Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [153]
“Yes.”
“Is it not a fact that you could, if you so chose, accept a teaching position right now, without further schooling?”
“Yes,” she says. “I imagine I could.”
“Then tell the court why you have chosen not to do so at this moment.”
“I wish to have my son with me.”
There is a muffled gasp from Albertine Bolduc, who brings a gloved hand to her mouth. Her husband puts his arm around her shoulders.
“I think that we can safely say,” says Tucker, ignoring the small outburst, but looking pointedly at Sears, “that the staff of this religiously oriented seminary considered you neither wanton or lascivious nor depraved, vulgar, and vile.”
“Your Honor.” Addison Sears is on his feet. “Would you be so kind as to ask counsel for the relator to desist in this line of questioning, as the answer calls for conjecture on the part of the witness?”
“Mr. Tucker,” says the judge.
Tucker seems unruffled by the mild reproof. “Miss Biddeford, how do you support yourself?”
“I have money from my father.”
“Would it be correct to say that as far as the foreseeable future is concerned, money is not a subject you need worry about?”
“One always wishes to be prudent with money,” she says carefully, “but, yes, I think you could say that was true.”
“So that, if you were to receive custody of your son, you would not have to leave the house to go to work?”
“No, I would not.”
“And thus you could care for the young boy full-time?”
“Yes, I could.”
Tucker turns and glances at Albertine Bolduc, as if physically to point out the difference between his client and the Franco woman. He walks back to the table, where he briefly consults his notes.
“Miss Biddeford, I know that these are painful questions. But let us now go back to the day of the child’s birth.”
Olympia takes in a long, slow breath. No matter how many times she and Tucker have rehearsed these questions, they always make her anxious.
“Where did you give birth to the child?”
“In my bedroom in my father’s house in Boston.”
“And what day and time was this?”
“Two o’clock on the afternoon of April fourteenth, 1900.”
“Was it a normal birth?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened immediately after this birth?”
“The boy was taken from me.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know. But I do know that it was upon the instructions of my father. I doubt, however, that he personally handled the child himself.”
“And why is it you do not know for certain who removed your child from your arms?”
“I had been given laudanum by my mother’s doctor.”
“This would be Dr. Ulysses Branch of Newbury Street in Boston.”
“Yes.”
“How much laudanum were you given?”
“I believe three spoonfuls.”
“So you were asleep.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the boy at all?”
Not once during their informal rehearsals has Olympia been able to answer this question without her eyes welling up. “Yes,” she says as evenly as she can. “I remember some things. I was drifting in and out of consciousness.”
“Tell the court what you remember.”
“I was told the child was a boy. He was swaddled and laid beside me. I remember black spiky hair, beautiful eyes. . . .” She bites her lip.
“That is fine,” Tucker says quickly, having established his point. “Was it your desire that the child be taken from you at birth?”
“No.”
“Had you made your feelings on this subject clear?”
“Yes, I had spoken of this to my father.”
“And what did he say?”
“That he had made what he called ‘arrangements.’ And that if I kept the child, he would disown me.”
“But, Miss Biddeford, did you not care more about the child than about being disinherited?”
“Yes, I did care more about the child,” Olympia says with fervor. “But I reasoned that if I went against my father’s wishes, I would have no way to support myself and that I could not survive. And that if I did not survive, the child would not survive.”
“Miss Biddeford, tell the court why it is you have put forth your petition now, as opposed to, say, two years ago or one year ago.”
Olympia looks at Tucker and then takes in the entire courtroom before her