Mothers and Other Liars (16 page)

She climbed onto the chair and looked through the curtains. Nothing but concrete and a row of parked cars, none of them red with a roof that folded down. When her mama tucked her into the itchy sheets the night before, she said Mama and Daddy were going out for a grown-up dinner. Mama said they would be back before Ruby woke up. But now it was morning, and she was alone in a strange room. She was hungry. She was scared. Ruby cried for a while, and she waited in the center of the big empty bed.

A lady with a stack of towels found her there, led her down to the motel office. Bits of breakfast clung to the beard of the man at the desk. Ruby sat in an orange plastic chair, like the kind at the Dairy Dog, and tried to be as small and quiet as she could. She felt funny sitting there in her jammies, and she was afraid to ask the man to use his potty.

The police who came were nicer than the man. One was a man with a Frito-Bandito mustache and the other was a lady with a ponytail that swished almost to her bum like a real pony’s tail. The lady took Ruby back to the room and let her go potty and put on the pretty sundress her mama had packed for her. The lady emptied out all the suitcases and looked all through the piles, even in pockets. Then she put some of Ruby’s clothes in one of the suitcases and they went back to the office.

Ruby sat again in the orange chair and the police kneeled down in front of her and asked her questions.

How old was she?
She was three.

Did she know her whole name?
Her name was Ruby.

Did she know where she lived?
Of course she did. She lived with her mama and daddy in a compartment. Except one time when her mama called her daddy a drunk and threw the bottle of whiskers at him, she and her mama took a train and lived with Nana and Grandpa until Mama got mad at them, and then Mama and Ruby took a different train and then a bus back to Daddy’s compartment. But now they were all going to live in California and Ruby was going to swim in the ocean.

Did she know her mama’s and daddy’s other names?
Nana called her mama Annie. And her mama called her daddy Jack, or sometimes Jack Daniel. The policeman snorted in his nose when Ruby said her daddy called her mama Muffin.

Did she know her nana and grandpa’s other names?
Her mama called Nana Mother and called Grandpa Dad. Ruby couldn’t remember her daddy calling them anything at all.

The grown-ups shook their heads at one another, and the policeman went behind the counter and talked on the telephone. They took her to the restaurant next door to the motel, and Ruby ate a hot dog and the waitress wore a pink shiny dress and carried a whole line of plates on one arm.

Then they got in the police car and drove down the big road. The lady sat in back with Ruby, and the man drove. He turned on his siren for just a minute. They both laughed when Ruby put her hands over her ears. Their car passed lots of other motels and some stores. They hadn’t driven very long when Ruby saw a gas station with a big truck parked beside it. And dangling from the truck, like a fish on a pole, was a red car that looked just like her daddy’s. Except this one was all smashed up. Her daddy was going to be really mad if someone broke his special car.

John pauses his questions to ask the court clerk to refill Ruby’s water. Ruby drinks and drinks, and the clerk refills the glass again before sitting back down.

“Where did the California police officers take you, Ruby?”

Ruby continues her story over the gurgling in her stomach.

The police took her to another lady’s house. A chain fence made a square around the front yard. The yard didn’t grow grass, just dirt and toys. The lady’s hair was yellow on the bottom and brown on top. Her tummy poked out between her shorts and shirt, and her legs were jiggly. She talked with a cigarette poking out of the side of her mouth.

Lots of other kids ran around, in and out of the house and across the yard. Some of them looked mean. Ruby cried when the police started to leave; she asked them please could she go with them and promised she’d be good, but they left her anyway.

Ruby didn’t like staying at that house. The lady yelled all the time. The older kids were mean to her, and the babies cried really loud and their diapers sagged with poop. She wanted her mama and daddy. She felt scared all the way to her tummy every day and every night. The lady yelled at Ruby when she cried, so she tried really hard to keep her tears inside her eyes, but sometimes at night the tears leaked out onto her pillow, especially when the big boy climbed into her bed.

After more days than Ruby had fingers, the doorbell rang at the foster home, and a lady called out to Ruby. She didn’t recognize Nana at first because she wasn’t at her regular house, and when Ruby did recognize her, all Ruby could do was cry.

A yellow taxi drove Nana and Ruby to a big airport, and then they flew on a plane. Ruby was a little scared and a little excited because she had never been up in the air before. But mostly she was sad, because Nana told her that her mama and daddy’s car crashed and now they were in heaven.

Nana said she was sorry Ruby had to stay at the house so long, that the police took a long time to find Nana because she and Ruby’s mama had different last names. Ruby knew that heaven was up in the sky, and she searched the clouds outside the airplane window.

But she didn’t see her mama and daddy; she never saw them again.

“Your Honor, the defense rests.” John strides back to the table, takes his seat as if he hasn’t a care in the world. Beyond him, Ruby catches sight of a familiar face. Chaz. Of course he came, even though she told him not to. Chaz meets her eye and gives a nod that says everything, that he finally understands.

“Mr. Noble?” the judge asks.

Noble stands, buttons his coat. His body tenses as if he is a cat readying to pounce.

“Ms. Leander, on the subject of that birth certificate, did you destroy it, burn it?”

“No. Not intentionally. But it could have gotten thrown out.”

“But if we executed a search warrant of your house, it might be there? We might find it stuck in some pile of receipts or letters or something?”

“I…I don’t know. Maybe.”

Noble crosses his arms, looks at the jury, back at Ruby. “Let’s say that you didn’t find the article and next year you needed a birth certificate to get Lark in a different school or a camp or a doctor or—”

“Objection,” John says. “Now
this
is speculation.”

“Overruled. I’m going to allow it. The witness will answer the question.”

Ruby looks up at the judge, over at John. They hadn’t practiced this one. “I, I guess I would have looked for it or asked the school for a copy or something.”

Noble unfolds his arms, nods to the jury. “Thank you, Ms. Leander. Now let’s switch gears. Did you take that child—the Tinsdales’ child—across the state line of Oklahoma into New Mexico?”

“Objection,” John says. “I think this has already been established, Your Honor.”

“Your Honor, I am trying to establish consciousness of guilt through evidence of flight.”

The judge looks at Ruby. “The witness may answer.”

“Actually”—Ruby cringes a bit at using that word, Lark’s word—“we crossed into Texas, then into New Mexico.”

Noble’s cheeks pink up a shade. “But. You did. Take that child and leave the state of Oklahoma with her?”

“Yes.”

The prosecutor slinks in for the kill. “Because you knew it was wrong, because you
knew
that little baby belonged to someone else.”

Ruby shrugs. “Actually”—this time Lark’s word makes the inside of her mouth smile—“I was on my way to California, before I found Lark. I was just passing through Oklahoma and I, we, decided she’d come along, seeing as how she was just thrown away.”

Now Noble’s cheeks are cherry bright. “Your Honor, will you please instruct the witness to stick to answering the questions asked?”

The judge leans over the dais toward Ruby. His voice is stern, but his eyes twinkle. “Let’s rein in the editorializing.”

Ruby nods, and takes a breath. She doesn’t want to come off as flippant, glib; this jury needs to like her. “I’m sorry, Mr. Noble.”

Noble tugs at his tie. “And did you report to any authority the fact that you had come across this infant at a rest stop.”

“Actually,” Ruby starts.
Watch it
, she tells herself. “I did tell the authorities. Just as soon as I found out about the carjacking, that Lark hadn’t been abandoned after all.”

“I mean at the time you found the child. Did you at any time in the
almost ten
years leading up to finding that article ever tell anyone the truth?”

Ruby resists the urge to look down at her hands; John made her practice keeping eye contact. She also avoids seeking out Chaz’s face in the gallery over John’s shoulder. “No.”

Noble fans through some papers on his table. Ruby has no doubt his actions are for show; he knows exactly what he’s going to say next. “Where were you, Ms. Leander, on the morning of July 13 of this year?”

“I…I was here. In Dallas.”

“Despite a court order to remain in the state of New Mexico?”

“Yes. I…”

“And just where in our fine city were you on that morning?”

“At the Tinsdales’. On the street in front of their house.”

“And were you not also under a court order regarding contact with the Tinsdales and their child?”

“Yes.”

Noble’s “hmm” is as melodramatic as a silent-movie villain twisting the end of his mustache. “So in direct violation of not one but two separate court orders—”

“I didn’t
contact
her.” Ruby’s words burble from her mouth despite her attempts at control. “I only wanted to
see
where she was living. I needed to see that she was all right.”

“No. You wanted to kidnap that poor child all over again, didn’t you?”

“Objection,” John says. “Your Honor, there is no evidence—”

Noble smirks his “withdrawn” before John can finish his sentence, before Ruby has to face answering that question. He struts back to the prosecutor’s table, shakes his head when his assistant slides a yellow note pad his way. “That’s all I have for this witness.”

“Redirect, Your Honor?” John pushes his chair back from the table. At the judge’s nod, he rises and walks over to the witness stand. “Ruby, who is the father of the baby you are carrying?”

Noble jumps to his feet and shouts his objection before Ruby can answer. “Relevance, Your Honor?”

“The prosecution has put Ms. Leander’s state of mind into issue, Your Honor,” John says. “If you give me a little latitude, this testimony goes to the heart of the matter.”

Ruby can feel the judge’s eyes studying her before he turns back to John. “Go ahead.”

As John tosses out questions about her relationship with Chaz, she tries to quell the shame of being pregnant and unmarried. She focuses on Chaz’s face behind the defendant’s table, allows herself to be calmed by the trust and encouragement she finds there.

“Weren’t you worried about dating a
cop
?” John folds his arms, cocks his head toward the jury. “Weren’t you worried he’d find out about Lark? That he’d turn you in? Or that you’d put him in a compromising position between his job and you?”

“I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. Until I found the article.” Ruby locks her eyes on Chaz’s face. “I should have…I didn’t tell him the truth. But not because I thought I was a
criminal
.”

John’s voice softens. “Ruby, until the time you found that article, what was the ‘truth’ as you understood it?”

As if she were at the communion rail at the little Episcopal church, Ruby clasps her hands on the bar of the witness stand. “That Lark had been abandoned. That there was no one who would be looking for her.”

“Did you
intend
to kidnap her?”

“No. Never.”

John thanks Ruby, helps her from the stand. She knows he wants to depict her as a fragile pregnant woman, but frankly, his arm is welcome. Her legs are shaky; her head throbs. She feels, well, like a fragile pregnant woman.

The jurors file out the back door to make their deliberations, and Ruby stands beside John as the judge leaves his throne. Before she can sit again, strong hands spin her around, and she tilts into Chaz’s embrace. Her head acts on its own, seeking out the sweet spot between collarbone and collar. “You came.”

“I came.”

Chaz’s Adam’s apple slams against Ruby’s cheek. Behind them, the main doors swish open and swoosh closed, reporters stepping out to make phone calls, have a smoke. Ruby’s hot tears soak Chaz’s shirt. “I don’t…I don’t know why I’m crying
now
.” She spits words between hiccups.

John hands Chaz a travel pouch of tissues, and Chaz mops up Ruby’s face, settles her in a chair.

“This may take awhile,” John says. “Why don’t you two take a walk, grab a soda.”

“I’d rather just sit here.” Ruby doesn’t want to have to walk back into this courtroom, up to this table, ever again.

“I’ll go check my voice mail then.” John pats her hand, stuffs some papers into his briefcase, moves through the swinging gate to the gallery.

Ruby and Chaz stay at the defense table while the court clerk removes the judge’s water glass and note pad, while Noble’s assistant packs her files and notebooks back into her box. Noble himself was first out the door.

When the courtroom is empty, Ruby turns to Chaz. She unravels her voice from the knot in her chest, tells him about Lark, about the Tinsdales. She omits Lark’s parting words to her; these she needs to keep inside her, their razor edges cutting into her, not so much in an act of flagellation as to ward off the bone-weary numbness. If she can hold on to that burn, like a million paper cuts up and down her spine, then she can hang on to her plan.

Before she can tell him the rest, John comes back through the courtroom door. “We have to talk,” Ruby says to Chaz. “Not now. But I have to tell you something.”

“We’ve got forever to talk.” Chaz brushes a straggler tear from her cheek as John steps up to the table.

John gestures toward the judge’s bench, where a clerk is placing a pitcher of water. “They need us out of here. The judge has an afternoon docket call.” He hands Chaz a pager, like the ones hostesses dole out at busy restaurants. “I’ll be in the lawyer’s conference room. You two go feed that baby of yours.”

Later, Ruby sits in the conference room where she had her visit with Lark. Chaz alternates between sitting next to her and pacing the hall outside the large window. Across the table, John bends his head over a stack of papers with dense type, making notes in green ink.

Time is a snail in the stuffy room. By late afternoon, Ruby is in a stupor. She knows she ate, but she couldn’t say what. She must have gone to the bathroom, several times, with a baby pummeling her bladder, yet she has no memory of leaving the conference room.

Ruby thinks about the closing arguments, John stressing that she had no intent to harm, no malice in her actions, Noble painting her as the devil incarnate. She thinks about the judge’s instructions to the jury, telling them that, although they may feel acutely the pain that the parents of the child must have suffered these nine years, as well as the good the defendant thought she was doing, in the end, their decision must be grounded in the law.

She tries to think about what might happen; she tries
not
to think about what might happen. She again folds her hands, prayerlike, over her belly, but this time she actually whispers a prayer, “What ever happens or doesn’t happen to me today, just let Lark and this baby be okay.”

Finally the pager beside her flashes and jiggles and spins in a circle.

Chaz and John walk on each side of her as she makes that long trek back up the courtroom aisle. The room seems to buzz with anticipation. The back doors swish and swoosh as the reporters rush to their seats. A cloud of coughing, chattering, rustling rises behind Ruby, but all noise ceases when the jury files into their seats. The room tastes metallic, like a green Iowa sky just before a tornado.

Ruby has seen this part on TV so many times that she wants to giggle at watching it live, the judge asking the jury whether they have reached a verdict, the taller black woman standing, handing the bailiff a slip of paper, the bailiff walking the paper to the judge, back to the forewoman. The scene seems so clichéd that Ruby has to force herself to remember that her life, her freedom anyway, really is defined by that paper.

At the judge’s prompting, she stands up beside John. She worried about this moment, about swooning like a movie-of-the-week actress, but she feels incredibly calm.

The forewoman lifts animal-print reading glasses from the chain around her neck. “On the charge under the United States Code…of kidnapping, we find the defendant…”