"You okay?" I ask.
"Bloodied but still standing. He's kicking the shit out of me."
I'm not supposed to respond to that, and how could I, anyway? I say the same stupid thing he used to shout to me from the stands when my Little League team was down 12 to nothing in the second inning.
"Long way to go," I say.
"Whatever." He smiles a little. He has become so dourly fatalistic in the last several months, it often frightens me. Whoever my dad was, he will never be the same, even if Zeus hurled a thunderbolt that freed him right now. He won't ever fully plug himself back into life. He places his hand on my shoulder for a second and announces, "I'm going to pee."
Our conversation is largely typical of the recent past. I have not exactly stopped talking to my dad. I just say next to nothing to him of any consequence, even compared with the stilted conversations we had before. I'm sure he's noticed, but it's not as if the law really leaves us any choice. I'm a witness in the case and cannot talk to him about the evidence or the way the trial is going, and at this point, he really doesn't seem to think about anything else, not that I would, either. The silence serves me well. I don't know if my dad is guilty or not. There is a big part of me that will never accept it if he is. But I have known with a rock-hard intuition that my mother's death had some connection to my father's affair. Anna, who does not care for protracted discussions of this topic because she does not like getting between me and my father, asked me more than once what reason I have for thinking that. The short answer is I knew my mom. Anyway, at base I believe my dad really wants to know one thing from me, which is what I think of him and, more to the point, whether I still love him. Sometimes I feel I should hand him a Post-It note that says, "I'll let you know when I figure it out."
Understanding my dad has always been a chore. He seems to like being the man of mystery with me, a routine I've cared for less and less as I've gotten older. I know him, naturally, in the unsparing way kids know their parents, which is sort of the same way somebody knows a hurricane when they're standing at the eye. I know all his aggravating habits-the way he can just drift off in the middle of a conversation, as if what's crossed his mind is far more important than anybody in the room; or how he sits silent when people talk about anything a little bit personal, even if it's like how much their feet itch in wool socks; or the self-important air he's always assumed with me, as if being my father is a responsibility equal to carrying the signals for all of America's nukes. But the trial, the charges, the affair, have all gone to emphasize the fact that I don't really know my father on his own terms.
While I try to piece through that, I teeter between extremes. Sometimes I'm terrified the endless anxiety, which has left my father a kind of burned-out zombie, is going to kill him and that I will lose my second parent within a year. At other instants I'm so righteously honked off, I feel he's getting everything he deserves. But mostly, of course, I'm just angry about the many moments when I'm not sure one foot will go in front of the other, or that the cars going down the street will remain glued to the earth, because so much has changed so suddenly that I don't know what to believe in.
"Just a couple more subjects, Judge," says Molto when they resume.
"Whatever you like, Mr. Molto." My dad does a little better job of sounding like he's okay with that.
"All right, Judge. Now tell me this. Were you happy in your marriage to Mrs. Sabich?"
"It was like many marriages, Mr. Molto. We had our ups and downs."
"And at the time your wife died, Judge, were you up or were you down?"
"We were getting along, Mr. Molto, but I was not especially happy."
"And by getting along, you mean you weren't having marital spats?"
"I wouldn't say none, Mr. Molto, but there certainly hadn't been any big blowups that week."
"But you told us you were unhappy. Any particular reason for that, Judge?"
My dad takes quite a bit of time. I know he is weighing the fact that I am seated thirty feet away.
"It was an accumulation of things, Mr. Molto."
"Such as?"
"Well, one thing, Mr. Molto, was that my wife really hated my campaigning. She felt exposed by it in a way I thought was not entirely realistic."
"She was acting crazy?"
"In a colloquial sense."
"And you were sick of it?"
"I was."
"And was that one of the things that drove you to consult Dana Mann three weeks before your wife died?"
"I suppose."
"Is it true, Judge, you were thinking of ending your marriage?"
"Yes."
"Not for the first time, was it?"
"No."
"You'd seen Mr. Mann in July 2007?"
There is a delicate dance here on both sides. My father's conversations with Mann are shielded under the attorney-client privilege. As long as my dad steers clear of any discussion of what he told Dana, Molto can't ask, since forcing my dad or Stern to assert the privilege in front of the jury would risk a mistrial. But my dad, too, needs to be careful. If he were to lie about what he said to Mann, or even deliberately create a misleading impression on that score, the law might oblige Dana to come to court to correct him. It was pretty clear when Dana testified during the prosecution case that he is basically terrified of Molto and Jim Brand and the whole situation, even though he wasn't up there more than five minutes. He acknowledged a couple meetings with my dad and identified the bills he sent last September and in July the year before, and the cashier's checks my father returned in payment.
"And in fact, Judge, your conversation with Mr. Mann in the summer of 2007-that occurred not too long after you'd asked Mr. Harnason what it was like to poison someone, right?"
"Within a couple of months, give or take."
"And what happened then, Judge? Why did you not carry through on ending your marriage?"
"I was pondering my options, Mr. Molto. I got Mr. Mann's advice and decided not to seek a divorce."
The implication of all the evidence the jury won't hear, the stuff that Sandy and Marta have shown me-the STD tests and the witnesses' statements about my dad lurking around various hotels-is that instead of getting divorced, he recovered his sanity and ended the affair and stayed with my mom. I've never quite gotten around to asking my dad if I have it right. The one conversation we had on that subject is about all I can take. The weird part is that I never believed my parents had a wonderful marriage or that they were especially happy with each other, and I'd thought at least once a year that one of them was going to call it quits. But this-my dad doing some thirty-year-old on the sly in the middle of the afternoon? Sick.
"Now, you saw Mr. Mann again in the first week of September in 2008."
"I did."
"And was poisoning your wife among the options on your mind this time, just as it had been when you spoke to Mr. Harnason around the time of your first visit with Mann?"
I see Marta poke her father's arm, but Stern does not stir. I guess it's obvious the question is ridiculously argumentative and thus not worth an objection. In preparing me emotionally to see my father up there, Marta has explained that as a judge, my dad will look better fending for himself in court, without his lawyer trying too hard to protect him. And that's what my dad does now. He makes a small face and tells Tommy, "Of course not."
"Were you more determined to end your marriage this time when you saw Mr. Mann in September 2008?"
"I don't know, Mr. Molto. I was confused. Barbara and I had been together a long time."
"But you admit you'd already received advice from Mr. Mann in July 2007?"
"Yes."
"And so, Judge, it's a fair conclusion that you went back because you were ready to proceed on the advice and bring the marriage to an end."