Bravely she questioned the lawyer, though she knew she wasn't supposed to be the one doing the questioning. "Is that what you was asking me?" Her hands tightened around themselves.
Mrs. Garcia's fifteen-year-old daughter, sitting on the first pew in the packed courtroom, lowered her eyes and then closed them. In every seat on the other side of the courtroom sat the Sifuentes, the family of the dead man. On this side sat just as many Garcias. Mrs. Garcia's daughter felt her mother's frustration and embarrassment, and she could only defend herself and her mother by pretending she felt nothing. She raised her gaze to focus on the judge and smiled at him as if he had smiled at her and she hoped the Sifuentes were watching her.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Garcia. I didn't state my question clearly." The attorney glanced at the judge. "What I'm asking is where were you standing at the time of the shooting? And where was your son standing?"
The prosecutor, out of law school two years, rose from his chair, "Objection, your honor. He's asking multiple questions of the witness."
"Overruled."
The defense attorney looked at the witness for her answer; she looked at him not knowing what to do. Last night she had prayed the rosary again and again to ward off this very thing. She wanted desperately to be good on the stand, so clear and profound in her testimony that the judge would believe completely that her son was innocent. She wished she'd done as her daughter had told her and bought a new dress for this day.
The defense attorney nodded again to Mrs. Garcia. "You may answer."
"I'm very sorry. I'm sorry. I don't . . . would you ask me the question again, please?"
"On the night of the shooting incident, you were standing in the same room with Robert, were you not?"
Again the young prosecutor stood and objected. "He's leading the witness."
"Sustained."
The defense attorney had been court appointed for nearly a year to represent Robert Garcia on the charge of murder. Last week he'd planned Robert's defense, deciding who to call as witnesses, what he wanted to ask them and what he wanted them to say. After spending two afternoons talking with Robert in the little cubbyhole of a visitor's room at the jail, the attorney had decided not to call Robert to the stand. Too young. Too scared. Wouldn't look him in the eye. That could easily translate to the jury as too cocky. Too cold. Guilty.
Mighty God of all that is holy, the lawyer thought to himself, I need to pee. To the witness he said, "Please tell the judge where you were the night of the shooting."
"In my house with my family."
"Where in the house were you, Mrs. Garcia?"
"We was in the kitchen. Eating birthday cake. It was Ama's birthday. Ama is my mother and she turned sixty-five. We was . . ."
"Excuse me, please, Mrs. Garcia, tell us where Robert was."
"Where Robert was?"
"Yes, ma'am, where was your son in relation . . . just tell the judge where Robert was that night when you were in the kitchen."
"Robert was in his room getting dressed to go out that night."
"About what time was this Mrs. Garcia?"
"Around seven-thirty, I think. It was right after supper when we brought out the cake. So, I'm pretty sure it was seven-thirty."
"Who all was in the kitchen with you?"
"My husband, my daughter and my little grandson. And, of course, Ama."
"When did Robert come out of his room?"
"It was about, it was around that time, seven-thirty. There was a knock at the door and Robert . . ."
The assistant district attorney was on his feet again. "Objection, your honor. The witness is being non-responsive, she's not answering the question asked of her."
The judge's chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. "Sustained."
The defense attorney sat down, hoping that would alleviate the pressure on his bladder. "Why did Robert come out of his room that night at that time?"
"Objection. That calls for speculation. The witness is being asked to speculate what was in her son's mind to cause him to leave his room."
"Overruled. Gentlemen, we need to move this along a little faster."
"Mrs. Garcia, you may tell us why Robert came out of his room."
"He went to answer the door. Jesse Sifuentes had knocked on the door, and Robert answered the door. Jesse was by the house twice that day, and this second time . . ."
"Objection."
"Sustained. Let's take a fifteen-minute break. Court will resume at ten forty-five sharp." The judge unzipped his robe as he went through the door behind his bench.
Because the Sifuentes family sat closest to the only exit, the Garcias remained seated, preoccupied with each other until the last Sifuentes left.
When the two families gathered in the hallway, it was always with a distance between them, only the young males of each family daring to stare across that distance.
###
After lighting a cigarette and sending his law clerk for a diet Coke, the judge closed the door and called the sheriff, whose office was across the street. "Jim, I need you to send a couple of deputies over here to the courtroom. We may have a feud brewing." He drew smoke deep into his lungs, and exhaled slowly. "No, nobody's done anything yet. I just want to be on the safe side."
He leaned back in his chair, relieving the tightness in his shoulder muscles. He swung his chair around to see the trees, the gold and rust tops visible through the large window in his small office. October was his favorite month, always had been. He had married in October, both of his children had been born in October, and after the trial he was all set to take his wife, children and their children to the family's cabin in Colorado for three weeks. There was something about October that made him know life was blessed. It was a month better than all the others.
"Nope, Jim, I really don't expect any trouble. Two more deputies, plus the bailiff ought to be enough to keep them behaving themselves. Like I said, just want to be on the safe side in this Garcia trial."
The judge and the sheriff had known each other since kindergarten, some forty years. They'd even been good friends until he'd left for law school and Jim had been drafted to serve in Vietnam. They'd returned to town at about the same time, but there was too much difference between them, too much in them had changed. Law school, the judge said often, changed a man almost as much as a war. Jim came back traumatized and trained to kill, and the judge had returned from school disillusioned and desperate to do something else, but he had been trained to . . . what? He decided it was to do nothing more than read closely and question too much. It made him a good living, though. Things could be worse.
The young law clerk, with her long, auburn hair that she intentionally made bounce with every step, entered the office. As she set the cold can of soda on the judge's desk, he turned to look at her. He sat up and spoke in a less weary voice.
"Yeah, Sheriff, I'd hate like hell for the papers to write that I had my ass shot off during nothing more than a misdemeanor murder trial. Isn't that what they call it when one Mexican shoots another Mexican?" He moved the phone away from his ear so the clerk could hear the sheriff laughing. The judge winked.
She smiled and once again enjoyed the thought that someone as powerful as the judge would trust her enough to talk candidly around her. It hadn't taken long at this clerking job for her to realize that working for a judge gave her more than knowledge of the real world of law. It gave her confidence that law school never could. She felt the deference that her family, friends and everyone in and around the courthouse showed her because she worked for a judge.
Her doubts about being a lawyer had begun fading after a few weeks on the job. After graduation she intended to continue as the judge's law clerk while she studied for the bar, and for awhile after she received her license, even if it meant less money. She understood her small desperation to feel powerful in a world where she feared arguing against someone with a better argument, with a better grasp of the law.
When the judge hung up the phone he reached for his robe, which he never failed to hang on the coat rack no matter how many times a day he took it off. As he zipped it he announced, "Show time." That was the clerk's cue to get the court reporter back in the courtroom, and alert the bailiff.
While the courtroom filled, the judge stood looking out his window, his legs set wide apart, and his arms folded across his chest, like an athlete or a king. In his mind he was crunching through the leaves around the lake in Colorado at about sunrise, and he was breathing deeply and exalting in the overwhelming notion that October came around once a year for his enjoyment and his rejuvenation. He needed the relief that his yearly vacation gave him. He needed a time away from life and death decisions, and all the mundane decisions of who deserved what, and who got what and how much and when.
###
Mrs. Garcia stayed on the witness stand the remainder of the day. That night she lay in bed, her legs lightly touching her husband's legs. He was not snoring and seemed restless. His difficult breathing told her that he was asleep, but not the deep sleep of a man at peace. The lawyers' words and her words, and the coldness of the courtroom, and the fear that is the witness stand came to her like evil spirits and exacted an urgency from her.
She left the bed to search for anything that would give her a respite, a feeling of confidence that all was well, that something was still good in her life. In the living room, she switched on a lamp so she could see to turn the thermostat down, and then she turned off the lamp. In the kitchen she opened and then closed the refrigerator door. She eased into one of the kitchen chairs and lit one of Ama's religious candles on the table, not wanting to feel the brightness of too much light. She made a wish that she could demand from somebody, anybody, that the mistakes she'd made during her hours on the stand would not be big enough to cause the judge to punish her only son, and then she blew out the candle.
She lit it again, and thought about her son curled up in a cot somewhere in the county jail. When she'd parked in the visitor's section of the jail to visit him this past year she always looked up as she walked toward the main entrance, checking out the three stories of cell windows, searching for her son at one of the windows, so she'd know for sure where he was. But, she never knew for sure. Tomorrow when she drove by the jail on the way to the courthouse she'd choose a window as his. It was knowing that gave her peace.
Red lights flashed against the walls, but there was no siren. An ambulance. The eerie red flashes kept splashing the kitchen walls, not moving on like they would if the emergency was speeding by her. She went to the front window to watch. An ambulance from St. Luke's Hospital was backed up in the Lorca's driveway across the street and several people were milling around on their porch. She was sure it was La Abuela Lorca who was sick, again, maybe dying this time. She was eighty years old and too frail to go to church anymore. Mrs. Garcia made the sign of the cross, and whispered, "Dios Mio, help her."
She felt like crying. For Grandmother Lorca. For her son. For Jesse Sifuentes. For herself. There had been too much loss. At the window her gaze went to the corner of her yard, where Jesse had died beneath the elm tree. At first she'd thought it was Robert who'd gotten shot. Everybody was running, away from the fallen body, toward the fallen body. She had gotten there first and grabbed him with all her might. Immediately she knew it was not Robert, but she held on anyway, getting Jesse's blood on her, screaming for someone to call an ambulance. Did she pray with the dying boy? She couldn't remember.
She opened the door and slowly covered the distance to that corner of the lawn. Why have I never known a miracle, she wanted to know. Not even a small one. She knelt and began praying the rosary.
For a long time she prayed before she leaned back against the elm tree and closed her eyes. The judge's face came to her, up close this time, not through the filter of distance and courtroom procedures. She felt love for him; she knew immediately that it was meant for her to feel love for that cavron with silver hair and way about himself that made everyone treat him as if he were some sort of fragile, perfect being. A lightness in her made her believe that a year down the road, even ten years down the road, she would still be including the judge in her prayers, and that she would still want to, no matter how easy life would become again after this. It was the surest thing she had ever known and knowing it made her feel committed to praying for the judge as a mother is committed to a child, or a nun is committed to her vows. She had to love him that much. It was the only way she knew to balance the lies she'd told in the courtroom. Quietness broke through and she wanted to believe that it was God's grace.
At dawn she shook her husband awake and insisted he pray the rosary. He didn't resist. He was the one who was going to be on the witness stand that day.
She prepared breakfast for her family, aware that Robert's plate was not set at its usual place at the table, but convinced that it was only a matter of time. A matter of time and faith. She felt God was testing her after forgiving her.
She poured water in the coffee maker and accepted that she'd never really loved God before. She'd always been afraid of him. But, she vowed she would not be afraid anymore. From now on she was going to love God the way she knew God loved her. She would be a good person, committing only the small wrongs, but never again would she do anything as big as lying after promising, vowing to tell the truth. Never again. Instantly she wondered if that was a lie. Another lie to get God to help her son.
On the way to the courthouse, the family rode in silence, even when bright, pale streaks of sun broke through the clouds and high in the sky, birds soared gently through the rays.
Mr. Garcia sat in the witness chair in his borrowed suit, the jacket too big for his short, stocky frame. When the lawyers weren't arguing with each other, he was allowed to recount the last hour, the final minute, the concluding second of Jesse Sifuentes's life, told as if Jesse Sifuentes deserved to die.
He often looked to Mrs. Garcia for approval and encouragement, but Mrs. Garcia was looking up at the judge, there in his chair so high above everybody, so silent in his nature, so powerful in his existence and purpose. She was awed at the thought that the judge was some mother's son, and that truth is never really revealed in a courtroom, so what difference did any of this make?
