Diary of a Mistress (9 page)

It had been a long wait, but Monica was finally on the list to see the judge. She bit her nails nervously as she sat in front of the monitor.

“Pick up the phone, ladies,” a corrections officer instructed Monica and two other women in the room.

“Hello,” Monica said softly.

“Vasquez, Monica Vasquez?” the voice on the other end of the phone said.

“Yes.”

“Verify your address, please.”

Monica slowly recited her address.

“Birth date?”

“July 15, 1972.”

“Okay, Ms. Vasquez, you understand you were charged with attempted murder…”

Monica sighed.

“Your record is clean, but under the circumstances, with there being children involved, we will not be able to grant bail for you—”

“What?” Monica cut the judge off.

“You’ll remain in custody for the duration of your trial. Your preliminary hearing will be one month from today.”

Monica was angry. She slammed the phone down and immediately started crying. The other two women in the room were giving her strange looks as the CO escorted her back to her cell. She wasn’t even able to call her mom and tell her what had happened. The CO said she was too irate to be let out of the cell, which made her even madder. She lost control, screaming and cursing out the CO; kicking the bars, the walls, and the toilet. Eventually she crawled into a corner and started softly banging her head against the wall. Hurting and desperate for comfort, she shut her eyes in an effort to force herself to sleep.

“Hi, I’m here to see my daughter, Monica Vasquez,” Monica’s mother stated as she approached a big counter inside PICC penitentiary on State Road.

“Let me see your ID, please,” said the light-skinned woman behind the counter.

“Stand still. Don’t move,” Monica’s mother said to Chris and C.J. as she let go of their hands to get her driver’s license out of her purse.

The twins followed their grandmother’s instructions and stood still beside her. Their big brown eyes looked around at the people in the waiting area and then up at the police officers behind the counter. They seemed scared but didn’t say a word.

“Okay. Sign in here, and make sure you sign their names too,” the woman told Monica’s mother as she slid a clipboard across the counter. “Oh, and how old are they? Are they school-age?”

“Yes, they’re five,” Monica’s mother answered.

“Well, you’re not supposed to bring kids here during school hours.”

“They’re my daughter’s sons.”

“Still. That’s policy. You can bring them here after school hours.”

Monica’s mother began to get frustrated. “Well, I didn’t know that. I came all the way here to see my daughter. And these are her kids. She’s looking forward to seeing them today. Can you make an exception, please?”

The woman looked over at the clock. It was two fifteen. “All right. This is what you can do. You can have a seat over there and at three thirty you can come up here and do the sign-in process again.”

“Are you serious?” Monica’s mother asked. “I have two five-year-olds with me. They’re only in kindergarten, for Christ’s sake. They’re not missing anything, believe you me.”

“Listen, that’s not my rule, ma’am. Now I’m really working with you. Usually, you would have to leave and come back another day or go up without the kids.”

Monica’s mother rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. She fought back tears and swallowed her pride as she realized she had little choice in the matter.

“Okay,” she said, then led her grandsons over to the waiting area.

“Knock, knock,” Vanessa whispered as she slowly opened the door to Angela’s room.

Angela was lying on her bed facing the wall, still in her nightclothes. She wasn’t under the covers. In fact, the bed was neatly made. She was stiff. Her eyes were open and unblinking. The room was dark and cold and silent.

“Angela,” Vanessa whispered as she stood in the doorway. “I’m getting ready to leave. Do you need anything before I go?”

Angela didn’t respond. She didn’t even budge. Vanessa walked into the room and stood over her.

“How about you get out of your pajamas and take a warm bath? You may be able to get some sleep if you get comfortable,” Vanessa suggested. “Where’s that bubble bath stuff you like? I’ll run the water for you.”

Still there was no response from Angela. If it weren’t for her stomach moving up and down, Vanessa would have thought she wasn’t breathing.

“Ms. An-ge-la,” Vanessa sang softly. “I’m trying to help you out. You know once I leave nobody’ll be back in here to check on you. So you better tell me if you need anything now.”

Vanessa was trying everything to get Angela to talk to her. It had been over a month, and she still didn’t know the whole story of why Angela had been sent back to the institution in the first place. But whatever the reason, she knew it was getting the best of Angela. She knew how bad Angela wanted to get out and how hard she had tried to make that happen. She knew Angela was crushed, and she felt sorry for her.

“It’s two fifty-eight, Ms. Angela,” Vanessa warned. “My shift ends in two minutes. I won’t be back until tomorrow. You better tell me what you need. Something to drink? Anything?”

Angela said nothing.

“All right. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Good-bye,” Vanessa said as she slowly left Angela’s room.

It was a quarter after five by the time Monica’s mother and sons were able to see Monica. She came into the visiting room wearing a red jumpsuit. Her hair was braided in the back, and she appeared to have lost weight. She lit up, though, when she saw her mom and the two boys.

“Heeey!” Monica squealed as she squeezed her sons tight. Chris and C.J. just grinned bashfully. They still didn’t quite understand what was going on.

“Aw, look at my baby,” Monica’s mother said, breaking into tears.

Monica rubbed her mom on the back. “Mom, don’t cry. You’re gonna make me cry,” she said. “I need you to be strong for me.”

Monica’s mother wiped her tears and looked up at her daughter. “Monica, I can’t help it,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. “I didn’t expect it to be this bad. Do you know what we all had to go through to get to this point? They checked my bra. They made Chris and C.J. open their mouths and take off their shoes.” She broke into tears again. “This is no place for you. This is no place for your sons to visit you,” she cried.

Monica rubbed her mom’s back again while wiping her own tears. It hurt her to hear what her sons had to go through to see her. She missed them so much, but she didn’t know if she could stand having them visit her in jail again.

“I’m sorry, Monica,” Monica’s mother said, wiping her face with a napkin. “I didn’t mean to get so emotional on you. It’s just that—”

“I know, Mom. You don’t have to say it. Well, anyway, look at my babies. You two got big since the last time I saw you,” Monica said to change the mood.

“Didn’t they,” Monica’s mother agreed. “They can eat too. I swear, I’ve been food shopping three times and it’s only been a little over a month,” she joked.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Monica said.

“So…what now?” Monica’s mother asked. “So much for that preliminary hearing. You didn’t get to say a word,” she added.

“Yeah, well, my lawyer told me it would be that way. Now we have to wait another month for the trial,” Monica said, her eyes again filling with tears. “Mommy, what did I do?” Monica began to sob. “I just tried to be the best wife I could be. How did this happen? How did my life just spin out of control like this?”

Chris and C.J. grew sad watching their mother break down. They started crying with Monica, and that hurt Monica to the core. She couldn’t take it anymore. She wound up ending the visit early, even though in her heart she wanted it to last forever. The truth was, it pained her too much to be in the emotional state she was in around her sons.

“Mom, I’m sorry, but I have to let y’all go. I can’t take it. I can’t sit here and let my babies see me like this. I thought I would be able to handle it, but…” Monica wept.

“Say no more,” Monica’s mother said as tears fell down her own face. She gave Monica another hug and kissed her on the cheek. Then she held her daughter’s face in her hands and said, “Monica, baby, everything is going to be all right. God is going to see us all through this one. And that woman? God help her soul because if I ever cross paths with her, she’s going to wish she never kept a diary.”

Monica sucked up her tears and bent down to give her sons one last hug and kiss before painfully watching them leave the visiting room.

“Mom-my!” her sons cried out as their grandmother took their hands and led them out of the room.

The walk back to her cell was dreadful for Monica. Her sons screaming
Mommy
played over and over again in her mind. She felt guilty for ending the visit early. She wondered if she was a bad mother for not spending every minute she could with her kids. She didn’t know. She was an emotional mess. Once in her cell, she collapsed onto her bunk. She cried herself to sleep as usual. It was her only means of relief.

“There were multiple stab wounds in the chest, neck, and left arm,” a forty-something male said as he sat in the witness stand beside the judge.

“How many is multiple?” the prosecutor asked, approaching the witness.

“Twenty-two.”

“No further questions, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said.

“Would you like to cross-examine?” the judge asked the defense attorney, barely concealing his disinterest.

“No, thank you, Your Honor,” Carnell Lucas replied.

“You may step down, Doctor.” The judge nodded toward the witness.

“Call your next witness,” the judge ordered the defense.

“I’d like to call Monica Vasquez to the stand,” said Carnell Lucas.

Monica stood up from her chair next to her attorney. She glanced back at her mother, who sat anxiously among the other spectators. Monica’s frail and shaky body treaded to the witness stand, where she was sworn in. Feeling insecure and intimidated, she took the seat beneath the judge. The judge was a man, sure to be sympathetic toward her husband and disgusted with her, she thought. She feared for her freedom. All she could think about was spending the rest of her life in prison and having to be without her children. Her heart was beating a hundred times faster than normal. She was nervous and hated to have to take the stand, but her attorney strongly advised it. He was known for being sharp, and he had a good reputation, so she followed his lead without question.

“Mrs. Vasquez, how long have you and your husband been married?” Lucas began.

“Ten years,” Monica answered.

“How had you planned to spend your ten-year anniversary?”

“Aside from the week we spent in Florida, I planned a surprise dinner at the restaurant where he proposed to me.”

“What happened to those plans?” Lucas asked as he glanced over at the jury.

“Well, the day we got back from Florida I found out a lot about my husband.”

“Elaborate, would you please, Mrs. Vasquez.”

Monica took a breath. “I found out that he had been having an affair for four years and that he had been living a lie all along.”

“How did that information make you feel?”

“Devastated…betrayed.”

“What did you do?”

“I left and went to a friend’s house,” Monica reported.

“And when did you return home?”

Monica looked up at the ceiling as she tried to remember back to that night, close to two months before. “It was between midnight and one o’clock in the morning,” she replied.

“Why did you decide to go home at that hour?”

“I intended to stay the night at my friend’s, but while I was there, I found out that she and my husband had slept together as well. At that point I couldn’t stand to be in her presence. I just wanted to be with my children, somewhere away from the both of them.” Tears began to form in Monica’s eyes as she relived the pain she felt that night.

“When you say the both of them, you’re referring to whom?”

“My husband and my friend.”

“So you left your friend’s and went home?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do once you got home?”

“I woke up my kids and put them in the car.”

“What was your husband doing when you got home?”

“He was sleeping on the couch.”

“In what position was he sleeping?”

“He was on his back.”

“Did you at any time while he was sleeping come into contact with him?”

“No. I tried to hurry out before he could wake up.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to have to confront him. I just wanted to be with my kids, alone, somewhere where I could clear my head.”

“When did you make contact with your husband?”

“He woke up right when I was leaving the house.”

“What did he do when he woke up?”

Monica looked up at the ceiling again. She wanted her story to be accurate.

“He called my name. I believe he asked me what I was doing.”

“What happened next?”

“Well, I told him I was leaving and taking the kids to my mom’s. But he didn’t want us to go.”

“Did he try to stop you?”

“Yes. He did stop me.”

“How did you end up in the kitchen?”

“He took the car keys from me, and he went in the kitchen to get a drink of water,” Monica explained, wiping a tear from one eye. “I followed him in there to get the keys back. I told him I wanted to leave. I told him that I had found out about him and my friend and I couldn’t be there with him. So he threw the car keys at me.”

“Did the keys hit you or did they fall to the ground?”

“They hit me.”

“Where did they hit you?”

“Right here,” Monica said, as she pointed to her nose.

“What did you do after the keys hit you in your face?”

“I remember running at him and knocking him down.”

“Then what?”

Monica paused and then responded, “I remember the water jug fell on the floor. I remember hearing the glass break. Then I remember being on top of him punching him.”

“You were punching your husband with a closed fist or open?”

“Closed. I was just punching him. I was upset. I had a lot of anger inside.”

“When did you pick up the piece of glass?”

Monica shook her head and replied, “I don’t remember picking up a piece of glass. It wasn’t until I saw cuts on my hand that I realized I had a piece of glass in my hand.”

The tears that Monica fought hard to hold back came pouring from her eyes. Her attorney handed her a tissue and waited for her to pull herself together.

“While you were stabbing your husband, were you or were you not conscious?”

“I was conscious, but not conscious of what I was doing,” Monica said.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Vasquez, and please, take your time,” Lucas said, then he took a few steps back.

“I mean”—Monica sniffed—“I had no idea I was stabbing him. I thought I was just punching him. I don’t even remember seeing any blood until after it was all done.”

“What did you do after you realized your husband had been stabbed?”

“I remember getting my kids and looking for the phone to call the police.”

“When the police arrived at your home, what did you tell them?”

“I told them my husband was bleeding and that he wasn’t moving,” Monica recalled, dabbing her eyes again with the tissue.

“Did you tell them that you stabbed him?”

“No.”

“What did you tell them happened to your husband?”

“I just told them he was bleeding.”

“Why didn’t you tell them that you had stabbed your husband?”

Monica’s shoulders rose as the palms of her hands turned faceup. She replied, “Because I didn’t believe I had stabbed him. I was out of it. I didn’t know what had happened.”

“No further questions, Your Honor,” Lucas concluded, as he subtly winked one eye at Monica and returned to his seat.

Monica wiped her eyes again as the judge permitted the prosecution to cross-examine. The process was grueling for Monica. The prosecutor made her look guilty. He drilled her with confusing questions: Is it true that after reading parts of the diary you told your best friend you were going to kill your husband? You really didn’t intend to take your children to your mother’s house at one o’clock in the morning, correct? Instead, you used that explanation as an excuse to go home and confront your husband, didn’t you? He painted a picture of Monica that was the exact opposite of her true character. After answering the prosecutor’s questions for seven minutes, which felt more like seven hours to Monica, she was back in her chair at the defense table. The judge called a brief recess while both sides prepared to do their closing statements.

Monica sat still and quiet, trying to keep her racing mind intact. She was still on edge about the whole diary thing and her husband’s affair. Now she had a trial and a verdict to worry about, adding insult to injury. It was a wonder she didn’t have a nervous breakdown. But it was the sole thought of her children that motivated her to maintain her sanity. She was determined to be strong for them. They were her heart and the only reason she had to get through the tragic situation she found herself in.

Bells from a church could be heard in the distance. The courtroom was filling up as people were returning from cigarette and bathroom breaks and others from a brief lunch. Monica and her lawyer were exchanging words as the time for closing arguments was drawing near.

“All rise,” the bailiff said as the judge reentered the courtroom.

The group of spectators, family, and media rose from their seats, as did Monica and her attorney.

“Commonwealth, the floor is yours,” the judge said, giving the prosecution its chance to take center stage.

The prosecutor stood up and took his position. His hands were folded, and his elbows rested on top of the podium.

“Your Honor and the jury,” he began, “we all know how it is to be in love with someone, to be head over heels for a person, to idolize someone and hold him on a pedestal where he is deemed perfect, angelic, and can do no wrong. And we also know how painful it can be when that person does something to crush those ideals, forcing us out of the fantasy we once were in and bringing us into the reality we’ve avoided for so long. When the trust is taken away and the perfection is flawed. When we learn that the person we so truly and dearly loved has betrayed us in a rather hurtful manner, in, perhaps, the most hurtful manner. I’ve heard it described as a broken heart, a crushed heart, or even a stolen heart. And we all know what it’s like to want revenge on the person who has broken our heart or crushed it or stolen it. And by definition revenge is payback, or getting even, which means we may want to break, crush, or steal that person’s heart as he did ours. But is it literal? In our minds, whether we are emotionally tainted by the dishonesty and infidelity we’ve been forced to confront, do we think to act on our feelings in such a literal way?

“Well, in this case, yes. The defendant, Monica Vasquez, did in fact seek revenge in a literal way. She did break, crush, and steal her husband’s heart, and she did so with a six-inch-long, two-inch-wide piece of glass. A piece of glass, ladies and gentlemen, that could not alone have cut through her husband’s two hundred thirty pounds of lean muscle. That piece of glass was sharp enough to have punctured a man’s physically fit chest
only
with the assistance of a strong and mighty arm. Mrs. Vasquez forcefully and fiercely struck her husband, the victim, Carlos Vasquez, with all her might to cause the damage she did. Not only did she use such force, but she also knew exactly where to strike her husband.

“In the heat of anger and even in complete disarray, we as human beings, as creatures with consciences and emotions like guilt and love and sorrow, we know when enough is enough. We know when to stop while we’re ahead. We know that stabbing someone in a vital organ repeatedly and repulsively can injure him badly, if not murder him. So we tend not to go that far. We tend to stop while we’re ahead, unless,” the prosecutor said, as he raised his finger and his voice simultaneously. “Unless we intended to do just that—
murder,
” he concluded. Slowly he scanned the jury’s faces, then took his seat.

Monica swallowed hard as she felt her heart beating through her blazer and blouse. The prosecutor’s closing statement had her second-guessing her own innocence, so she could imagine what questions it brought to the minds of the jurors.

“I rest my case, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said once seated. He took a sip from the glass of water that sat in front of him, and he sneered over at Monica.

“Defense,” the judge said, giving Lucas the floor.

Carnell Lucas approached the podium. He put on his glasses and then began to speak.

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, addressing the court. “Monica Vasquez is a young woman, mother of twin boys, a preschool teacher. She’s educated, respectable, well liked—the typical American citizen, no different than you or I. She just happened to encounter a chain of unfortunate and unforeseen events that turned her ordinary life into an extraordinary one. Like many other people, including ourselves, possibly, Monica Vasquez has experienced a tragedy in which she and her husband are both victims, not to mention their children.

“Now, you’ve heard the testimony of several people during this trial. You’ve heard from the professionals and the experts. You’ve heard from the prosecution, and myself, but you hadn’t heard anything until you heard from Monica herself. She told you all you need to know to make your decision in this case. She told you she and her husband had just come back from a week’s vacation celebrating their ten-year wedding anniversary. She told you that in addition to that, she had made dinner reservations for the two of them at one of their favorite restaurants. Then she told you the news that abruptly ended her happy state in her marriage. Imagine receiving a diary at your home and in it reading some awful truths about the person you vowed to spend the rest of your life with. Further imagine seeking refuge from a best friend, who has been like family to you for years, and learning that your friend has betrayed your trust as well. Where does one go from there? Who does one turn to for love and consoling? For Monica, it was her children, the only people who could offer her the peace and comfort she desperately needed at the time. So she went home to get them. She just wanted to hold them in her arms and be with them through the night. She told you that she saw her husband sleeping on the couch when she walked in the door and that she quietly walked straight up the stairs and got her children out of bed. She walked back downstairs and directed her children to go to the car. All while her husband slept. It wasn’t until he woke up and caught her getting ready to leave that she confronted him. In fact, she told you she didn’t want to have to confront him at that time. She had tried, though unsuccessfully, to get in and out of the house quickly and quietly without waking her husband. In her own words, she told you she did not intend to hurt or murder anyone. If, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Monica Vasquez was seeking revenge,
as the prosecution has suggested, if she wanted to literally break her husband’s heart, wouldn’t she have done so while he was lying on his back asleep, harmless and vulnerable? Wouldn’t she have gone into the kitchen and grabbed a knife, a large knife, one that would really do the job? Why would she wake her children first and attempt to leave her home? Why would she walk past her sleeping husband several times without even doing the slightest thing such as nudging him or even slapping him if she was so angry?