The Deepest Blue (24 page)

“All rise,” the bailiff says.

The judge enters from the secret room behind the big desk. “You may be seated,” she says as she takes her place. “Mr. Wilson, will you please resume your place on the stand.” She motions to the chair I had been sitting in before.

I move toward the desk again.

“Let me remind you,” the judge says in a serious voice, “that you are still under oath.”

I nod to her as I sit. “Ms. Young, are you ready to proceed?”

Ms. Young steps up to the podium and nods at the judge. “Your Honor, I'd like to address the issue of custodial care.”

“Proceed,” the judge says. She picks up her pen, and I can see it has the pale blue of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels on it.

“Mike,” Ms. Young says, “tell me about your dad. How did you two get along?”

I turn to look at her. “He was sort of like my best friend. Except he made me go to bed on time and stuff like that.”

She flashes her broad, warm smile at me. “You were close to your dad, weren't you?”

“He was everything to me,” I say. The ache in my heart forces a lump to move up my throat. I swallow against it and fight back the tears that threaten in the corners of my eyes again. “He took care of me, he gave up everything for me because he wanted me to be happy and safe.”

“And you worked for him, too?”

“I worked
with
him,” I said. “He taught me how to run the charters, taught me everything about the boat. He always said I was his partner.”

“Did he pay you?” Ms. Young looks at her notes, like I haven't already told her all about this.

“Yeah, he paid me, but he also put a lot of my earnings into my savings account for college.”

“How long did your dad and Miss Delaney know each other?”

I think back to when they first met, when I was about nine or ten years old. “Dad used to do a lot of handiwork around Indian Beach, Atlantic Beach, and Salter Path when the tourist season was over. Maggie called him to fix a hole in her roof. He asked her did she mind if he brought his boy and she said no.” I look up at Maggie. She looks into my eyes like we are sharing the moment all over again.

“She had this cute puppy,” I say, recalling when Rocket and I were both a lot smaller. “I played with the puppy and ate tuna sandwiches this nice lady made while my dad fixed her roof.” The lump in my throat is choking the words from me, and I have to swallow hard several times so I can finish. “Maggie gave me crayons to play with and talked to me while Dad finished the work. When he was done, she tried to pay him, but Dad said he owed her more for babysitting than she owed for the roof.”

Tears sparkle on Maggie's cheeks, but she keeps looking at me. Thunder grumbles low outside.

“How long did your father and Miss Delaney see each other for?”

“Five years, maybe a little more,” I say. “He had gone to buy her an engagement ring when he got in his accident.” The empty feeling that surges through my core is cold and draining. I want to put my head down and sleep for just a moment, but I keep my eyes glued to Maggie's.

“Your father intended to marry Miss Delaney?”

“He hadn't picked a date, but knowing Dad, it would have been soon. Once he made up his mind about something, he went to work getting things done.”

“How did you feel about his decision?”

An inadvertent chuckle escapes like a cough. “I thought it was about time.” I smile at Maggie. “I thought he should have asked her a long time before.”

“And why do you think he took so long in asking?” Ms. Young asks. She thumbs through more papers in front of her.

“Because he wanted to be sure,” I say. I slow down, unsure if I should add the rest or not. Ms. Young looks up at me and nods. I keep going. “He didn't want to make the same mistake twice. Julia really hurt him, and he didn't want to put me in danger again.”

“Michael, how do you feel about Miss Delaney?”

The cold, empty feeling gives way to a spreading warmth. “She's totally the coolest. She's been like a mom to me for almost five years, watching out for me and my dad, taking care of me when I got sick, helping me with homework, talking to me about girls and stuff.”

Chuck puts a hand on Maggie. Her head drops, and I can tell she doesn't want me to see her cry.

“Maggie is probably more strict than my dad, too, but I know she loves me—and she loved my dad.”

“How did Miss Delaney react when you asked her to be your guardian?”

“I asked her to be my
mom
,” I say, then I look at Julia. “Anybody can be a guardian, but not just anybody can be a mom.”

“So how did she react to your asking her to be your mom?” Ms. Young looks up from her notes. Her broad
smile hasn't faded a bit.

“She was scared, and she said we would both have to learn a lot about how to be a family, but she said she loved me. She said she would love to be my mom.”

The thunder pounds against the window like angry fists. It startles everyone in the room, jolting us to attention.

“Michael,” Ms. Young says in a firm voice, “why are you so resistant to seeing your real mother and to living with her?”

I knew this one was coming, but still it causes me to flinch. I take in a deep breath while the words organize themselves in my head. “Because this is where I live, this is my home here in North Carolina with the Wolf Pack and the Tar Heels, the beach, the boat. My friends are here,” I say, “my life is here. This is where I've grown up and where I want to finish growing up.” I look straight at Julia as I finish. “And just because she gave birth to me doesn't make her my ‘real' mother. A real mother doesn't call you a disease and tell you to leave her alone.”

Julia looks me in the eye, but her lower lip quivers, and I can tell she is afraid of what I'm saying because it's true.

“I believe that's all I have for Mr. Wilson,” Ms. Young says.

The judge drops her pen on the desk. “Mr. McIntyre?”

The slime-ball attorney stands and makes his way to the podium as Ms. Young returns to the desk. My stomach folds back on itself and threatens to push what little is down there out onto the desk.

“Michael,” Mr. McIntyre begins. He flips to a page on
his white notepad. “I'm so sorry about the loss of your father.”

I want to remind him that he never knew my dad so how could he be sorry, but I hold my tongue.

“Do you remember much about living in Seattle?”

“Some,” I say. “I remember our house. I remember my bedroom and my friends. I remember driving to the San Juan Islands for vacation and going to see my grandparents once.”

“But you were very young when you lived there,” he says. “You probably don't remember much about being so young.”

“I remember my room had wallpaper with trains on it. I had a lamp with a little red, yellow, and blue train that ran around the bottom. And the drawers of my dresser were painted red, yellow, and blue.” I know what he's trying to do, so I want to show him how much detail I do remember. “My friend Jeffy lived two doors down from us. He had red hair and freckles on his nose that his mom called fairy kisses. One time Julia told me I couldn't play with him anymore because Jeffy's mom had said something mean to her, so he couldn't be my friend.”

Mr. McIntyre looks at his papers, takes a quick glance at Julia like maybe she forgot to tell him some things, then he flips through the notebook again.

“You say you remember
hearing
your parents fight, but do you ever remember
seeing
them have an argument?”

“Lots of times,” I say. “When Julia wouldn't take her medication and they fought, I was standing in the doorway
to the kitchen, but the table blocked them from seeing me. When Julia spent all the money they needed for bills buying clothes and shoes, I was standing at the top of the stairs looking down into the front room.”

Mr. McIntyre looks straight at me. “Do you remember this, or is this what Mr. Wilson, your father, told you?”

“I watched them. I remember seeing them.” I can hear the slight quiver in my voice, like I'm suddenly four again and I am sitting behind the sofa, hiding from my parents as they fight. I remember Julia throwing something breakable at my dad, and I flinch as I hear it shatter again in my head.

“Your father didn't really want you to have a relationship with your mother, did he?”

McIntyre makes this a statement, like everyone in the room knows this to be gospel truth.

“He just didn't want me being hurt over and over,” I say. My knee begins bouncing up and down, and I'm trying not to blow up at this guy. “He let me call whenever I wanted, but it didn't take long before I didn't want to call anymore.”

“But if your father had continued to encourage you, then it stands to reason that your mother would have gotten over her anger and been able to have a close relationship with you.”

“So why didn't she call me, then?”

The judge sits up a little straighter, and McIntyre snaps his balding head to look at Ms. Young. She frowns at me, but it seems like if I don't ask a few tough
questions myself, no one is ever going to know the truth, how it really happened.

“Mr. Wilson, you will limit your responses to answering the questions posed.” The judge has put on her glasses again and is looking over the top of them at me. I half expect her to shake her finger at me and click her tongue in a
tsk, tsk
sound.

“Yes, ma'am,” I say, and I try to fake politeness even though I'm so pissed off I could start throwing fists.

McIntyre has moved over to the table next to Julia and is having a whispered conversation with her. He nods his head and waddles back to the podium. Lightning rips past the only window and shoots a flash of light into the far corner of the room. Almost immediately, the window rattles again with thunder that seems to explode inside the courthouse.

“Mr. Wilson,” the heavy guy in beige says, then “Mike,” in a voice like he thinks the two of us are real buddies, “tell me about the trip you took to the San Juan Islands.”

He catches me off guard with this request, so I have to take a minute to search through my memories and find the right ones. “It was summer,” I say. I can feel the heat and humidity pressing on me as we loaded suitcases into the car. “We packed everything into the silver car we had and drove to the ferry. I know it wasn't all that far, but I wanted to see the boat, so it felt like it took forever. I remember thinking it was weird that you could drive your car on the boat.”

“Do you remember where you went?”

“Orcas Island,” I say, “named for the whales.”

“And what else do you remember about that trip?”

Pictures shoot through my brain, and I try to grab something to go with them: a memory, an emotion, something to serve as a landmark. I let my eyes close and allow the images to solidify in my mind. “We played on the beach, but there were a lot of pebbles, and they hurt my feet. We drove around the island looking for someplace Julia wanted to go, but we couldn't find it, so we wound up going to a fancy restaurant for dinner instead.”

“Were your parents fighting?”

I search deeper into my memory. “I don't think so.”

“So there were some good memories in your childhood.”

“I didn't say there weren't.” My eyes are open now.

“Do you recall visiting your grandparents?”

“Yeah, I remember them. They had a big swing in back of their house, and my grandmother used to bake bread.”

“In fact,” McIntyre says, “if you stop and think about it, with your amazing memory, there are probably more good memories than bad ones, wouldn't you say?”

“No, I wouldn't say.” I look at Ms. Young, wondering how to handle this. She is writing on her notepad. No help to me.

“Out of the five years that you lived with both your mother and your father, you can't recall one moment where you were physically harmed. You had a nice home in the suburbs with your own room, a mother who stayed at
home to care for you, and by most measures it was a picture-perfect childhood—until your father stole you away.”

“Objection,” Ms. Young says, rising in her chair. “Your Honor, that's a big leap in logic.”

“Sustained,” the judge says. “Mr. McIntyre, the late Mr. Wilson is not on trial today.”

“Apologies, Your Honor,” McIntyre says, then under his breath, “but perhaps he should be.”

“Pardon?” Judge Crowther says.

“Your Honor!” Ms. Young leans hard on the table.

I look at Maggie and Chuck. Maggie is staring at the floor, and Chuck is holding her hand. He whispers something to her that I can only guess at. I'm suddenly jealous, not because Chuck is holding Maggie's hand, but because I'm up here all by myself. I'd give just about anything to have Rachel here, or Jayd, or almost anyone to tell me that it's all going to be okay.