Vanished

As she came to, there was a terrible hum of noise, and blurred lights overhead, a feeling of something cold and damp on her forehead. She opened her eyes, and after a few moments, Marielle realized she had been carried into the judge's chambers. His secretary was standing over her with a damp cloth, and a doctor had been called, but she insisted that she was all right. She tried to sit up, but she felt weak, and then she saw that both attorneys were there, and her husband. Someone was pressing something cool against the in-sides of her wrists, and someone else handed her a glass of water. It was Bea Ritter. She had pressed right through the crush of photographers and literally climbed over them to get to Marielle, and it was Bea who had called for help as she knelt next to her on the floor, not Malcolm. He only looked annoyed and embarrassed, and not one whit sympathetic.

“Mrs. Patterson?” the judge asked quietly. “Would you like someone to take you home?” Her head throbbed angrily as he asked her.

The truth was she would have liked to have gone home, but she thought it cowardly not to stay till the end. She felt she owed it to Charles, or to Malcolm, or to someone. She wasn't sure whom, but she thought she was supposed to be there. Maybe just to prove to the world that she wasn't a weakling. But everyone was looking so sorry for her now that she hated to be there.

“I'm all right. If you don't mind …perhaps I can stay here for a few minutes.” At least long enough to regain her composure.

“Had you finished your closing statement, Mr. Palmer?” The judge looked across his office and inquired, and Bill Palmer nodded. He hadn't expected the additional drama to punctuate his statement, but it hadn't done any harm either. Actually, he rather liked it.

“Yes, I had, Your Honor. Just.”

“Then why don't we recess for lunch? Mr. Armour can close after the noon recess. Is that all right with you, Counsellor?” It was already eleven-thirty, and he wouldn't have wanted to break into his closing statement anyway, so it was fine with him, and he agreed with a concerned look at Marielle. She was white as a sheet, and she looked really awful. But the judge had seen it too. “I think Mrs. Patterson should go home and rest for a little while, during the recess,” he suggested to the room at large.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” she whispered as Tom's heart went out to her, and Bea patted her hand in sympathy.

Malcolm made a show of assisting her to the car, but when they got to the house, he left her to her own devices. She lay down in her room, in the dark, with a cold cloth on her head, and tried to drink a little tea. But it was too late. She already had a crushing migraine. But she knew that no matter how rotten she felt, or how blinded by pain, she had to be back at the courtroom by one-thirty. But suddenly she could hardly force herself to go. It was as though she had expected something that only that morning she had finally come to understand wasn't going to happen. In some odd way, she'd thought it was all like a terrible game …and if they won … in the end, she'd get her child back. Someone would admit what they had done with him, or say they were sorry. There was going to be a reasonable end to it all, a prize for all the pain, some reasonable closure, only now she realized that there wasn't. There was nothing. There were only words and people and actors …and liars …and in the end, someone would say either innocent or guilty, and they would either execute Charles or set him free, but no one was ever going to bring Teddy back. Never. That had never been part of the bargain. And she felt as though she were in a haze of confusion as she lay there.

“Are you coming?” Malcolm walked into her darkened bedroom at one-fifteen, and looked with scorn at her lying on the bed. She felt too ill to move. And she couldn't even imagine getting to the courtroom.

“I don't think I can,” she said weakly. She couldn't even open her eyes, or sit up now.

“That's nonsense,” he snapped at her. “You have to. Do you want them to think that you're afraid to be there?” He said it as if it were a cardinal sin. Was fear so terrible then? The second deadly sin. Fear. The first one was weakness. And what about love? Was that a sin too? Had she sinned because she'd loved Charles …and Andre …and their baby girl … or even Teddy? Where was “love” in Malcolm's vocabulary, or did it even exist? Were there only responsibility and obligation and duty? Her head was spinning. Or was love something he'd saved only for Brigitte.