because it’s exactly what he’s waiting for—this is not my first rodeo. I’m a veteran of therapy.
“I think,” I say slowly, “that they would like the jury to see just how much of a victim I am. They want the jury to see what Martin did to me, for them to feel sorry for me—to see why he deserved to die.”
His brow twitches upward. He moistens his lips as he takes notes. The session is also being recorded. I must be more careful. There are little chocolates in a glass bowl on the table in front of me. Each chocolate is individually wrapped in gold. He sees me looking. He leans forward, pushes the bowl closer.
But I sit back, cross my legs, and wrap my hands around my knee.
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Deserve to die.”
I lurch up from the sofa, pace across the room. Stop. Look out the window. We’re on the second floor of a brick building. There are people outside on a postage stamp of lawn—mothers or nannies watching kids play on swings. I think of Chloe. I fold my arms tightly over my stomach, and I say softly, “We’re all going to die. One way or another. Some people do bad things. I think they deserve to die sooner.”
He’s silent for a moment. I hear him writing in his notebook, turning a page.
“Did your daughter also deserve to die, Ellie?”
I feel rage building inside my stomach. I’m a hairbreadth from grabbing my purse and walking out. I’m also aware of what is at stake. A guilty verdict or an innocent one. It’s not negotiable. I need to do everything I can to help my legal team win this.
“She was too young,” I say softly. “Too innocent.”
“What about your mother?”
My heartbeat slows, and I say, “My mother died when I was nine, Doctor. Her death has no bearing on this trial.”
“It has a bearing on your psyche, Ellie. Nine is a young age to lose a mother. These life events shape what we become. And what you’ve become is going to matter in court. Whatever can be used against you will be.”
Grief can become a Monster that consumes and overtakes you. I know this. I’ve been told this before.
Outside the window, down below on the patch of grass, a child falls off the swing. Her mother runs over to her, drops to her knees, gathers her child into her arms, and comforts her, stroking the girl’s hair.
My thoughts circle back to Chloe. To what we could have had. I think of what I didn’t have with my own mother. How my father neglected me before her death and even more so after. The rage swells bigger in my belly, pushing up toward my gullet.
The psychologist moves—I hear the leather of his ergonomically designed chair squeak.
“Do you want to tell me what you remember of your mother’s death, Ellie? You were at home with her, right, when she overdosed?”
I swing to face him. “Is this what they’re going to do? Find holes in my psyche? Poke at old pain? Trip me up and trick me into saying the wrong things? Just like you’re trying to do now?”
“Is that how you see life? People waiting to trick you into revealing yourself?”
But I see in his face that my reaction, my walls, my quickness to anger, have already told him much of what he needs to know.
I’m hiding secrets.
But aren’t we all?
THEN
ELLIE
Just over two years ago, January 21. Vancouver, BC.
One week after humiliating myself at the Hartley Plaza, I stopped at a crosswalk in town for a red light, distracted about a meeting I’d just had about a possible job. I carried my large waterproof portfolio case by a strap hooked over my shoulder. It was late afternoon, getting dark already, and the sky was low and full of drizzle. A little girl standing at my side looked up at me. She smiled shyly and angled her head.
Chloe’s smile.
My heart stopped, then imploded. My knees almost gave out under me. Her mittened hand held tightly on to her mother’s.
She could have been mine. That mother could have been me. Chloe would be five now. If she’d lived. I might still be with Doug. In our old house. Chloe would’ve just started at the school down the road. I might be standing here right now, holding her hand, waiting to go across the street to meet Doug at his law firm, which was just a block away. We’d be meeting Daddy for his