A Good Mother

the heart believing she was about to die with no way out of a situation that was not her fault.”
Abby nods.
“Tall order. She’s got motive, she’s got time, and she’s got no real injuries.” Antoine looks at Will. “So that’s your job. With her.”
“That is my job with her.” Will stares back hard at both of them.
The waitress returns, clears their plates, mops at the tabletop, and reaches into the pocket of her uniform to hand Will the check. Abby takes it from him and does the math. “Eleven dollars each.”
As they dig through their wallets, Antoine says, almost as an aside, “Luz is gonna need to change her look for the trial. And her attitude.”
“Yes,” Abby says. “I’m sure Will’s on top of that.”
Will nods, trying to look as if this were true instead of wishful thinking. He needs to bring back Lady Madonna, the doe-eyed young mother he saw that first and only time under the wooden cross in her grandmother’s living room.
“Alright, well, we were talking,” Antoine says, nodding to Abby, “about how maybe you might want to use some of this 3D technology.” He opens his laptop and turns it toward Will. “I’ve been looking into software that can draw up the crime scene and create the two people, you know, her and him, so the jury can see the way it was on-screen. On the stand, Luz would describe an action and you would use the computer to demonstrate to the jury what it actually looked like.”
“Or a good simulation of what it looked like,” Abby says.
“Check it out,” Antoine says.
Will stares at the laptop screen, clicks on the arrow and sees the hallway of the apartment in Ramstein. There are two bodies: one short, one tall, looming. In short, jerky bursts, the tall figure strikes out at the shorter one, who backtracks, arms outstretched to block her face. He keeps clicking, watching a chase, a collision, a run to another room. Will hits the stop button, looks up.
“What do you think?” Abby asks, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “It’s kind of like what I was saying in the car the other day—about making it physical.”
Will closes the laptop. “It’s too removed,” he says. “Too clinical.” The realization hits him suddenly. “We need to use real bodies.”
“Whose bodies?” Antoine says.
“Luz’s,” Will says. “And mine.” He looks at Abby.
“I love that idea.” She is actually smiling at him—the first real smile she’s ever turned in his direction and it’s like a thousand flashbulbs going off in his face. He hadn’t realized until that moment that his dislike of Abby lives side by side with a craving for her approval.

2006


Friday, January 20, 2006
11:13 p.m.
Willowick, Ohio
From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
To: travman@hotmail.com
oh so its like that now. yeah, ill get the test. u want the results mailed to the base???
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
8:14 a.m.
Willowick, Ohio
From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
To: travman@hotmail.com
Haven’t heard back from u. should i mail the results to the base, c/o the Mrs.?
T, i need u to take responsibility if u don’t i will act.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
5:28 p.m.
Ramstein Air Base
Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany
From: travman@hotmail.com
To: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
Jaxx do not do anything krazee im doing what i can on my end but for now im stuck here in this situation of my making i know but i have to figure a way out you gotta trust me.
V day is cuming up, so send me some more pix, puleeze!!! betchu look hot all knocked up...
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
10:05 a.m.
Willowick, Ohio
From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
To: travman@hotmail.com
hey there sexxxy valentine! did you get the cards and the pix?
so good to hear yr voice on the phone last week wish it wasn’t so $$$ so we could phone fuck every week. not sure if its this pregnancy thing but im hella horny. did u look at the sonogram? gonna be gorgeous like his daddy. Waitin for u to tell The Mrs. like you promised. did u???!!!
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
8:03 p.m.
Ramstein Air Base
Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany
From: travman@hotmail.com
To: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
Jaxx,
Thx for the v day presents came late damn mail but they were well-received that i can tell u.
there’s been some issues here and i can’t move fast the way you want. i’ll explain later but u gonna have 2B patient.
T


2007


Sunday, February 18, 2007
7:43 p.m.
Conference Room
Office of the Federal Public Defender
Los Angeles, California
“You have to do it harder.”
Will steps back, releases his grip. There are red marks where his fingertips have pressed into Luz’s neck just below her jawbone. She stays where she is with her back up against the wall, where he has cornered her. They are both breathing heavily, Will stripped down to his undershirt. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She looks at him, hair disheveled, eyes dark and unreadable. “You have to. Just like I have to hurt you. It won’t work if it isn’t real.”
This is the fifth, or maybe the sixth time—he’s losing count—that they have reenacted those last fatal moments in the hallway where Travis died. Each time, Luz had pushed him: to yell, to shove, to hit, to strangle harder. Each time, Will had gone a step further and so had she: screaming, kicking, scratching him. His face burns where she’s slapped him and there is a line of blood scabbing on his cheek where she’s raked the skin with her fingernails. Each time, Will had reacted instinctively: pushing, shoving, and choking her more forcibly, then instantly pulling back, horrified and disgusted at what he was doing to someone half his size and little more than half his age. To a girl.
Will imagines one of his colleagues walking in, thankful they are here on a Sunday night. His brilliant idea is starting to seem foolish, even dangerous. He had been so excited about the chance to execute his plan that he had spent most of the afternoon rearranging the furniture, pushing the conference table and chairs to the side wall so that the long, rectangular space was