Sing You Home: A Novel Read online

  “What, if any, is your relationship to Max Baxter?”

  I think of the argument Zoe and I had last night. My relationship to this man is that, forever, we will be linked together through her. That there will be parts of her heart she’s already given to someone else.

  “He’s my spouse’s ex-husband,” I say evenly. “He’s biologically related to the embryos. I don’t really know him; I only know what Zoe’s told me about him.”

  “Are you willing to allow him to have contact with any child that might result?”

  “If he wants to.”

  Angela faces me directly. “Vanessa,” she says, “is there anything that prevents you from being considered a fit and proper person to have custody of a child?”

  “Absolutely not,” I reply.

  “Your witness,” Angela says, turning toward Wade Preston.

  Today he is wearing an outfit that shouldn’t work—and believe me, if I’m making a fashion commentary, it must be truly hideous. His shirt is checkered, purple and white. His tie is striped, lilac and black. His black suit jacket is flecked with bits of gray and silver and purple. And yet what should look like a nasty eighties anachronism somehow looks, with his spray-on tan and his bling, like a GQ spread. “Ms. Shaw,” he begins. I actually look down to see if he’s left a trail of oil as he comes closer. “Does your employer know you’re a lesbian?”

  I square my shoulders. If he wants to play hard, I’m ready.

  After all—I’m wearing my lipstick.

  “It’s nothing I’ve volunteered. Teachers don’t normally sit around the break room talking about their sex lives. But it’s nothing I hide, either.”

  “Don’t you think parents have a right to know what sort of guidance their children are getting?” He absolutely sneers the word guidance.

  “They don’t seem to be complaining.”

  “Do you ever talk about sex with these teens?”

  “If they bring it up. Some kids come to me because of relationship problems. Some of them have even disclosed to me that they might be gay.”

  “So you’re recruiting these innocent teenagers to your lifestyle?” Preston says.

  “Not at all. But I am offering them a safe place where they can talk when other people”—I pause for effect—“are not being particularly tolerant.”

  “Ms. Shaw, you testified on direct examination that you believe you’re a fit and proper parent for a child, is that right?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You’re saying there’s nothing about you that suggests, for example, an inability to cope?”

  “I don’t believe so . . .”

  “I’d like to remind you that you’re under oath,” the lawyer says.

  What the hell is he getting at?

  “Isn’t it a fact that you were hospitalized for a week in 2003 in the Blackstone Hospital psychiatric ward?”

  I go very still. “A relationship had ended. I voluntarily checked myself in for a week to deal with the stress. I was put on medication and have not had another episode like that.”

  “So you had a nervous breakdown.”

  I lick my lips and taste the wax of the cosmetics. “That’s an exaggeration. I was diagnosed with exhaustion.”

  “Really? That’s all?”

  I lift my chin. “Yes.”

  “So it’s your testimony that you did not try to kill yourself?”

  Zoe’s hand is pressed to her mouth. Hypocrite, she must be thinking, after last night.

  Turning to Wade Preston, I meet his gaze. “Absolutely not.”

  He holds out his hand, and Ben Benjamin leaps up from the plaintiff’s table to give him a file. “I’d like to have these marked for identification only,” Preston says, handing them to the clerk for a stamp and then giving a copy to Angela and another to me.

  They are my medical records from Blackstone.

  “Objection,” Angela says. “I’ve never seen this evidence before. I don’t even know how Mr. Preston could have legally obtained them, since they’re protected by HIPAA—”

  “Ms. Moretti is welcome to follow along with her own copy,” Preston says.

  “Your Honor, under our confidentiality statute, I should have received three weeks notice of this prior to the records being subpoenaed. Ms. Shaw is not even a party to this action. There’s no way these records should be admissible in this courtroom.”

  “I’m not entering these records as evidence,” Preston says. “I’m just using them to impeach the witness who has testified falsely under oath. Since we are talking about a potential custodial parent, I think it’s critical to know this woman is not just a lesbian—she’s also a liar.”

  “Objection!” Angela roars.

  “If Ms. Moretti needs a brief recess to review the records, we’re perfectly willing to give her a few minutes—”

  “I don’t need a recess, you windbag. I have no question in my mind that not only are these records irrelevant but that Mr. Preston obtained them through an illegal missive. He comes into this courtroom with unclean hands. I don’t know what they do in Louisiana, but here in Rhode Island we have laws to protect our citizens, and Ms. Shaw’s rights are being violated at this very moment.”

  “Your Honor, if the witness would like to recant her testimony and admit that she did attempt suicide, I am happy to dismiss the records entirely,” Preston says.

  “Enough.” The judge sighs. “I will allow the records in for identification purposes only. However, I’d like counsel to explain how he obtained them before we go any further.”

  “They were pushed under the door of my hotel room,” he says. “God works in mysterious ways.”

  I highly doubt that God was the one running the Xerox machine at Blackstone.

  “Ms. Shaw, I’m going to ask you again. Did your suicide attempt lead to your stay at Blackstone Hospital in 2003?”

  My face is flushed; I can feel my pulse hammering. “No.”

  “So you accidentally swallowed a bottle of Tylenol?”

  “I was depressed. I didn’t have a plan to kill myself. It was a long time ago, and I’m in a very different place now than I was back then. Frankly, I don’t understand why you’re even on this witch hunt.”

  “Is it fair to say that you were upset eight years ago? In crisis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something unexpected happened that rattled you to the point where you ended up hospitalized?”

  I look down. “I guess.”

  “Zoe Baxter has testified that she had cancer. Are you aware of that?”

  “Yes, I am. But she’s healthy now.”

  “Cancer has a nasty way of recurring, doesn’t it? Ms. Baxter could get cancer again, couldn’t she?”

  “So could you,” I say.

  Preferably in the next three minutes.

  “This is a terrible thought,” Preston says, “but we do need to press through all possibilities here. Let’s say Ms. Baxter got cancer again. You’d be upset, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d be devastated.”

  “To the point of another breakdown, Ms. Shaw? Another bottle of Tylenol?”

  Angela stands again, objecting.

  Wade Preston shakes his head and tsks. “In that case, Ms. Shaw,” he says, “who’s gonna take care of those poor children?”

  As soon as I step down from the witness stand, the judge calls a recess. Zoe turns to the seat I’ve taken behind her in the gallery. We both stand; she wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

  I know she is thinking of Lucy, how I went above and beyond the call of a school counselor’s duty to find that girl something that would keep her tethered to this world instead of checking out of it. I know she’s wondering if I saw myself in her.

  From the corner of my eye, I see a flash of purple. Wade Preston heads up the aisle. Gently I disengage myself from Zoe’s embrace. “I’ll be back.”

  I follow Preston down the hallway, drawing into shadows as he glad-hands congrega