The Deepest Blue (23 page)

I take the pen and try to explain.

Julia wanted me to visit, but I was still in school, and Dad didn't want me to miss two weeks. He asked Julia to come and pick me up when school was out. She said she couldn't afford two tickets, she wanted me to fly by myself. Dad said he wouldn't send me across the country alone. He couldn't take time off to fly with me because he had charter trips. She told him to just forget it, it was too much of a hassle.

Ms. Young nods and writes a few notes in the margins next to my note.

“ . . . has paid thousands upon thousands of dollars in child support for a child she was denied seeing for ten years.” Mr. McIntyre motions to Julia. “Even with her growing family in Washington, she continued to long for time with the son who had been forcibly taken from her.”

Oh, please,
I think.
Could this be any more melodramatic?

McIntyre turns back to the judge. “Your Honor, all my client is asking for is the opportunity to be a mother to her son, an opportunity that was taken away from her by Mr. Wilson. It's a simple request: Allow her to do the job that is her right and her privilege.” He picks up the stack of papers and nods to the judge and then sits next to Julia, who has been staring at the judge's desk the whole time.

“Ms. Young,” the judge says as she looks over the top of her glasses at me, “is Mr. Wilson prepared to answer a
few questions?” Her voice sounds doubtful, and I'm embarrassed that I acted so immaturely. I'm worried, too, because I don't want to do anything that will mess up my chances to be adopted by Maggie.

“Yes, Your Honor, he is.” Ms. Young stands and moves out of my way. She motions toward the chair on the left side of the judge's desk. I walk across the empty space between the podium and the desk. The officer, who has been standing by the blonde lady this whole time, follows me to the chair, and I'm afraid I've done something wrong. I turn to look at her. She holds up her right hand, palm facing out, and nods at me. I do the same thing.

“Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“Yes,” I say, and then I add, “I do.”

My heart races as I step up to the desk near the judge, praying that I don't let my emotions get the better of me.

chapter 19

“Mr. Wilson,” the judge says. Her voice booms through the room.

I look up at her, too afraid to say anything.

“I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to tell me in your own words what you think. Is that fair?”

I nod.

“We are tape recording this, remember?” She points in front of me. “Please answer and speak into the microphone.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I say. My voice seems to echo off the walls of the courtroom. This is not at all what I had imagined was going to happen. I thought the two lawyers would ask me questions, and I would have to talk to them, not the judge. Maybe I watch too much television.

“Mr. Wilson, I'd like you to tell me what you remember about the night you and your dad left home.”

“I was asleep,” I say, picturing the room in Seattle with the red, yellow, and blue train cars circling their way around my walls. “I heard a lot of banging and yelling.”

“Could you tell who was yelling?”

“Yes, ma'am, it was Julia.”

The judge looks over the desk at me. “How could you tell?”

“Because,” I say, “her voice always got really high pitched and squeally, like a cat when you step on its tail.”

I hear a chuckle that dissolves into a cough, and I look back at Maggie. Chuck is sitting next to her, his hand covering his mouth like he has a cold. I feel a little lighter for a moment.

“Did you hear your father yell?” The judge taps a pen on the desktop. The steady tick, tick, tick, is like a bomb getting ready to go off, so I focus on her question and forget Chuck for the moment.

“I only ever heard my dad yell twice in my whole life. Once was that night when we were already in the car and ready to leave. Another time was when he accidentally stepped on a really big hook on our boat, and it went more than an inch into his foot.”

The judge's eyes grow wide. “I bet he'd yell,” she says, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Chuck and Maggie both chuckle softly, maybe remembering the day we drove Dad to the emergency room with a big rubber squid lure hanging off his foot.

“What else do you remember about that night?” The judge's voice is back to serious again. “Was there any violence? Were the police called?”

“Julia was punching holes in the wall, throwing things, screaming at my dad,” I say.

“Your Honor . . .” Julia starts to say something, but McIntyre puts a hand on her and tells her to be quiet.

“You'll have your turn, Mrs. Mayers,” the judge says without looking up.

“Dad was trying really hard not to scare me,” I say. “He tried to make it seem like he and I were going on a trip. He didn't want to make me worry.”

“Were you scared?” This time the judge looks right at me.

“A little, at first. Confused. But I knew my dad would never hurt me, so I knew I was going to be okay.”

“Did you think your mother might hurt you?”

My heart speeds up, and the words have to fight their way out of my mouth. “Yes, ma'am.”

I cast a quick look at Julia. Her eyes are wide, as if I've betrayed her or accused her of being a witch. I look at Maggie. She gives me a soft smile, like she knows how hard this is for me.

“Why were you afraid that she would hurt you?” the judge continues.

“Because she had almost hit me before. And she hit my dad,” I say, and a knot slips around my voice and tightens. I swallow and breathe out, trying to force my throat to relax.

The judge raises her eyebrows, but she keeps writing, keeps her eyes on the notepad.

“What did your father tell you about the reason you were leaving?”

“The thing is,”
I remember him saying,
“the thing is your
mom doesn't want me around anymore. She doesn't want to be married to me anymore.”

“Dad said Julia didn't want to be married to him anymore, that she didn't want him around.”

“Did you ever hear her say anything like that?”

“A lot,” I say, and the words leap out of my mouth. “She blamed me and my dad for ruining her life. I even heard her say that she never wanted me.”

“Your Honor, please.” Julia stands up. McIntyre wraps a pudgy set of fingers around her wrist and pulls on her, but Julia holds firm.

“Mrs. Mayers,” the judge looks up from her notes, takes off her glasses, and stares at Julia. “I don't want to have to remove you from the courtroom, but I will if you can't control your outbursts. This is a court of law, not a TV talk show. We have rules.”

“But Your Honor, it's not fair,” Julia says, her voice a pathetic whine. McIntyre stands, putting his ample body between Julia and the judge. He whispers to her, and eventually she sits back down, propping her head in her hands.

Part of me feels triumphant, like finally I get to confront her after all these years. Another part of me is confused.

“Mr. Wilson,” Judge Crowther pulls my attention back to her. “Do you actually remember these things, or did your father tell you about them?”

I guess I knew she would ask questions like this one, but I still feel anger burning in my solar plexus. “I remember
them,” I say. “And Dad never liked to talk about any of it, so he didn't have a chance to brainwash me.” I add emphasis to the world
brainwash
so that I make it clear to McIntyre and Julia that I'm not playing their game.

“Did you ever ask about your mother? Ask to see her?”

“When we first left, I asked if I could call home and make sure Julia was okay,” I say. “Dad never turned me down. In fact, one time he pulled off the freeway near Indianapolis so I could use a pay phone. He gave me about five bucks in quarters.” I laugh remembering how I struggled to hold all the change. “Then when he realized I was too short to put the money in the pay phone, he held me up so I could drop the coins in the slot.”

I picture the pay phone at the rest stop, the big trucks pulling in, the greasy smell of the diner mixed with the pungent smell of diesel. I hear Julia's voice as she answers the phone. And I remember her hanging up the second she realized it was me on the other end.

“Did you ask to see her once you settled into your new home?” Judge Crowther asks, leaning toward me on the big desktop.

“I asked once.”

“And what did Mr. Wilson have to say?”

“He dialed the phone for me and said that it was okay with him, but that I'd better ask Julia if it was okay.”

“And?” The judge looks at me expectantly.

The memory spills out. “When Julia answered the phone, I told her it was me, Mikey. She said, ‘Mikey who? I don't know anyone bad enough to be named Mikey.' I
tried to explain to her who I was, because I thought maybe she had forgotten me. I was only six or so. So I said, ‘It's me Mikey, your little boy who was in your tummy.' Her answer,” I pause as the memory floods back to my heart and the tears flood into my eyes, “was ‘Oh, you must be that flu bug, that disease I got rid of. Quit calling me.' And then she hung up on me.”

Maggie's hands cover her mouth, and I can see the red flesh surrounding her eyes. Julia's head is buried in her hands. I look at the judge. “After that, I stopped asking to see her or even talk to her. One time she asked if I would fly out to see her, but I was only about ten years old, and she wanted me to fly by myself because she said she couldn't afford two tickets. My dad couldn't afford to buy a ticket and take time off work, so Julia told him just to forget it.”

The judge finishes writing and sits quietly for a moment, then she looks at me. “I think we should all take a short recess right now.”

“All rise,” says the lady officer. I head back to my chair.

A few moments later, I stand in the hallway outside the courtroom. Chuck and Ms. Young are talking quietly in a corner. Their faces and gestures are firm and serious. Maggie is standing by a window, looking outside at the gathering clouds. I stand beside her, watching as the sky shifts from a pale blue to a dark, menacing blue-black that is spreading like an ink spill.

“Mike,” Maggie says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, “I'm so very proud of how strong you are.”

I lean into her, like Rocket leans on me in the morning. “I'm okay,” I say, because I know she is worried. “I'm sure it's gonna get worse.”

“Why do you think so?” Maggie asks. She doesn't disagree with me, so it's like she is just comparing notes with me on something inevitable.

“That McIntyre guy is gonna say all kinds of stupid stuff. Julia is gonna say I made it all up. But I didn't. I don't need to make stuff up. She was the crazy one. She wrote all the best material herself.”

Maggie sighs. “I feel so sad for her.”

“What for?” I ask. I pull away from Maggie to see if she is joking. She isn't.

“What a terrible position to be in, knowing that your own child would rather be raised by anyone else but you.”

“It's her own fault,” I say. “She's the one who didn't want me to call. She's the one who told me I was a disease.” The muscles in the backs of my arms and my shoulders begin to tense, like I want to draw back my arm and punch my fist through a wall. I resist the anger, resist the rage. Those are Julia's qualities, and I don't want anything to do with her.

We stand in silence as the sky outside trembles with distant thunder. Chuck hands an envelope to Ms. Young and then walks toward us. “You're doing great,” he says. “Sylvia said she thought you handled everything just right.”

I don't feel any relief at hearing this. “It's not her I'm worried about. It's the judge.” Every inch of my body
prickles like sunburn. I ache, I'm tired, I just want this over with.

“The judge has to keep an open mind until all the evidence is presented.” Ms. Young has moved next to Chuck. “She has to play devil's advocate, if you will.”

“It feels like she's already made up her mind,” I say. “I don't think she likes me.”

Ms. Young smiles kindly at me. “It isn't about if she likes you or not. She just has to accept that what you want is what's truly in your best interest. You've done a fine job of showing her that you know your mind and that what you're asking for is not unreasonable.”

“But what about that McIntyre guy?” I say. “He's going to try to make me look like I'm an idiot.”

“But you're not,” Ms. Young says. “So he can try, but if you stay true to what your heart says, as clichéd as that sounds, you'll be just fine.”

The bailiff signals us to return to the courtroom. I practically run to my chair to avoid being close to Julia. Ms. Young takes her place next to me.