Vanishing Acts

  "I don't know," I admit. "We'll find out once we get to Arizona."

  "Arizona?"

  "After your father is arraigned on fugitive charges in New Hampshire, he'll be extradited to Arizona. That's where the ... crime allegedly occurred. If it goes to trial, you'll probably be called as a witness."

  She seems horrified by this. "What if I don't want to be one?"

  "You may not have that choice," I admit.

  She takes a step closer to me, and I fold my arms around her. "What if I wasn't meant to grow up here ... like this?" she says, her voice muffled against my shirt. "What if there was a different cosmic plan for Bethany Matthews?"

  "What if there was a different cosmic plan for Delia Hopkins, one that got ruined because of a car crash?" I search my mind frantically for the right thing to say. I try to think of Fitz, of what he would tell me to tell her. "You could have been Bethany Matthews, Delia Hopkins, Cleopatra--it wouldn't matter. And if you'd grown up with a thousand lemon trees in the middle of the desert, with a cactus instead of a Christmas tree and a pet armadillo ... well, then, I would have gone to law school at Arizona State, I guess. I would have defended illegal aliens crossing the border. But we still would have wound up together, Dee. No matter what kind of life I had, you'd be at the end of it."

  She smiles, just a little. "I'm pretty sure I was never Cleopatra."

  I drop a kiss on her forehead. "Well," I reply. "That's a start."

  We were fifteen and drunk and in the bell tower of Baker Library at Dartmouth, watching a meteor shower that, the newscasters said, would only be this vivid once in our lifetimes, although that was hard to believe, feeling as we did that we'd live forever.

  We played games to pass the time: I Spy, and Twenty Questions. Anyone who didn't get the answer had to chug. By the time our corner of the world turned to face the meteor shower, Fitz was snoring with his mouth open and Delia was having trouble zipping up her sweatshirt. "Here," I said, and I did it for her, just as a fireball chased the moon across the sky.

  Delia watched the midnight show, and I watched her. Sometimes she smiled, or laughed out loud; mostly her mouth just made a wondrous O as the night changed before her eyes. When some of the activity died down, I leaned forward until our lips touched.

  She drew back immediately, stared hard at me. Then she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back.

  I remember that we didn't really know what we were doing, that I felt two sizes too big for my skin, that my heart was beating so hard it moved the denim of my shirt. I remember that for one moment, I believed I was hitchhiking on one of those comets, falling so fast that I'd surely burn away before I ever hit the ground.

  At nine o'clock the next morning, Delia and I take a seat close to the defense table at the Wexton District Court. It is a rotating habitat for public defenders and hired guns like myself, a new one warming the chair each time the judge calls for a new case. Arraignments are a rubber-stamp process, the prosecutor riffling through a big box of files as defendant after defendant is brought in. We watch a woman get arraigned for stealing a toaster oven from Kmart, a man brought in for violating a restraining order. A third defendant, one I recognize as a hot dog stand vendor in town, has been arrested for the felonious sexual assault of a minor.

  It reminds me that there are people in this world who have done worse things than Andrew Hopkins.

  "Do you know the prosecutor?" Delia whispers.

  Ned Floritz was the leader of my AA meeting yesterday, but recovering alcoholics are always in the business of keeping one another's secrets. "I've seen him around," I say.

  When our case is called, Andrew is brought in wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that says GRAFTON COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS on the back. His hands and legs are shackled.

  Beside me, Delia gasps; her father's incarceration is, after all, still new to her. I stand up and button my jacket, carry my briefcase down to the defense table. Andrew's eyes roam the courtroom. "Delia!" he yells out, and she stands up.

  "Sir," the bailiff says, "please face front."

  I can feel sweat breaking out on my forehead. I have been in court before, but not for a case of this magnitude. Not for a case where I have a personal stake in the outcome.

  Beside me, Andrew touches my arm. "Make them take the chains off. I don't want her to see me like this."

  "It's inmate policy in the courtroom," I answer. "I can't do anything about it."

  The judge is a woman relatively new to the bench. She comes from a public defender's background, which is a plus for Andrew, but she is also the mother of three small children. "I have before me a complaint alleging that you are a fugitive from justice with kidnapping contrary to the laws of Arizona. I see that you have an attorney with you, so I'll address my remarks to him. You have two options today. One is to waive extradition and go to Arizona to meet the charge. The other option is to contest extradition and require the State to seek a Governor's Warrant."

  "My client chooses to waive extradition, Your Honor," I say. "He's looking forward to dealing with this charge quickly."

  The judge nods. "Then bail won't be an issue. I assume you're going to allow us to incarcerate Mr. Hopkins until he can be transferred to Arizona."

  "Actually, Judge, we'd like bail to be set," I say.

  The prosecutor is out of his seat like a shot. "Absolutely not, Your Honor!"

  The judge turns toward him. "Mr. Floritz? Is there something you'd like to add?"

  "Your Honor, the two primary considerations for bail are the safety of the community and risk of flight. The defendant is just about the biggest flight risk you could ask for--look at what already happened."

  "Allegedly happened," I interject. "Mr. Hopkins is a valuable member of the Wexton community. He has served for five years as a town councilman. He's almost single-handedly responsible for the creation of the current senior center, and he has been nothing less than an exemplary parent and grandparent. This isn't a man who's a menace to society, Your Honor. I urge the Court to consider the admirable citizen he has been before rushing to any hasty judgment."

  Too late, I realize what I've done wrong. You never, never, ever infer that a judge might be hasty in his or her decision-making; it is like pointing out to a wolf that it has bad breath while it is considering ripping out your carotid. The judge looks coolly at me. "I believe that I have more than adequate information to make a legitimate ruling here ... swift though it may be, Counselor. I'm setting a one-million-dollar cash-only bail." She bangs her gavel. "Next case?"

  The bailiffs haul Andrew out of the courtroom before he even has a chance to ask me what happens next. The seniors erupt in a slow-motion flurry of activity, crying foul and then being shuffled by another bailiff into the hallway. The prosecutor gets up from his seat and walks toward me. "Eric," he says, "you sure you're ready to get involved in something like this?"

  He isn't questioning my legal abilities but my tolerance for stress. Although he's been dry for twenty years, I'm a neophyte. I give him a tight smile. "I've got it under control," I lie. Recovering alcoholics are good at that, too.

  I relinquish my table to a public defender who is getting ready for the next arraignment. I'm not looking forward to Delia's disappointment, now that she knows Andrew will have to stay overnight in jail again, that I have already failed. Resigned, I turn to the spot where we were sitting, but she's disappeared.

  Six years ago I drove my car off the road while I was trying to open a bottle of Stoli and steer with my knees. By some miracle the only casualty was a sugar maple. I walked to a bar, where I had to consume a few drinks before I felt calm enough to call Delia and tell her what had happened. The next week, I found myself waking up in places I had no recollection of going to: the living room of a fraternity on the Dartmouth campus; the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant; the cement divider of the Wilder Dam. It was after one of these benders that I found myself in the backyard at Delia and Andrew's house, asleep in their hammock. What woke me
was the sound of crying; Delia was sitting on the ground beside me, shredding pieces of grass with her hands. "I'm pregnant," she said.

  My head was swimming underwater, my tongue was as thick as a mossy field, but immediately, I thought: She's mine, now. I stumbled out of the hammock and onto one knee. I tugged the ponytail elastic out of Delia's hair and doubled it up, then reached for her hand. "Delia Hopkins," I said, "will you marry me?" I slid the makeshift ring onto her finger, and turned up the wattage on my smile.

  When she didn't answer--just curled up her knees and buried her head against them--I began to feel the butterfly beat of panic in the pit of my stomach. "Delia," I said, swallowing. "Is it the baby? Do you want to ... to get rid of it?" The thought of a part of me taking root in her was miraculous to me, like finding an orchid growing in the cracks of a broken tenement sidewalk. But I was willing to give that up in return for Delia. I would do anything for her.

  When she looked at me, there was nothing in her eyes, as if she'd pulled free from her life the strand that was me. "I want the baby, Eric," she said. "But I don't want you."

  Delia had complained about my drinking before, but since she hardly drank herself, it seemed impossible for her to be able to know what exactly constituted too much. She claimed she didn't like the smell of alcohol, but I thought it was loss of control she couldn't handle; and that seemed to be her hang-up, not mine. Sometimes she got angry enough to take a real stand, but it was a vicious cycle: Every time she swore she'd leave me, it would only send me spiraling down into a bottle, and eventually she'd come help me crawl back out to consciousness, swearing up one side and down another that it would never happen again, when we both knew that it would.

  This time, though, she wasn't leaving on her own behalf, but someone else's.

  For a long time after she walked away, I sat on the lawn in her backyard, balancing the truth between my shoulders like Atlas's weight. When I finally headed home, I looked up the information for Alcoholics Anonymous, and went to a meeting that night. It took me some time, but eventually I realized why Delia said no to my proposal. I had asked her to spend the wrong life with me, but at any moment, a person might start over from scratch.

  I would like to take the time to find Delia, but right now I can't. I make one phone call: to the prosecutors in Arizona. The canned voice I reach informs me that the Maricopa County Attorney's office hours are from nine A.M. to five P.M. I glance at my watch, and realize that in Arizona it's only seven in the morning. I leave a message, informing whoever needs to know that I am representing Andrew Hopkins, that he has waived extradition here in New Hampshire district court in return, we hope, for a speedy transport.

  Then I head downstairs to the sheriff's office, where Andrew is temporarily occupying a six-foot-square space. "I need to see Delia," he says.

  "That's not an option right now."

  "You don't understand--"

  "You know, Andrew, as the parent of a four-year-old ... I honestly don't."

  This brings back yesterday's conversation, and his confession. Andrew, wisely, changes the subject. "When do we leave for Arizona?"

  "It's their call. It could be tomorrow; it could be a month from now."

  "And in the meantime?"

  "You get luxurious accommodations provided by the State of New Hampshire. And you get to meet with me, so we can figure out what we're going to do in Phoenix. Right now, I have no idea what evidence the prosecution has. Until I can put together the pieces, we'll just enter a not guilty plea and figure out the rest later."

  "But," Andrew says, "what if I want to plead guilty?"

  In the history of my career, I have met only one defendant who didn't at least want to tell his side of the story. The man was seventy, and had served thirty years in the state penitentiary. He held up a bank fifteen minutes after his release, then explained to the teller that he'd be waiting out front on the curb for the police. All he'd wanted was to get back to an environment he understood, which is what makes Andrew's comments even stranger. For all intents and purposes, a man who once resorted to crime in order to have a life with his daughter should want to continue to spend it in her company.

  "Once you enter a guilty plea, Andrew, it's over. You can always switch your plea from 'not guilty' to 'guilty,' but you can't go the other way around. And after twenty-eight years, their evidence has to be sketchy; their witnesses might not even be alive anymore--there's a good chance you'll be acquitted."

  Andrew looks at me. "Eric, are you my lawyer?"

  I am completely unequipped to be Andrew's attorney; I don't have the experience or the wits or the confidence. But I think of Delia, begging; believing that someone who was once a failure might still be a candidate for a hero. "Yes," I say.

  "Then don't you have to do what I ask?"

  I don't answer that.

  "I knew what I was doing twenty-eight years ago, Eric. And I know what I'm doing now." He exhales heavily. "Plead guilty."

  I stare at him. "Did you bother to think how this might affect Delia?"

  Andrew looks over my shoulder at something for a long moment. "That's all I ever think about," he replies.

  Once, when we were seventeen, Delia cheated on me. I was supposed to meet her at a bend in the Connecticut River where we liked to go swimming--there was a swatch of cattails and reeds that hid you from the eyes of anyone on the road, should you feel like making out with your girlfriend. I rode my bike down there, a half hour late, and heard Delia talking to Fitz.

  I couldn't see them through the grasses, but they were arguing about the origin of the O. Henry bar. "It's named after Hank Aaron," she insisted. "That's what everyone used to say when he hit another home run."

  "Wrong. It's the writer," Fitz said.

  "No one names a candy bar after a writer. They're all baseball players. O. Henry, Baby Ruth ..."

  "That was named after Grover Cleveland's daughter."

  I heard a shriek. "Fitz, don't ... don't you dare ..." A splash, as he tossed her into the river and fell in himself. I pushed through the screen of reeds to jump in along with them. But when I had almost reached the bank, I saw Fitz and Delia in the water, wrapped around each other and kissing.

  I don't know who started it, but I do know that Delia was the one who stopped. She pushed Fitz away and ran out to grab her towel, then stood shivering three feet away from my hiding spot. "Delia," Fitz said, coming out of the river, too. "Wait."

  I didn't want to stay and listen to what she had to say; I was afraid to hear it. So I retreated in silence, and then ran back to my bike. I rode home in record time, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room with the lights off, lying on my bed and pretending that I hadn't spotted what I had.

  Delia never confessed to kissing Fitz, and I didn't bring it up. In fact, I never mentioned it to anyone. But a witness is defined through what he sees, not what he says. And just because you keep something a secret doesn't mean it never happened, no matter how much you want that to be true.

  I find Delia watching a flock of kids alighting on a jungle gym. "You know how I hate to swing?" she says.

  "Yeah," I say, wondering where this is going.

  "Do you know why?"

  Delia broke her arm once on a swing set when she was eight; I always figured it had something to do with that. But when I tell her so, she shakes her head. "It's that moment when you've gone too high, and the chains go slack for a half-second," Delia says. "I was always afraid I was going to fall."

  "And then you did," I point out.

  "My father promised he'd catch me if that happened," she says. "And because I was a kid, I actually believed him. But he couldn't be there all the time, no matter what he'd said." She watches a little girl hide under the long silver tongue of the sliding pond. "You didn't tell me he was in jail."

  "It's going to get worse before it gets better, Dee."

  She pushes away from the fence. "Can I go talk to him, now?"

  "No," I say gently. "You can't."

/>   She is unraveling before me. "Eric, I don't know who I am," she says through tears. "All I know is that I'm not the person I was yesterday. I don't know if I've got a mother somewhere. I don't know if I was being hurt in some way I don't even want to think about. I don't know why he thought that what he did would hurt me any less. Why would he lie to me, unless he wasn't so sure I'd forgive him?" She shakes her head. "I don't know if I can trust him now. I don't know if I ever will, again. But I also don't ... I don't know who else I'm supposed to ask for the answers."

  "Sweetheart--"

  "Nobody just steals a child," she interrupts. "So what godawful thing happened that I can't remember?"

  I settle my hands on her shoulders; I can feel everything inside her spinning like a top. "I can't tell you that yet," I say, "but neither can your father. Legally, I'm the only one who's allowed to talk to him."

  Delia lifts her face, fierce. "Then you go ask him what happened."

  Although it's unseasonably warm for March, she's shivering. I take off my jacket and drape it over her. "I can't. I'm his attorney," I say. "This is exactly why I think someone else should--"

  "Should represent him?" Delia asks. "Someone who only knows my father because he's a name on a manila folder? Someone who could care less whether he gets convicted or acquitted, because it's all just in a day's work?"

  On the playground, a teacher calls out to the class. She unravels a white rope with little interval loops for each child to grab hold of, a miniature chain gang taking the safest measures back to their school. "He intends to plead guilty," I say uncomfortably.

  "What will that do?"

  "Get him sent directly to jail."

  Delia looks up, stunned. "Why would you want that?"

  "I wouldn't. I told him to take a chance on a trial, but it's not what he wants."

  "What about what I want?"

  If I show up in court in Arizona at Andrew's side, the judge will ask me how we plead, not Andrew. To say "not guilty" means subverting my client's request. It means Andrew could fire me and wind up with a lawyer who'd gladly enter a guilty plea, because it is the path of least resistance.