“With the sound of that accusation ringing in the air, Goldman shot one more glance at the accused and then turned away.
” ‘The defense calls Amy Larkin,’ I announced before Goldman had reached his chair. Until the last minute, I did not know if Janet Larkin’s daughter would show up. She had said she might not. She knew how important it was to her mother’s defense-I had left her in no doubt on that score-but she had let me know it was her decision to make and that she was not going to be forced into anything. I had her served with a subpoena and it did not make any difference. If she decided she was not going to testify, there was nothing anyone could do about it. She was willful, but she was not defiant. She did not question the authority that could drag her in front of a judge and put her in jail for contempt. It was not that at all. She just was not going to do anything she did not want to do. Not anymore.
“I have not seen her since her mother’s trial, and I never tried to find out what happened to her after it was over. Perhaps I did not want to know. Perhaps I preferred the comfort of an illusion, the vague hope that somehow everything had turned out well.
All I know for sure is though she was wise beyond her years, it was not the kind of wisdom that was conducive to what we think of as happiness.
“It never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. She was a witness-a crucial witness as far as I was concerned-and she had to testify. If anyone had suggested that I was doing something as obscene as what her father had done, I would have dismissed it as the ignorant comment of someone who knew nothing about the conduct of a criminal trial. But they would have been right. All the unspeakable things that had been done to her had been done to her in private; they were a shameful secret that she had never been able to share with another human being. By confessing, her father had betrayed her twice. He had violated the primal obligation of a parent, and then told the world what he had done. Called to testify on behalf of her mother, she was compelled to tell hundreds of strangers what she had for years concealed from people she might have trusted with her life. What business did I have-what business did anyone have-doing that to her?
“I was not thinking of any of that then. All I cared about was that she was actually there, inside the courtroom, holding up her hand as she listened to the clerk recite the oath.
“She did not seem the least bit nervous, but how many witnesses ever do? They sit there with their hearts racing and their minds filled with a thousand fears, wondering if they will be able to open their mouths when it is time to answer and whether anything will come out if they do. But on the outside they look completely composed, as if this was something they do every day. We are all actors, wearing the mask we think the world wants to see.
“I led with the question that was at the heart of the prosecution’s case. ‘During the time it was going on, did your mother know you were having sex with your father?’
“She shook her head emphatically. ‘No. I’d never allow him in my room if my mother was still awake.’
“I was struck by her choice of words. ‘You wouldn’t allow him in your room?’
” ‘I made him promise me that she’d never find out. I didn’t want her to be hurt.’
“She was sixteen years old, and she talked like a woman who had been having an affair with her best friend’s husband.
” ‘How can you be sure that she didn’t find out?’
“She dismissed it out of hand. ‘She wouldn’t have kept something like that to herself. She would have done something.’
“I turned toward the jury. ‘The prosecutor claims she didn’t do anything about it because she was having the same kind of relationship with your brother your father was having with you.’
” ‘That’s a joke,’ she said. Her voice was filled with scorn. ‘Gerald and my mother! He’s just trying to get back at everyone.’
“Goldman was on his feet. ‘Objection. Move to strike.’
“Jeffries did not hesitate. ‘Sustained,’ he thundered. ‘The jury will disregard the witness’s last remark.’
“His voice was still echoing off the courtroom walls when I asked, ‘And did your brother ever once so much as suggest to you that something improper was going on with his mother?’
” ‘No, never. I told you. He’s just trying to get back at everyone.’
“Jeffries did not wait to hear the objection Goldman was rising to make. He leaned toward the witness stand. ‘Young lady, I know you’ve been through a lot. But your testimony has to be confined to things you saw or heard. You can’t speculate about what someone might or might not have been doing or why they may have said something. Do you understand?’ he asked firmly.
“She was not like any sixteen-year-old girl you’ve ever seen.
Age meant nothing to her. ‘I understand,’ she replied. ‘I’m not speculating about anything. Gerald told me he was going to get back at everyone.’
“There was a dead silence. His eyes still on her, Jeffries drew back, a scowl on his face. ‘Did it ever occur to you that he wanted to get “back at everyone,” as you put it, because of what was done to him?’
She did not back down. ‘Nothing was done to him,’ she insisted.
” ‘Do you have any more questions of this witness, Mr. Antonelli?’ Jeffries asked, eager to get her off his hands.
“Nodding, I gazed down at the floor, reluctant to begin the series of questions that I knew would be unlike anything anyone in that courtroom had ever heard, questions the answers to which might shatter the last illusions we had about who we were and what we could trust.
” ‘Amy, how old were you when your father first started to do things with you?’
” ‘Eleven,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘That’s when he started to touch me. I was twelve the first time we actually had intercourse.’
“She was sixteen years old, with hair that, depending on the light, looked brown or blond, and with just enough freckles on her face so that even in a dress she had the fresh-scrubbed look of a tomboy who could outrun any kid in her class.
” ‘When this first started,’ I asked, ‘why didn’t you tell your mother? Why didn’t you ask her to make him stop?’
” ‘He was my father,’ she explained. ‘He told me it was the way he could show me how much he loved me. He told me it had to be our secret.’
” ‘That wasn’t the only reason though, was it?’
“Her eyes were fixed on mine, and she did not open her mouth.
We had been over all of this before. We both knew what she was going to say. She kept looking at me, and then I realized what she was doing. She was waiting for me, waiting until she was sure I was ready. She had seen it the first time she told me, the stunned disbelief, the awkward embarrassment, and she did not want that to happen to me again. It had become second nature to treat adults like children. I smiled at her and repeated the question.
” ‘That wasn’t the only reason, was it?’
” ‘No. The real reason is that I didn’t want it to stop. I liked it. That’s what everyone forgets. Sex feels good.’
“It was so deathly quiet in that courtroom that I swear you could have heard a heartbeat if you had been able to take your eyes off this woman-child on the witness stand.
” ‘But despite that, there were times when you wanted it to stop, weren’t there?’
“She hesitated, and beneath that air of worldly self-confidence there was the first glimpse of doubt. No, not doubt, certainty. She knew that it was wrong, and she knew-or she thought she knew-she could have stopped it.
” ‘Yes,’ she said, looking down at her close-clipped schoolgirl hands. ‘Sometimes I’d ask him not to.’
“It was like trespassing on evil, asking those questions. I had the strange sensation of engaging in some utterly depraved private vice.
” ‘What would he do, when you asked him not to?’