She is thinking of Cal’s face, his eyes fixed on hers, tiny fingers resting on her breast, the sound of rushing water filling the bathtub as they sat alone together in the dead of night. What would it be like, never to hold him again outside a clamoring visiting room that smelled like buttered popcorn from a vending machine? To see, over the years, that pure look of adoration cloud and cool as the visits became less frequent, then stopped altogether? To know that Nic had moved on and was raising her son with another woman? She closes her eyes. Put it away. Then it clicks as she realizes, no, don’t.
“Some of us are mothers.” Abby makes sure to make eye contact with the jurors who are. “All of us—” she scans the other faces “—have a mother. All of us have an opinion about what it means to be a good mother.”
She takes a breath. “Our definitions may differ. Some of us may think that a good mother should stay home with her baby if she can afford to. Then again—” Abby tilts her head, raises her eyebrows appraisingly as she adopts an inquisitorial tone “—those moms get questioned, too. ‘You haven’t gone back to work yet?’
“Breast-feed-or-bottle-feed-cry-it-out-or-co-sleep?” Abby runs the words together and shrugs her shoulders wearily. “There is nothing like the judgment we visit on mothers.” She waits a beat, looking at each juror in turn, then walks back to the defense counsel table and stands behind Luz. This time, when she puts her hands on Luz’s shoulders, there is no resistance.
“Now you are being asked to judge this mother. To pass the ultimate judgment on her. To decide whether she is a murderer. In passing that judgment, you may be inclined to make a series of smaller judgments because it makes the ultimate judgment a little easier. That eighteen is too young to get married, the way my client did. That eighteen is too young to get pregnant, the way my client did. That once married and a mother, at nineteen, it was my client’s responsibility to get out of her abusive relationship for the sake of her daughter. That the situation in which she found herself was a situation of her own making.
“You can’t take any of these shortcuts, though, to find my client guilty of first-degree murder.”
Abby looks down at Luz for a moment and smooths a piece of flyaway hair, before returning her hand to Luz’s shoulder. “There is no relationship in this life more sacred, more formative, and more vital to our survival than the relationship we have with our mothers. No other relationship even comes close.
“I think we can all agree on that.” Abby nods once, sees one of the stay-at-home moms nod back ever so slightly. “And I think we can all agree that in the end what makes a person a good mother is her ability to protect her child from harm, from grave injury, from death.
“My client told you she was afraid her husband was going to pick up their tiny baby and throw her against the wall. Think about that.” Abby raises her voice. “Think about that. Her child’s fragile skull slamming against a flat hard surface and smashing.” Abby walks rapidly to The Well, reaches into the crib, picks up the doll by her plastic arm and hurls her across the room. The doll hits the side of the jury box with a sharp crack then slides sideways, her painted face now looking over her back, one leg askew.
Abby hears a few gasps from the gallery, a thrum of murmurs. “Think about that,” she repeats fiercely. “Wouldn’t you expect a good mother to do anything she could to stop it from happening? Wouldn’t any one of you? My client acted in defense of her own life and of the life of her child. She did a terrible thing. She took her husband’s life, and that’s why she feels guilty. Mi culpa. My fault. Ms. Gooden wants to rest the government’s case on those two words. But feeling guilty and being guilty are two different things. This wasn’t a choice. My client had no choice.”
Abby takes a long, steadying breath. She had not let herself look out into the gallery before, but she does now. It is packed, not a sliver of space on the benches. There are people standing shoulder to shoulder along the back wall. Some she recognizes, from her office and Shauna’s, or the press gaggle. But many are strangers drawn by the celebrity of the case, hungry to experience the drama firsthand. To a person, they are staring at her, waiting for what is coming next.
Slowly, she walks to the jury rail and leans over it, just as Shauna had done. “Some of you may have doubt. I understand that. You may doubt that it is a pure case of self-defense. You may believe that my client acted out of jealousy. You may believe this is a crime of passion. Or you may believe that my client acted in self-defense, but that she overreacted. You may believe that she used too much force. That she didn’t have to kill her husband.”
Abby looks at each juror in turn. “But here’s the thing. My client isn’t on trial for manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide. Even if you believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that my client is guilty of something as serious as second-degree murder, you cannot convict her. There is one charge before you and one charge only—cold-blooded, premeditated, first-degree murder. That’s it. She’s either guilty or not guilty of that single count. You have no other options.”
Abby puts her hands together. “Please understand. I am telling you that my client is a good mother. That she killed so that she would not be killed and her daughter would not be killed. But I know that our
