him in the papers. There weren’t many murders in Rankin County, so everyone knew about this. He’s a famous killer but she’s not watching him. She’s watching Daddy.
He’s not moving as he stands before the jury. His hands are clasped behind his back. He can be animated, but he’s not now. He is speaking quietly.
He’s telling the jury about the gas station attendant. His name was Davey Humars. He was twenty-two and was engaged to be married. He liked to watch baseball. He liked to fish.
It has been two days since she left the clinic. She was discharged shortly after she came out of anesthesia. She was provided transportation from the clinic through a covert route to the train station to get her home. She never even saw any of the protesters marching outside. And they never saw her.
Davey Humars had a life, Daddy tells them. He had a lifeand he was entitled to it. What do we stand for, he asks them, if we do not stand for the sanctity of life?
Her eyes well up but she will not cry. She’s cried enough. She imagines the day she will tell him. She was attacked. She got pregnant. She will tell him about the abortion clinic.
He will know. A day from now or thirty years from now. And he will never look at her the same again.
12
Family
S HELLY LIVED ON the north side of the city, in a neighborhood generally described as a “developing” community, which meant, as far as Shelly could tell, heavily populated by minorities but getting whiter. She had lived here since she graduated law school. She was near the lake and the park, near a bus line that got her downtown in less than half an hour. It was a rental neighborhood primarily, mostly young gay men and Latino families with kids. It was well-lit, quiet, and affordable.
Her apartment was in a four-story brownstone in the middle of the block. It was about a thousand square feet stretching long and thin, with exposed brick walls and old hardwood floors. She got decent light from the southern exposure and a large bay window. She had no patio per se but a landing for the fire escape, overlooking the alley to the rear of the building, served the same purpose when it was warm.
She arrived home that night at nine. It had been four days since Alex was arrested. She had represented him at his bond hearing, in which the court took all of thirty seconds to order Alex held without bond. She was still waiting to hear from Jerod Romero about working out a plea for Alex. In the meantime, she was struggling to find a lawyer for Alex, someone who worked on homicide cases on a regular basis. She had visited fourteen lawyers in three days, all the while trying to keep up with her regular work at the law school.
She was beginning depositions in a case tomorrow, a lawsuitthe Children’s Advocacy Project had filed against the city’s board of education, seeking to increase money and resources to education for the deaf. The board said the time and manpower was needed to teach the mainstream pupils, and forcing resources elsewhere would hurt the majority to benefit the few. Shelly was stretching constitutional principles to argue that deaf kids should be “mainstreamed” with the general student population but given the necessary extra resources. The answer from the city was always the same—no money, no people, no space. Shelly was not unsympathetic. The city’s position was not unreasonable, but it was unacceptable. She filed suit in federal court, where the life-tenured judiciary was far more willing to knock the city around, but even then, any remedy would take years to implement. So much work, to wait so long for what most likely would be only an incremental improvement for deaf and hearing-impaired children.
She was sitting on her bed with the television on. It was primary election day in the state, and results were beginning to pour in after ten o’clock, three hours after the polls had closed. Along the bottom of the screen, numbers were scrolling along. It was a big
He’s not moving as he stands before the jury. His hands are clasped behind his back. He can be animated, but he’s not now. He is speaking quietly.
He’s telling the jury about the gas station attendant. His name was Davey Humars. He was twenty-two and was engaged to be married. He liked to watch baseball. He liked to fish.
It has been two days since she left the clinic. She was discharged shortly after she came out of anesthesia. She was provided transportation from the clinic through a covert route to the train station to get her home. She never even saw any of the protesters marching outside. And they never saw her.
Davey Humars had a life, Daddy tells them. He had a lifeand he was entitled to it. What do we stand for, he asks them, if we do not stand for the sanctity of life?
Her eyes well up but she will not cry. She’s cried enough. She imagines the day she will tell him. She was attacked. She got pregnant. She will tell him about the abortion clinic.
He will know. A day from now or thirty years from now. And he will never look at her the same again.
12
Family
S HELLY LIVED ON the north side of the city, in a neighborhood generally described as a “developing” community, which meant, as far as Shelly could tell, heavily populated by minorities but getting whiter. She had lived here since she graduated law school. She was near the lake and the park, near a bus line that got her downtown in less than half an hour. It was a rental neighborhood primarily, mostly young gay men and Latino families with kids. It was well-lit, quiet, and affordable.
Her apartment was in a four-story brownstone in the middle of the block. It was about a thousand square feet stretching long and thin, with exposed brick walls and old hardwood floors. She got decent light from the southern exposure and a large bay window. She had no patio per se but a landing for the fire escape, overlooking the alley to the rear of the building, served the same purpose when it was warm.
She arrived home that night at nine. It had been four days since Alex was arrested. She had represented him at his bond hearing, in which the court took all of thirty seconds to order Alex held without bond. She was still waiting to hear from Jerod Romero about working out a plea for Alex. In the meantime, she was struggling to find a lawyer for Alex, someone who worked on homicide cases on a regular basis. She had visited fourteen lawyers in three days, all the while trying to keep up with her regular work at the law school.
She was beginning depositions in a case tomorrow, a lawsuitthe Children’s Advocacy Project had filed against the city’s board of education, seeking to increase money and resources to education for the deaf. The board said the time and manpower was needed to teach the mainstream pupils, and forcing resources elsewhere would hurt the majority to benefit the few. Shelly was stretching constitutional principles to argue that deaf kids should be “mainstreamed” with the general student population but given the necessary extra resources. The answer from the city was always the same—no money, no people, no space. Shelly was not unsympathetic. The city’s position was not unreasonable, but it was unacceptable. She filed suit in federal court, where the life-tenured judiciary was far more willing to knock the city around, but even then, any remedy would take years to implement. So much work, to wait so long for what most likely would be only an incremental improvement for deaf and hearing-impaired children.
She was sitting on her bed with the television on. It was primary election day in the state, and results were beginning to pour in after ten o’clock, three hours after the polls had closed. Along the bottom of the screen, numbers were scrolling along. It was a big
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