A Good Mother

like most defense lawyers that it is better not to know, or to know only what is absolutely necessary. Normally, he does not call his clients to testify; there are too many unknowns, too many risks. It is the government that has the burden, why help them out by having your client say something really, really stupid, or worse, lie and get caught, which makes the likelihood of conviction and a bad sentence all the greater? But this is not a normal case. The victim is a decorated combat veteran who drowned in his own blood and his client is on a recorded call saying she killed him.
He clears his throat, tries again. “If you turn down this deal, we go to trial. And if we don’t have a story to tell the jury, a very different kind of story, you will be convicted.”
“I am not pleading guilty,” she says. “Never.”
The vehemence alarms him. That, combined with her refusal to talk about what actually happened, suggests a high degree of irrationality and denial. “I know ten years away sounds like forever when you have a baby—”
“I won’t have a baby if I go to prison. Travis’s mother will get custody. She’ll take Cristina back with her to Ohio.” As if reading Will’s thoughts, she adds, “If it comes down to siding between that lady and my grandmother, the judge will pick the white lady who speaks English.”
Will nods. It’s a real risk. But is that the only reason she is turning down the offer? An answer he would like to hear in response to a question he would never ask. Instead he says, “Alright then. We go to trial.”
“Yes,” she agrees.
He takes out his notepad and picks up a pen. He considers asking again about her juvenile conviction, still sealed, then decides to wait. Better to go with what is easiest. “Let’s talk about your relationship with Travis,” he says. “Start from the beginning, when you met.”
Luz, ignoring him, has picked up Will’s honeymoon picture again, is studying it closely.
“What’s your wife’s name?” she says.
Will tries not to look irritated at her pointed refusal to focus. What’s next, a request to look at the wedding album? “Meredith.”
“I feel bad for her,” Luz says. “I bet she gets jealous.”
“No, she doesn’t,” he shoots back defensively and then, against his better judgment, “Why would you say that? You don’t even know her.”
Luz meets his gaze head-on. “Because,” she says. “You’re so much better than she is.”
“That is not true,” Will insists, a buzzing in his brain like a fly set loose in a closed room. This woman has no right to speak this way about his marriage. But he feels compelled to protect Meredith against Luz’s accusation, and his visceral sense that she might not be wrong. He gives Luz a hard, disapproving stare, pen and notepad forgotten on the desktop. “It’s the opposite of what you’re saying.”
Luz shrugs. “Sometimes,” she says, “it’s hard for people to see what’s right in front of them.”

Sunday, December 10, 2006
6:30 p.m.
1710 Vestal Street
Los Angeles
“I’m going back.”
Nic takes a pull from his beer bottle. “Back where?”
Abby swallows, pulls Cal more tightly against her. He is a good nurser, had taken the breast from the beginning. Now he is working away quietly, eyes shut tight in concentration, his cheeks filling and emptying as he swallows. She can feel the whisper-fast beat of his heart and louder than that, her own.
“Back to work.”
“Right.” Nic looks at her quizzically. “When your maternity leave is over. In February.”
Abby looks away from him. They are sitting at the kitchen table, the remains of Chinese takeout still in the white boxes, chopsticks protruding like scrawny legs. Neither of them had bothered to transfer the food to plates. Cal was a better eater than a sleeper. Last night he had woken up three times, leaving them both exhausted. But Abby, determined to have this overdue conversation, is pulsing with adrenaline. For weeks now, she’s promised herself she would tell Nic, only to put it off. The truth is that she vastly prefers her confrontations in the courtroom, with fixed rules and a referee, particularly when she knows her argument will be an unwelcome surprise.
“I want to go back earlier. To try the Luz Rivera Hollis murder case.”
“What are you talking about? They gave it to someone else. The JAG guy.” Nic’s eyes narrow, cut across her face. Cal’s eyes are exactly the same—ocean blue. It unsettles her, the color and the sameness. Eyes like his won’t change color the way most babies’ do, the nurse had told her in the hospital.
“Luz turned down the deal. Her arraignment is tomorrow. I’m going to see Paul afterward. To tell him I’m taking it back.”
“Paul.”
“My supervisor,” she says impatiently.
“Yeah, I know who Paul is. Paul is the reason you didn’t get fired for what happened last time.” Nic shakes his head. “Now you’re going to show up six weeks after giving birth and tell him you want to do it all over again. Why? Come on, Abby, do you really think you have another wrongly accused client who can’t live without you, just like Rayshon?”
Abby takes a breath. It still hurts to hear his name. Worse to have Nic use it in this way. Rayshon is her heartbreak, but he is also their bond.
“This is not about Rayshon,” she says.
Nic lifts his beer bottle again and their eyes meet briefly. “Be honest.”
She feels her face grow hot. “I am. I told you. I need to go back.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She raises a hand to her throat, running the locket on her necklace back and forth nervously. “I’m not supposed to be here. This was—this was a mistake.”
Nic stares at her.
“Not—not, Cal,” she says hastily. “Me being here all day, with nothing to do, with no work to do. It’s like my mind is eating itself. It is making me crazy that someone else is trying my murder case.”
“Your murder case.” Nic says the words slowly.
Abby keeps going.