Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [93]
Four weeks after the accident, Alison had to go in front of a judge to face the DWI charge. Robin not only offered to accompany her to the hearing, but she also helped Alison prepare papers for her lawyer, Paul Ryan, and wrote a letter of support to give the judge.
The courtroom was in a new municipal building. It was quiet and carpeted—like the funeral home chapel, Alison thought, designed to muffle dissonant expressions of anguish and despair. Its small windows, with short, burnt orange curtains, were set high on the wall, so all you could see were squares of sky and odd angles of other buildings. Alison had only been inside a few courtrooms in her life, one for a magazine article and one to protest a parking ticket. Both were in old buildings, formal, ornate spaces with enormous windows and raised wooden platforms for the judge—nothing like the room in which she now stood.
As Alison walked down the wide center aisle, she was surprised to see the mother and father of the boy sitting in the far corner, on the right. Ahead, on the left, Paul Ryan was talking quietly to a young woman in a navy blue suit—the prosecutor, Alison supposed. Robin put an arm around her shoulder, gently urging her forward.
The court was kind to Alison, kinder than she would have been to herself. The judge revoked her driver’s license for three months and assigned her to twelve hours at an Intoxicated Driver Resource Center. There would be nearly $1000 in fines and fees, as well as several thousand dollars in insurance surcharges over the next three years. In her statement, the judge said that while Alison hadn’t caused the accident—the investigation revealed that the boy’s father had driven through the intersection without applying his brakes—she was nonetheless partially at fault. Her blood-alcohol level grazed the legal limit. Her reflexes were impaired; she might otherwise have reacted more quickly and averted the crash. She would have to live with the knowledge that her drinking may have been a contributing factor in the boy’s death.
The judge glanced at Robin, the loyal friend, sitting behind Alison. She looked Alison up and down. She said she hoped Alison had learned a lesson from this. She implored Alison to think, really think, about what she had done. She said that if there was one thing she’d learned as a county judge, it was that life hinges on small moments and seemingly trivial decisions.
Across the aisle sat the father of the boy, wearing a Mets cap and a blue windbreaker, and his wife, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. At the funeral her hair had been long and flowing. Now she clutched a Ziploc bag of what appeared to be Ritz crackers, and stared straight ahead. The father’s arm was stretched across the wooden pew-like bench behind her. The drumming of his fingers was a muted percussion in the quiet room.
Neither of the boy’s parents looked at Alison, though she kept glancing at them. She had written a letter to them expressing her regret and sadness, but they’d never responded. She didn’t know if they had even received it.
When the hearing ended, Paul Ryan leaned over and said quietly, “Now you can put this behind you.”
“Thank you for everything you did,” she said.
Robin gave her a hug. “Ready to go?”
“In a minute,” Alison said. “I want to speak to the parents.”
Paul, stacking papers in his briefcase, grimaced. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I need to,” Alison said. As she made her way over to Marco’s parents, she caught the husband’s eye. He put his arm protectively around his wife, who shrank back against him.
“I am truly sorry,” Alison said. “I