Conviction

Elena snatched it away. Jerking upright, she snapped on her bedside lamp and scrutinized her mother, steadily and fiercely, as Terri blinked at circles of yellow from the sudden flood of light.

"What do you know about him?" Terri asked.

"I went to your library," Elena answered without apology. "There were papers on your desk."

Terri felt her stomach clench. "And?"

"I read about the dead girl, and what he did to her." Elena's voice filled with fury. "How can you do this? How can you not care?"

Terri felt a moment of disbelief, the wish to turn back time, followed by a hopeless sense that no words could be adequate. "I do care," she tried. "More than you can ever know. But Rennell Price doesn't have anyone else."

"He could have," Elena snapped back. "Don't be such a fucking martyr. Like you're the only lawyer in America, and nothing's more important than you and him."

The words made Terri flinch. She gazed at her daughter, trying to remember the bright-eyed child with the riot of curls and elfin face, unsullied by the knowledge of violation, of solitude and secrecy and boundaries betrayed, resurrected, again and again, in weekly visits to a child therapist. Now Elena's face and body seemed an external map of her confusion—new breasts and a woman's roundness emerging from a gangling frame, a lineless face at war with burning eyes. She would not be a classic beauty, Terri guessed, but hers would become a face hard to forget.

"There are other lawyers," Terri answered as calmly as she could. "But I'm good at what I do."

"That's because you don't do anything else."

This indictment, so unfair in its starkness, resonated with a years-old accusation. How can I not have known? Terri asked herself yet again. That Richie and she had been separated when he started on his daughter—perhaps his twisted means of revenge for Christopher Paget—would never soothe her pain.

But that guilt was hers to bear. Softly, she said, "I know I work hard, Lainie. It takes too much time from us."

This acknowledgment, with its absence of excuses, seemed to still Elena's wrath. "But why for him?" her daughter asked, an undertone of plaintiveness beneath the vehemence.

"Because I don't think the State should kill people, no matter what they've done, or what we think they've done." Pausing, Terri sifted the arguments Elena might accept. "There's too big a risk of innocence. And some of my clients have suffered in ways it's hard for a lot of people to understand, and harder to get over." But not, I hope, too hard for you.

"I read about what he did," Elena repeated flatly. "What he made her do."

Terri looked into her adolescent daughter's brown eyes, too reminiscent of Elena's father's. Richie had betrayed Elena, and now, in her daughter's mind, Terri had betrayed her, too. Quietly, Terri amended, "What the jury believed he did."

Elena closed her eyes. "I hate him," she said with quiet vehemence. Only when she spoke again was Terri certain that Elena was referring to her own father. "I remember it all now," the girl continued. "I still dream about it. I am so damned glad he's dead."

So am I. Though Terri's stomach wrenched at the truth of this, she could not slow the current of her thoughts. We never have to see him. He'll never show up at your wedding with his little boy's smile, expecting the forgiveness to which he'd feel entitled. Demanding that Chris and I welcome him for your sake.

"Forgive me," Terri said at last. "I don't know what Rennell Price did. That's part of why I'm helping him." After pausing, she finished. "Sometimes it's hard to explain, even to myself. Like loving you more than I can tell you but still working like I do."

Eyes hooded, Elena turned her face on the pillow. Terri reached for her hand again. Elena said nothing. But after a time, her fingers curled around her mother's, perhaps from need, perhaps from a pain too deep to express.

Terri lay on the bed beside her, and after a time, Elena slowly drifted into sleep, perhaps to face her troubled dreams. Awake, Terri faced her memory of where her daughter's dreams had come from.

* * *

It was night, and Elena had been seven then. Terri had pulled the comforter beneath her daughter's chin, placed the book they had read on the child's bedside table. Turning out the light, she kissed Elena's cheek. The girl's skin felt soft, her hair and face smelled fresh and clean. At that moment, Terri could not imagine loving another person as much as this child, the vulnerable life Terri once had carried inside her.

On the table, the elephant night-light flickered, casting light and shadow across Elena's face. The light was dying, Terri realized; tomorrow she would replace it. "I love you, Elena."

"Can you stay with me, Mommy?" The little girl's arms reached out for her. "Just for a while, okay?"

Terri smiled at the child's bargaining. How many times, she wondered, had Elena said "just a minute" or "one more time"? And how often had Terri spent the time Elena needed?

"Okay," she said and lay down on the comforter.

"Get inside the covers with me, Mommy. Please."

Terri slid beneath the covers and turned on her side. Automatically, Elena turned and curled her legs and back against her mother, waiting for Terri to put her arms around her. Terri felt an almost primal familiarity: she and Elena called this "making spoons," just as Terri's mother had, lying next to Terri when she had been so young that she now remembered little else. Lying beside Elena, Terri remembered her own father's angry voice, could still feel the rage that had driven her mother to Terri's bed, until Terri herself had not known who was giving or receiving comfort.

"I love you," Terri told Elena.

Elena burrowed closer. "I love you, too, Mommy."

Gently, Terri stroked Elena's hair until the child's breathing became deep and even, the pulse of sleep.

She herself should not fall asleep, Terri realized. She might have her lifelong dream of Ramon Peralta and cry out in fear, making Elena's own repeated nightmare that much more frightening to her. It was the adult's job to seem strong and competent, Terri told herself. At least until the child is old enough, and secure enough, to accept the doubts beneath.

Next to her, Terri felt Elena stirring and she hoped that her daughter would not dream again.

* * *

In her dream, Elena Arias was in a pitch-black room.

The little girl was alone. Her night-light was out; Elena sat up in bed, stiff and fearful, eyes adjusting to the dark. Her mother was gone and could not help her.

Someone was banging on the door.

It was the black dog; Elena was certain of this, although she had never seen him. Her mouth was dry.

The dog had never come through the door. But tonight, Elena knew, he would.

The knocking grew louder.

Elena trembled. Tears ran down her face.

She already knew what the dog wanted from her.

Desperate, Elena turned to the window, looking for escape. But it was nailed shut; even in the dark, she remembered that Grandma Rosa feared the vagrants in Dolores Park.

The door began to splinter.

Elena tried to scream. But the cry caught in her throat; suddenly she could not breathe.

He was coming.

The door burst open.

The pale light in the hallway was from candles. Shivering and silent, Elena could hear and feel the dog's breath. But still she could not see him.

Elena hugged herself, and then his shadow rose above the bed.

It was more human than dog. For an instant, Elena prayed that it was her mother, and then his face came into the light.

Standing over the bed, her father smiled down at her.

Elena woke up screaming.

* * *

In the flicker of the night-light, Terri had seen her seven-year-old daughter's eyes as black holes of terror.