Sing You Home

“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 congregants and gives sound bites to reporters. He whistles, too full of himself to even notice that he’s got a shadow. He turns a corner and pushes open the door to the men’s room.

I go in right after him.

“Mr. Preston,” I say.

He raises his brows. “Why, Ms. Shaw. I would think a person with your sort of lifestyle would be the last one to make the mistake of walking into the facility with the picture of a man on it.”

“You know, I’m an educator. And you, Mr. Preston, are sorely in need of an education.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“I do.” I quickly glance under the stall doors, but, fortunately, we are the only ones in the room. “First, homosexuality? It’s not a lifestyle. It’s who I happen to be. Second, I didn’t choose to be attracted to women. I just am. Did you make a choice to be attracted to women? Was it during puberty? When you graduated from high school? Was it a question on the SATs? No. Homosexuality isn’t a choice any more than heterosexuality is. And I know this because why on earth would anyone choose to be gay? Why would I want to put myself through all the bullying and name-calling and physical abuse I’ve faced? Why would I want to constantly be looked down at and stereotyped by people like you? Why would I willingly pick a lifestyle, as you call it, that’s such an uphill battle? I honestly cannot believe someone who has traveled the world as much as you have, Mr. Preston, could have his eyes so tightly shut.”