“I wouldn’t worry about Sheila and Tracee,” Big Ben said. “I took care of them.”
Lily thought of all those stuffed hunting trophies that littered the McGilly house. “You didn’t ...
shoot them, did you?”
Big Ben let out a big belly laugh and slapped his thigh. “Naw, honey, I didn’t shoot ’em. ’Course, I’d like the sight of my bank book a little better if I had shot ’em. I bought ’em off ... it was the easiest thing in the world. You give ’em a little money to buy somethin’ shiny with, and they’ll shut right up.
They’re no better than magpies, those women. I went to the safe in the house and peeled ’em each off five thousand-dollar bills — pocket change was all it was. I told ’em if they breathed a word of what they seen at your house, that’d be the last of my money they’d ever see.”
Ben shook his head in wonder, and Lily rose to kiss Big Ben and Jeanie. “You’re the best father- and mother-in-law a lesbian in a sham marriage ever had.”
The doorbell rang before Lily had a chance to sit down. She opened the door to see Granny McGilly, holding the sleeping Mimi in her arms.
“I took her to the playground over in Callahan and ran her some,” Granny said. “Once the car started moving, she went out like a light.”
Lily took Mimi from Granny McGilly and held her close. The little girl smelled of sunshine and sleep, and Lily inhaled deeply.
The courtroom of the Faulkner County Courthouse did not have the polished wood sheen of courtrooms on TV shows. The once-white walls were dingy, and Lily, Ben, and Buzz Dobson were seated at a cheap folding table. Ida, Charles, and Mike Maycomb, with their Italian-suited attorney, sat at a folding table opposite of them. With its dinginess and cheap furniture, the room looked like an approximation of a courtroom for a high school production of Inherit the Wind.
The entrance of Judge Sanders failed to fill Lily with hope. Despite the fact that he was supposedly the official property of the McGilly family, the judge’s dour expression did not inspire confidence. Stooped and scowling, he looked as ancient and stodgy as some of the living fossils on the
Judge Sanders croaked at the Maycombs’ attorney to make his opening remarks. Stephen J.
Hamilton stood before the judge, wearing a suit that probably cost more than the sum total of all the clothing Lily had bought in her life. His artfully woven hair, his bronze skin — everything about him said big-shot, big-city lawyer. Lily hoped that Judge Sanders wasn’t impressed by flashy appearances.
“Your honor,” Hamilton began, “I am here to speak today about the value of a child. Those of us in this courtroom who are parents know the joy of holding a new baby for the first time, and any good parent will tell you that a child is more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold.” Lily watched the gold and diamond ring glint on his right hand. “The value of a happy child, a loved child, a child raised by strict but loving parents in a morally sound home, is immeasurable. These children are worth more than their weight in diamonds and gold. These children are our country’s most valuable resource, for in their tiny hands, is our future.
“But,” Hamilton said, letting his tone grow somber. “What about the other children? Children raised in morally unfit homes? Children without a real mother and father to love them, to discipline them, to teach them right from wrong? What about these children’s future? And how will these children affect our future? Will they grow up to be criminals, drug users, moral degenerates—all because of the lack of a suitable family environment?
“Today we are here to determine the future of one child. The child in question, Mimi Maycomb, is not yet two years old, still innocent, still reasonably untouched despite the circumstances into which she was born.
