OK I’m somewhat better. And I feel I must continue to share the story in this dystopia in light of the truly dystopian Supreme Court argument we just heard. So, here is the world you can look forward to, thanks to the NINE: Five Thugs in Robes, Aunt Lydia Little Orphans Amy Coney, a doddering old narcissist who won’t retire, and two New York Women, dissenting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A week later, Lucy was sitting in Commissioner Picart’s courtroom again. Although Picart had refused the let her out on bail, the guards had pretty much left her alone. A jail cell was probably as good a place as any to grieve for your mother, she had decided. Funny now that it was done, how sad she felt. If only she’d gotten to ask Mom why she was so distant. She knew she’d feel better if she found out it wasn’t her fault. Now she would never know. She turned her attention back to the proceedings. It was her life, after all.
“Mr. Erickson,” Picart said apologetically, “I am going to have to release Lucy Atreides. The DNA is unambiguous. Arthur Atreides, her stepfather, is the father of her baby. I have read your briefs and researched the law myself, and whether he raped her or not,” he said unnecessarily, “incest is an exception to the Fetal Protection Act. I know it’s not an excuse for an abortion in Virginia any more, but the federal law is clear.”
Lucy looked at her lap. She saw that her body was there, in the chair, but it felt like she was looking at someone else. Since the girl catchers attacked her in Adam’s Rib all those weeks ago, she had been in one prison or another. After she shook off the bounty hunters, she had been locked in the law firm, trapped by the feds, prison, hospitals, courtrooms, vans, always with guards, uniforms, sleeping, not sleeping, solitary confinement. Could it really finally be over? With all the briefing and everything she guessed she had no more than a week to get an abortion with no questions asked in Maryland. And was her mother dead? Did Arthur Atreides really stand by and let his wife die for lack of the medicine they had been smuggling in from Maryland? Or to get even with Lucy for blowing the whistle on his beating her? Did she kill her mother? Should she have stayed and just let him rape her again and again until her mother died? The room began swimming around her again.
When she shook it off, Larry and that Erickson person were shouting at each other about perjury.
But she was really free. The federal government, Picart announced, would not seek to try her on the subject of whether being raped by your stepfather qualified as “sex” when she had testified that she had not had sex. But before he let her go, Commissioner Picart reminded Lucy that they could still change their minds about the perjury charge.
“Stay away from those troublemakers,” he warned Lucy. “Your pals want nothing less than a new civil war. The last one was the bloodiest conflict in American history. We’ll do whatever it takes to stop you from causing another one.”
Lucy glanced over at Kelly. Was this guy nuts or what? Lucy, cause a war?
But Kelly was oddly impassive.
They took her pink prison uniform and gave her the clothes Larry brought in for her, her one precious new summer suit, which was now a little tight. But it would fit her just fine after the abortion she thought with satisfaction as she covered the last of the open zipper with her sweater and put on the little jacket.
“Larry,” she said as she emerged from the bathroom where she had changed, “is my mother dead? He said he’d kill her if I told anyone what he did. When he beat me.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I asked the Commissioner to order Erickson to find out, but I’m getting nothing from him. He’s already so pissed that he had to let you go. The feds sure didn’t want more publicity on your famous stepfather’s sexual behavior! We tried to call your brother’s home phone, but no one is answering. Where is your sister-in-law? Do you know any friend or anyone who might answer you if you called them?”
“We only lived in Richmond for a few years,” Lucy said. “And Arthur really cut my mother off from everyone associated with Dad. You know he and Dad hadn’t agreed about anything for years before the election. Everyone’s pretty scared these days with the VBI and the firing squads and all. Let me think.”
“Lucy,” he interjected, “you need to prepare yourself. There is a media mob out there. And god knows how many Lucies. They always seem to know where the trial is being held and you’re going to have to get through them to get to the car.”
“Can’t we get out some other way?” she asked.
“No. There is no back entrance to this formal courthouse. Picart must have thought they’d go away once he announced you were free, but there are more of them today than I’ve seen. You’re a heroine to them, Lucy. They’ve named themselves for you, and they’re using you to pressure Governor Van Buren to mobilize in Maryland. We set up some microphones for you to speak at and a line of Marshals to keep everyone at a distance. Just say thank you and I’ll say you are too tired from your ordeal to say anything further at this time. OK?”
“OK,” she answered. “Where’s Kelly?” She always felt better when Kelly was around. And for good reason. Imagine if she hadn’t realized that newspaper was fake? She was the smartest person Lucy had ever met. Who thinks about what temperature it is in the middle of an air-conditioned courtroom?
“She had something she had to do,” Larry answered. “She’s a little elusive, our genius. I’ve learned not to press.”
The reporters had formed a deep crowd around the microphones, cameras whirring, jockeying each other for position and shutting out the much larger crowd of Lucies and other protesters on the lawn.
Flanked by Josh and Larry, Lucy approached the microphones. She had never spoken to a crowd before and found herself strangely overwhelmed by the noise and the exposure.
“Thank you,” she said in a barely audible voice, “for caring about me while I was in jail.” She looked at Larry; was this enough? “Lucy! Lucy!” the protesters were screaming, waving their pink scarves in the air, barely visible behind the wall of reporters. She saw Jane, the woman from the first day at the rib joint at the front of the crowd. A big TV cameraman elbowed her aside.
Who did he think he was? Jane had turned out the protesters every day and everywhere for Lucy, who she had never even met.
“Get out of the way,” she said to the TV guy. “Jane, would you come up here.”
The media people stepped aside to let the beautiful blonde woman in the pink scarf through. The crowd was going insane, cheering and screaming. She stepped up to Lucy, and the two women embraced. Impulsively, Lucy twirled Jane around so she was facing the crowd and stepped away. And then the back of Jane’s head blew off.