A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [95]
Alice would say that I’m not usually sensitive to people’s clothing, but it was clear that clothing was itself central to the hearing. Robbie was dressed in a beige three-piece suit, as if the proceeding was a display for future lawyers of America. We were supposed to pay no respect to persons. Mrs. Mackessy was the image of ideal suburban motherhood, up in the witness box with her boy on her lap. She was wearing one of those denim dresses that look like a feed bag. We were supposed to picture her tooling around in her paneled station wagon to the vet, the scout meetings, the parish bake sale. In fact, she drives a 1979 Impala. You can tell she’s babied the thing because the body’s in pretty good shape. Her long ratty hair was pulled back with a pink ribbon. Alice said later that that’s what unhinged her, the pink satin ribbon.
When Susan Dirks directed Mrs. Mackessy into the witness box, Rafferty jumped up from his chair and walked quickly to the judge’s bench to object. There was no reason, he said, for the boy to sit on his mother’s lap. Alice remarked that there was something in the quality of Rafferty’s voice, and his composure, that made his requests and his conclusions sound reasonable and true. She probably had a point. He was quiet and forceful at the same time. He suggested to the judge that the D.A. knew she had a shaky witness and a weak case and that she was bolstering it in any way she could.
The judge overruled, on the grounds that the hearing was stressful, that Robbie had the right to feel secure, and that a child could testify more reliably if he was not frightened.
The bailiff told Robbie to hold up his hand and promise to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth.
“Okay,” he answered. He leaned back into his mother. When he grabbed the armrests he was surprised and pleased to find that the chair swiveled.
“How you doin’, Robbie?” Susan Dirks asked. “You comfy?”
“Yeah.”
The building was air conditioned, well regulated. We were all comfy.
“This won’t take too long,” she told Robbie. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and then the gentleman, Mr. Rafferty, over there,” she pointed, “in the—plaid suit, will ask you a few things, and then you can get back home.”
Robbie nodded. Alice used to say he looked as if he might evaporate if it wasn’t for his big mouth. He had pale eyes. He had pale hair. Everything about him, even his suit, was pale. She had said, months before the summer, that he had the most impassive face she had ever seen in anyone, young or old, that he had a habit of staring, that it unnerved her. At the hearing he sat on his mother’s lap looking at the floor by Mrs. Dirk’s feet.
“How old are you, Robbie?” Susan asked.
“Six.” As far as I could tell the kid hadn’t blinked yet.
“That’s wonderful, Robbie. I’m sure you’re old enough to know the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said.
Alice bent her head then. She kept it bowed, as if she was praying.
“If I told you that your jacket is purple is that the truth or a lie?”
“That’s a lie.”
“What’s a lie, Robbie?”
“It’s bad,” he said, looking again at Mrs. Dirks’s shoes. “It’s when you make it up.”
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a lie when you make something up. What does it mean to tell the truth?”
“It’s important to. When it—it’s when something really happened, like you don’t make it up or nothin’.”
“Exactly. And in this court it is a law that we all must tell the truth. We are under oath to tell the truth. That means we have promised. You just promised to be truthful when you answered Mr. Malone’s questions a