Skin Privilege

chair away from the table as he sat down.

'Noted,' Connor said. 'Dr. Linton?'

Sara's vision cleared. She heard a whoosh in her ears, as if she had been swimming underwater and suddenly pushed herself to the surface.

'Dr. Linton?' Connor repeated. She kept using the title, making it sound like something vile instead of a position Sara had worked for all of her life.

Sara looked at Buddy, and he shrugged as he shook his head, indicating there was nothing he could do. He had predicted that the deposition would be nothing more than a fishing expedition with Sara's life as bait.

Connor said, 'Doctor, would you like a few minutes to collect your emotions? I know that your rape is a hard thing for you to talk about.' She indicated the thick file on the table in front of her. It had to be the trial transcript from Sara's case. The woman had read everything, knew every disgusting detail. 'From what I gathered, your assault was very, very brutal.'

Sara cleared her throat, willed her voice to not just work but to be strong, fearless. 'Yes, it was.'

Connor's tone turned almost conciliatory. 'I used to work at the district attorney's office in Baton Rouge. I can honestly say in my twelve years as a prosecutor, I never saw anything as brutal, as sadistic, as what you experienced.'

Buddy snapped, 'Sweetheart, you wanna quit with the crocodile tears and get to the question?'

The lawyer hesitated for just a second then continued, 'For the record, Dr. Linton was raped in the bathroom of Grady Hospital, where she was working as an emergency room intern. Apparently, the perpetrator accessed the women's room through the drop ceiling. Dr. Linton was in one of the stalls when he literally dropped down on her.'

'Noted,' Buddy said. 'You got a question in there, or do you just like giving speeches?'

'Dr. Linton, the fact that you were brutally raped figured greatly into your decision to return to Grant County, did it not?'

'There were other reasons.'

'But would you say that the rape was your primary reason?'

'I would say that it was one of many reasons that figured into my decision to return.'

'Is this going somewhere?' Buddy asked. The lawyers exchanged words again, and Sara reached for the pitcher of water on the table, poured herself a glass with hands she willed to be steady.

She felt rather than saw Beckey Powell stir, and wondered if the woman was feeling guilty, seeing Sara as a human being again instead of a monster. Sara hoped so. She hoped Beckey tossed and turned in her bed tonight, realized that no matter how much she and her lawyer vilified Sara, nothing would bring back her son. Nothing would change the fact that Sara had done everything she could for Jimmy.

'Dr. Linton?' Connor continued. 'I imagine in light of the brutal rape you experienced, it was quite an emotional ordeal to walk into that bathroom and discover a woman who herself had been sexually assaulted. Especially as it was almost ten years to the date that you were raped.'

Buddy snapped, 'Is that a question?'

'Dr. Linton, you and your ex-husband – I'm sorry, husband - you both are trying to adopt a child now, aren't you? Because as a consequence to this brutal rape you experienced, you cannot have children of your own?'

Beckey's reaction was unmistakable. For the first time since this had started, Sara really looked at the woman. She saw a softening in Beckey's eyes, a stirring of joy for a friend, but the emotion vanished as swiftly as it had come, and Sara could almost read the rebuke that cancelled it: You have no right to mother a child when you killed my son.

Connor held up a familiar-looking document, stating, 'Doctor, you and your husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, filed papers for adoption with the state of Georgia three months ago. Isn't that correct?'

Sara tried to remember what they had put on the adoption application, what they had said during the state-mandated parenting classes that had taken up every free minute of their time, over the last few months. What incriminating evidence would the lawyer wring out of the endless, seemingly innocuous process? Jeffrey's high blood pressure? Sara's need for reading glasses? 'Yes.'

Connor shuffled through some more papers, saying, 'Just a moment, please.'

The room was tiny, airless. There were no windows, no paintings on the wall to stare at. A dying palm tree stood in the corner, the leaves drooping and sad. Nothing good would come of any of this. No pound of flesh would bring back a child. No verdict of innocence would restore a reputation.

Sara looked down at her hand. Dorsal metacarpal ligaments, dorsal carpometacarpal ligaments, dorsal intercarpal ligaments…

Sara had visited Jimmy the week before he died, held his frail little hand for hours as he haltingly talked about football and skateboarding and all the things he missed. Sara had been able to see it then, that look of death in his eyes. The look was the mirror opposite of the hope she had seen in Beckey Powell's, even though the woman had heard the prognosis, had agreed to stop treatment so as not to prolong Jimmy's suffering. It was that hope that kept Jimmy from letting go, that fear that every child has of disappointing his mother.

Sara had taken Beckey to the cafeteria, sitting in a quiet corner with the bewildered woman and holding her hand just as she had held Jimmy's moments before. She'd described to Beckey how it would happen, how death would claim her son. His feet would get cold, then his hands, as circulation slowed. His lips would turn blue. His breathing would become irregular, but that shouldn't be taken as a sign of distress. He would have difficulty swallowing. He might lose control of his bladder. His thoughts would wander, but Beckey had to keep talking to him, engaging him, because he would still be there. He would still be her Jimmy until the very last second. It was her job to be there at every step, then – the hardest part – to let him go on without her.

She had to be strong enough to let Jimmy go.

Connor cleared her throat and waited for Sara's attention. 'You never charged the Powells for the lab tests and subsequent office visits after you made James's diagnosis,' she said. 'Why is that, Dr. Linton?'

'I didn't, in fact, make a firm diagnosis,' Sara corrected, trying to get her focus back. 'I could only tell them what I suspected and refer them to an oncologist.'

'Your college friend, Dr. William Harris,' the lawyer supplied. 'And you didn't bill the Powells for any of the lab work or any subsequent visits following the referral.'

'I don't handle billing.'

'But you do direct your office staff, do you not?' Connor paused. 'Do I need to remind you that you're under oath?'

Sara bit back the sharp answer that wanted to come.

'According to the deposition of your office manager, Nelly Morgan, you directed her to write off as a loss the almost two thousand dollars the Powells owed you. True?'

'Yes.'

'Why is that, Dr. Linton?'

'Because I knew that they were facing what could be crippling medical costs for Jimmy's treatment. I didn't want to add to the pile of creditors I knew that they would have.' Sara stared at Beckey, though the woman would not meet her gaze. 'That's what this is about, isn't it? Lab bills. Hospital bills. Radiologists. Pharmacies. You must owe a fortune.'