“And still you persist in this action? You say that I’m heartless? That will be all, Agent Brennan.”
I WAS FEELING SICK in the pit of my stomach when Jeffrey Kussof rose and spoke in a clear, confident voice.
“I call Dr. Frances O’Neill.”
I immediately wondered why Jeffrey seemed so confident. Did he know something that I didn’t? Why did he have more confidence in me than I had in myself?
As I stepped up to the witness stand, I think I had some idea of how it felt to be a four-hundred-pound lady in a wading pool. I looked out at the gallery, and the gallery looked back at me. A little more than two hundred people staring right at me, waiting for me to convince them that I would be a great—no, a flawless—mother for six unusual and very special children.
Well, that was what I planned to do.
Because I knew in my heart that I would be. Wasn’t that worth something?
Jeffrey gave me a reassuring smile, then, under his direction, I cited my academic and professional credentials: the Westinghouse Science Scholarship, my DVM from Colorado State ’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Fort Collins , and all the rest of my laurels.
This prompted a little cheer and a round of whistles from the six kids, right under the noses of their seething parents. Even the twins were laughing. I chanced a quick look over at Kit, and he gave me a wink and one of his famous crooked smiles.
As the interview went on for well over an hour, I began to feel a little more confident. I knew I would be a great mom; I loved these kids more than anyone else could. Because I was a veterinarian, I understood how complex they were. Jeffrey asked me to speak about my own recent tragedy—my husband had been murdered in a holdup two years before. And I talked about my successful one-woman animal practice on a squiggle of dirt road in Bear Bluff, a one-traffic-light town about fifty miles northwest of Boulder .
Jeffrey then went on to depict me as a woman with a heart as big as the Rockies , with an open door to every chipmunk and mule deer and pound puppy in Colorado . Okay, so I started to blush.
But most important, he told about my having operated on Max when she was near death. How I had saved her life when no one else could have. That was a fact that no one could dispute, not even Ms. Fitzgibbons.
Or so I hoped.
So I prayed.
A few moments later Catherine Fitzgibbons came over to the stand and smiled as sweetly as if she were my own dear sister, Carole Anne. But she didn’t waste much more of the court’s time on niceties.
“Dr. O’Neill, what is your annual salary?” she asked in her trademark huffy tone.
“I can’t really say. It differs from year to year. Depends on whether I’m working on more chipmunks or horses in that particular year.”
“On average, more or less than thirty-five thousand a year.”
“Less,” I said, more emphatically than I’d meant to.
“And you expect to support six children—”
“I wouldn’t do it alone! These kids need love more than money. They’re depressed now.”
Catherine Fitzgibbons’s eyebrows arched. “You say the children are depressed. How do you know that? You aren’t a psychologist, are you?”
“No, but—”
Fitzgibbons cut me off. “You aren’t any kind of a people doctor, are you, Dr. O’Neill?”
“No. But, these children are—,” I started to say, but she rudely cut me off again. I was tempted to speak right over her next question, but I stopped myself. My mistake.
“You’ve never been a mother, have you, Dr. O’Neill? Please answer yes or no.”
“No, but … No.”
I wanted to punch Fitzgibbons, I really did. She deserved it, too.
“You’ve been cohabiting with a man who is not your husband, is that correct?”
“I wouldn’t say we’re cohabiting.”
I definitely wanted to strangle her to death, then punch her lights out for good measure.
“Correction. Okay. Have it your way, then. You’re having sex with a man not your husband?”
Jeffrey Kussof objected to the question, and his objection was sustained.
“Is this your idea of how to be a role model to underage children?” Fitzgibbons stayed on the attack.
Jeffrey was up in a flash. “Objection, Your Honor. Calls for a conclusion on the part of the witness.”
“Sustained.”
“Dr. O’Neill, if you were to have custody of the six young children, how would you manage to both work and care for them? Have you thought about that? Would you drive them to their various schools? Or would you just open the door and let them fly?”
“Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is badgering the witness,” said my lawyer.