Key Witness (58 page)

“What about what Moira said, Wyatt?” Roberta asked. “Is there any truth to that? For you?”

“That I tell everyone how they should feel?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, several times. “I guess … there is.”

Roberta also nodded. “Can we talk about your feelings?” she asked.

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To talk about my feelings?” His voice took on a defensiveness again.

“We’re not in court, Wyatt,” Moira said. “No one’s being cross-examined or put on the spot, except if you do it.”

“Come on,” he said, pissed off. “You’re doing it right now with that kind of remark.”

She shook her head in disgust.

Roberta put her hands up. “Space, guys. Give yourselves some air. Here …” She got up from her chair. “Wyatt, would you stand up for a moment? And you also, Michaela?”

They both stood.

Roberta pulled his rocker next to her leather chair. “Michaela, you sit here next to me, all right? So you’re not in the direct line of fire. Wyatt, would you mind sitting next to your wife?”

“No, I don’t mind.” He and Michaela took their assigned seats. Moira shifted slightly, so that their bodies weren’t touching anywhere.

“Okay.” Roberta stroked Michaela’s hand. “Your mom and dad. How do they look?”

“Miserable,” Michaela laughed. “Like that Grant Wood painting. You know, the old farmer and his wife.”

“Thank you very much,” Moira said.

“It’s true, Mom. You look like you just sucked up a whole lemon. You too, Daddy.”

He felt like he’d swallowed a bushel of lemons.

Roberta looked at Wyatt. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Fire away.”

Moira’s laugh was cynical.

“You’re not helping here, Moira,” Roberta said seriously. “You’ve already started your processing. This is Wyatt’s first time. He needs space and he needs support.”

“So do I,” Moira answered.

“Then let’s give the process a chance, okay?” She turned back to Wyatt. “First question. Your wife shot your daughter. How do you feel about that?”

“Angry, of course. I’m very angry about it.”

“Have you told her that?”

“I …” He paused. “No, not directly.”

“Tell her now.”

He turned to Moira. “I’m angry at you for shooting Michaela. I’m enraged.”

“I know you are.” She sat there calmly, taking his shot.

“What else are you angry about?” Roberta asked. “In connection with this?”

“She knows I hate guns but she bought one anyway. And didn’t tell me. We had a gun in our house. Something you use to shoot people with. And she didn’t even tell me.”

“What if Moira had told you she was going to buy a gun?”

“I would have said no, of course.”

“Ahhhh!” Moira shivered in anger.

“ ‘Ahhhh’ what?” he asked, also angry.

“What we’ve been talking about is what,” she answered hotly. She moved farther away from him, pushing up against the arm of the couch.

“But what if Moira had insisted?” Roberta asked. “She wants a gun in the house for protection. She’s adamant about that.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “You saw what happened, didn’t you?”

They all looked at the large brace on Michaela’s leg.

“Yes,” Roberta said. “We see that. But getting back to my question. Moira wants a gun. She insists on having one. What then?”

“No guns. I’m sorry.”

“But doesn’t she have as much of a right to what she wants as you do?”

“Yes, she has a right to what she wants,” he began. “But …” He stopped.

“But what?”

“She has a right,” he said. “She has … rights.”

“Thank you,” Moira said acidly.

“But not
absolute
rights,” he said with force. “No one has absolute rights.”

Roberta put up a quick hand of warning to Moira, to restrain her from coming back with a zinger. Moira slumped in her place, shaking her head negatively but holding her tongue.

“Can we continue along this line?” Roberta asked Wyatt.

“Do I have a choice?” This was slipping away—he felt like he was on an ice floe that had broken off and was drifting out to sea.

“You always have a choice. In here at least.”

He reluctantly acquiesced. “Go ahead.”

“Owning guns is an extreme example. Yes? Do we all agree on that?”

“I do,” he said.

Roberta looked at Moira.

“Yes,” Moira acknowledged. “An extreme example.”

“I don’t ever want a gun in my house again,” Michaela piped up. “I did before but I didn’t understand what it really meant.”

They all sat silently for a moment, digesting that.

“Moira’s about to open up a bookstore,” Roberta said, navigating the session back to less-tense waters. “How do you feel about that, Wyatt?”

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“You approve.”

“Absolutely.”

“What if she wanted to open a whorehouse?” She turned to Michaela. “Excuse me.”

“I’m okay.” Michaela was composed, attentive to both her parents.

Wyatt stared at Roberta. “Come on,” he said curtly.

“Or a strip joint? A porno shop.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“Because those are scuzzy, awful things. Moira’s not …”

“Scuzzy? Awful?”

“She isn’t those things.”

“But still—you are making judgments on her behalf, aren’t you? Judging what Moira should or shouldn’t do?”

“Yes,” he admitted grudgingly. “In those cases I would.”

“Because you’re her husband.”

“Yes.”

“And what she does impacts on you. Affects you.”

“Yes.”

“Not only that people would say, ‘Oh, isn’t Moira Matthews awful, opening a whorehouse,’ but that it isn’t good for her. As a moral, ethical person. Which makes it not good for you two as a couple, among other issues.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s right.”

“But if she really, really, really wanted to open up a whorehouse—assuming it was legal and there wasn’t any chance of spreading disease or whatever, like they have in Nevada—you wouldn’t support her, would you?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“So husbands and wives shouldn’t unilaterally support each other in everything?” Roberta continued. “There are certain things that are wrong, and it’s your obligation to not support her. By
not
supporting her operating a whorehouse, you’d really be
supporting
her, wouldn’t you?”

“I think I would be,” he answered. “Yes.”

“Okay,” she said. “I agree with you. Does that surprise you?”

He looked at her. “I don’t know.”

“Because I’m Moira and Michaela’s therapist and we’re in cahoots against you?”

He nodded. “I’ve thought about that.”

She smiled. “I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said otherwise. But I’m not in cahoots with them against you. I am in cahoots—with all of you, for you.”

“You should hear how Roberta defends you when you aren’t here, Daddy,” Michaela chimed in.

“She’s boxed my ears severely many times about my attitude toward you,” Moira added acidly.

Roberta kept her focus on Wyatt, “You’re my patient,” she told him. “The
collective
you—you three sitting here.”

He nodded, but his body language belied that acceptance.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Roberta said. “You don’t know me yet. Hopefully, trust will come.”

“Hopefully.” At this point he was dubious about that—about everything that was going on in here.

“Good.” She smiled at him. “Let’s keep on this train of thought—about how sometimes
not
supporting your partner is really support.” She paused. “You changed careers recently, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t change my career. I’m still a lawyer.”

“Excuse me. I meant
focus.
You’re practicing a different kind of law now than you were for the bulk of your career, isn’t that right?”

“For a while. I’ve changed to a different aspect of the law. It isn’t permanent—I don’t think.” He stole a look at Moira. She was looking right at him. He turned his attention back to Roberta.

“It was a big change, wasn’t it?” Roberta asked. “From the kind of law you were practicing to the kind you’re practicing now?”

“Very big,” he agreed. “About as different as two disciplines can be and still be under the same umbrella.”

“It’s affected your family, hasn’t it.”

“Big-time.”

“That change was one of the reasons Moira bought the gun, isn’t it.”

“Yes. I’m sure it is. One of them.”

Roberta paused. “When you decided to change careers—let’s not argue semantics—what was Moira’s reaction?”

“She was against it. She still is.”

“He’s right,” Moira stuck in her two cents’ worth. “I am against what my husband is doing. Firmly.”

“Which you knew from the beginning,” Roberta asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“But you did it anyway.”

“Yes. I had to.”

“Even though your wife—your partner in life—was dead set against it.”

“Yes. I had to. I would’ve burned out otherwise. I came really close. And I don’t feel there was anything wrong with what I did. I still don’t.”

“So there are times when one has to operate unilaterally, regardless of the consequences to anyone else.”

“Yes.” He admitted it. “That’s true.”

“Following that logic, your partner should support that decision.”

“I wanted her to.”

“But even if she didn’t, you did what you had to do.”

“Yes. I did what I had to do.”

“And when Moira bought the gun, knowing you couldn’t, wouldn’t, support it, she did what she had to do.”

“Ahhh.” He closed his eyes.

“She did what she had to do,” Roberta repeated. “The same as you did.”

He opened his eyes. “Abstractly, you could say it’s the same.”

“But it was wrong.”

“I think it was wrong. I’m not going to back off that.”

“And what you did was right.”

“Yes. I’m not backing off that, either.”

“So it’s all right for you to operate unilaterally, but not Moira. You should be able to call the shots, and she should fall in line.”

“That’s pretty harsh coming from someone who isn’t in cahoots against me.”

“I’m only parroting what you’ve been telling me.”

He shrugged.

“By the way, you’re doing great, Wyatt.”

He didn’t feel like he was doing great. He felt like he was barely surviving.

“Do you know that basic law of physics?” she asked. “For every action there is a counteraction of equal strength and force?”

“It’s been a long time since high school physics,” he said. “But okay, I’ll buy that.”

“Do you see how that applies here? To your family?”

He stared at her.

“You took an action. You changed—if not careers, a large shift within your career—which caused some severe but inevitable counteractions. When you changed jobs you turned your family dynamic upside down. That was inevitable. Wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t know it had to be,” he said.

“Oh, it had to be,” she assured him. “What you didn’t know was that it would bring about
negative
consequences. Which it didn’t have to,” she added. “More often than not these kinds of changes are positive counter-actions, for everyone. In this case, that didn’t happen. But
something
had to happen. A decision of this size has to send ripples out that go on and on, way past where you can see them.”

He nodded. “I can see that now.”

Roberta glanced at the clock on her desk. “I’m really glad you came in, Wyatt. This has been a very productive session. When can you come again?” She reached for her appointment book.

“I don’t know. I’m in the middle of a trial that’s consuming me.” He stood up. “I’ve got to say something.” He moved away from the couch so that he could look at all three of them at the same time. “Philosophically, or … what’s the word—therapeutically?—I can understand that my trying to control Moira’s life is as wrong as her trying to control mine. I have no quarrel with that—as a concept. But you’re talking about process, and I’m looking at the real world, and there’s a difference. For me, anyway. I know that changing the kind of law I practice was traumatic for Moira, and I should have been more in tune with her. But I’m not doing anything wrong. That’s an important distinction. I’m defending a disadvantaged kid on a murder charge who I’ve come to believe is innocent. Right now I’m not blowing my own horn when I say I’m all that’s standing between him and the abyss.”

He focused on Moira. “I’m sorry that anything I’ve done has caused you pain. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that. Causing pain for someone is wrong, especially for your family. But the rest of what I did isn’t wrong and nothing that will be done or said in here will make me change my mind about that. And nothing that will be done or said in here will make me change my mind that buying a gun and shooting and almost killing my child—our daughter—can be justified. Or that my defending a black kid and bringing his world into ours can be equated with shooting someone. What you did and what I did are not equal. There is right and wrong in the world—my world, anyway, maybe that’s why I became a lawyer—and nothing anyone can say or do will make me change my mind about that.” He turned to Roberta. “So if the point of my coming here is to find some justification for that, then there’s no reason for me to come back.”

“Daddy …” Michaela started to break in.

“I hope someday we can work through this,” he pressed on, overriding his daughter’s interruption, “but I will never accept that there was anything right about it.”

Moira was rigid, her expression cast in stone as she listened to him.

“Daddy …” Michaela began again.

He turned to her. “What is it, darling?” He was suddenly spent, completely drained of all feeling, emotionally and physically.

“Do you think you can ever forgive Mom? Completely forgive her?”

He stared at her, then looked at Moira, then back to her.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

“Will it help if you know that I have?” she asked.

He took a deep breath. He could feel Moira’s and the therapist’s eyes on him, but all his attention was with Michaela. His daughter, this young font of wisdom and forgiveness.

“Yes,” he said after some reflection. “It would.” He knelt down to her. “You’re a wonderful young woman,” he said. “You’re a far better person than I am.”