Hello, mikebike777-ga!
After a few days of reading and writing, I believe I have compiled a
chapter by chapter synopsis of "Before and After" that will provide
you with some sense of what the book is about. Since the story
revolves primarily around the emotions of the characters as opposed to
significant events, it has been a harder task than I thought to write
chapter briefs that include the most significant emotional struggles.
The following short references should provide you with an overall
view of the book and it's message (if there is one) so that the
chapter excerpts make more sense. I have never been one to readily
discern a book's message. I am generally one to read a story and let
it sit in my mind "as is". Therefore, I am going to leave such
formulations up to others by providing the references below.
=====
BrothersJudd.com
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/773/Before%20and%20A.htm
A one-paragraph book synopsis followed by several paragraphs of commentary.
"Author wants the ends open, readers spinning, by Margaret Bernstein.
Every Woman editor.(May 16, 2000)
http://clevessf.dev.advance.net/books/everywoman/0516before2.html
"The Day That Changed It All - Before and After by Rosellen Brown."
Reviewed by Jeremy Schmidt.
http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/Projects/1996-97/Book_Reviews/S96/JeremySchmidt.html
=====
"BEFORE AND AFTER" - Book Summary
===================================
A video camera captures a glimpse of a happy family during a
middle-school graduation ceremony. For a brief moment, the family is
enveloped by the shadow of a passing family..an indication, perhaps,
of the dark days to come.
PART ONE
=========
Carolyn
----------
Carolyn is interrupted during a routine pediatric exam by a call to
the Emergency Room. The snow outside prompts her to momentarily worry
about her son, Jacob, driving on the slippery roads. The ER call is
sure to be automobile-related. She is not prepared for the ugly scene
as she steps inside the closed curtains. A young female lies on a
gurney with her bloody skull bashed in, "collapsed like a beer can."
Carolyn is sickened to realize that the victim is Martha Taverner, a
girl that has grown up with her son, Jacob. Vulnerable to a
sensitivity she normally stifles, Dr. Reisner cannot ignore the fact
that "Someone had opened the door of a car and rolled out the remains
of somebody?s daughter."
Ben
-----
Ben is going to "talk about that day." He must approach it slowly,
however, by carefully reworking the day?s smallest events, like his
conversation with Mickey Touhy after they drag wood into Ben?s
workshop. He momentarily reflects on his non-traditional role as the
husband who "does not bring home the salary," who does not have a
prestigious diploma or a brass nameplate on the door. He is an artist,
but there is a defensiveness he tries to stifle in the face of his
wife?s success.
Ben looks forward to a quiet family night of watching a rented video
with Carolyn, Jacob and Judith as he prepares dinner. As Carolyn and
Ben recall the horrible tragedy in the ER and the tragic news that
Martha?s father must face, they wonder where Jacob might be. Carolyn
remarks that his car is "all over the garage," parked so erratically
that she could hardly get in. Jacob, they decide, must be sleeping.
They are startled by the jarring ring of the doorbell. Suspecting a
stranded motorist on this snowy evening, they are surprised to see
Police Chief Fran Conklin. Small talk turns to an inquiry. "Jacob
around?" asks the Chief. As they realize that Jacob is not upstairs, a
connection between Martha and Jacob begins to emerge. Jacob and Martha
had been spending time together, the Chief says. He was the last one
to be seen with her before her body was found in the field.
Ben now remembers this moment as one that "still has the little
shreds of our innocence in it, the poor rags of our not-knowing."
The Chief asks to see Jacob?s car and Ben refuses. The conversation
becomes heated and strained. Twelve-year old Judith hides in the
shelter of her mother?s arms. The reality of Jacob being considered a
suspect in Martha?s murder is too much for Ben, who lashes out at the
Chief. "It had been the most offensive and unreal half hour of my
life," he reflects.
When the Chief leaves, Ben goes to the garage to inspect Jacob?s car.
Remembering now, he still sees the blood in the trunk, the jack,
something resembling a bloody beach towel...and worse, Jacob?s woolen
glove thrown on the ash can in the corner, beginning to stiffen with
frozen blood. "Please", I prayed, "Please." Ben follows Jacob?s
footprints out of the garage, through the snow and to the road. "Our
lives are over, I thought, standing and looking down the road to where
it disappeared into the bad curve...It was a simple sentence--a
sentence--and it felt final."
Carolyn
-----------
Ben tells Carolyn what he has found in Jacob?s car. She listens in
disbelief, inventing possible scenarios that might explain the blood
and the jack entangled with long strands of blond hair, while leaving
Jacob free from implication. She is shocked when Ben explains that he
has burned all traces of bloody fabric and has disassembled the jack,
throwing the parts into a pile of old tools. Realizing that Judith is
listening to her father?s confession, Carolyn accuses Bens of being an
accomplice. And worse, he has taken total control, destroying evidence
without allowing Carolyn the chance to see it for herself.
In a moment of fury and disgust, Ben picks up the metal tongs near
the wood stove and slashes them through the air, changing directions
in an attempt to imagine just how Jacob might have struck Martha with
the jack. Carolyn grasps for any explanation that might explain
Martha?s death as an accident, yet she cannot escape the memory of the
bludgeoned girl she viewed in the ER. Still grasping for explanations,
Ben confronts her with the reality of finding Jacob?s bloody gloves.
Softening in the midst of her denial, he tells her to call him when
she is ready to "consider reality." He goes upstairs as Judith begs
her mother not to argue. Reality is bad enough.
Ben
-----
Attorney Wendell Bye comes by the house and it clear to Ben that he
will be of no help. His manner is condescending and he sides with
Carolyn. Ben is immediately wary and mistrustful. A moment of tension
arises as Ben and Carolyn wage a silent war concerning whether to
reveal the evidence. Ben warns Carolyn with a raised finger to keep
her silence, and Carolyn shoots back with a stern reply that no one
will tell her when she can and cannot speak. The ringing phone
interferes. Wendell leaves, stating that it will take a while for the
police to get a warrant, at which time they will have access to
Jacob?s car.
Back to the task of destroying evidence, Ben rushes into the garage.
He cuts the carpet from the trunk into irregular scraps and mixes them
through the pile of fabric remnants he reserves for his artwork. He
takes the new jack from the other car and places it in Jacob?s trunk,
smears the metal trunk bed with grease, and adds chunks of wood and
pieces of oily rag to create a false but believable scene. Satisfied,
Ben opens the door to see Fran Conklin heading towards the garage with
a search warrant. Fran accuses Ben of tampering with the evidence,
stating plainly that if "it is turns out your kid?s in trouble, then
you?re in trouble, too." He then produces a search warrant for
Jacob?s room.
For the first time, as the police tear through Jacob?s belongings,
Carolyn shares Ben?s feeling of offense at the police intrusion into
their lives. One of the officers emits a gratifying noise, signaling a
valuable find - a key chain with a picture of a bikini-clad Martha
hidden amongst the junk on Jacob?s desk.
Ben
------
Days go by with no word from Jacob. The police have released an "All
Points" bulletin for information leading to their son. Carolyn prefers
to center on the kidnapping theory, refusing to acknowledge the
meaning of the evidence Ben found in the garage.
A postcard comes in the mail, describing a drive to Boston and asking
them to pray. It is signed with the initial "J." Ben and Carolyn
realize that Jacob is alive. But what kind of emotion should they
feel? Happiness? Fear? Is Jacob being held against his will or has he
escaped an awful deed? It is the morning of Martha?s funeral and they
are faced with the reality of a difficult decision. If Jacob is alive,
do they really want him found?
Carolyn
----------
Carolyn reflects on motherhood, realizing that past memories are but
a small reflection of the reality of a childhood?s lost.
Judith
--------
Judith thinks of the evolution of her relationship with Jacob from a
childhood playmate to a brother now distant due to the difference in
age. She reflects on the nights when Jacob would come home too late,
sparking loud arguments with her anxious parents. Judith remembers how
she admired his façade of cool collectedness as he walked upstairs,
only to punch his fists into the wall in an angry rage once he was
safely behind his bedroom door. She thinks about how her brother's
angry "Dragon Mouth" has been slowly replaced by an eerie silence when
emotions become heated. "His defense now was to say nothing."
Carolyn
----------
Carolyn decides to return to work, refusing to allow Jacob?s
situation to interfere with her life. Despite Ben?s warning, she goes
into the office, only to find a near-empty waiting room and an
atmosphere of fear and suspicion mixed with cruelty. The local paper
has combined Martha?s obituary with a front page article mentioning
that the police are seeking Jacob for questioning. Carolyn can only
wonder about the gossip and conclusions concerning Jacob?s guilt or
innocence that are already circulating among the local townspeople.
When she returns home, Ben is sitting at the kitchen table with a
cheerful postcard from Albuquerque, signed "J." Carolyn?s response is
an angry one, accusing Jacob of psychopathic behavior. She states
that writing a cheerful postcard in light of what Jacob must know is
occurring at home reflects a form of insanity. Ben jumps to his
defense, stating that Jacob is obviously tired and unable to sleep at
night. Angrily, Carolyn begins to realize the "cold comfort" she has
taken in believing that Jacob is a victim.
Ben
----
Another postcard arrives, this time from Missouri, showing the
"Spirit of St. Louis" hanging in an airport lobby. For the first time,
both Ben and Carolyn acknowledge an oddness about the postcards. The
words don?t sound like Jacob?s. They are "posturing", "toying" and
"provoking." Their son sounds like a stranger. While they sit, the
phone rings. It is a quite, older-sounding woman from the Post Office.
She warns them that all the mail they are receiving is being reported
to the authorities.
Friends continue to call or stop by, passing on condolences as if
Jacob is dead, or promising that "they?ll never find him" as if they
are the privileged accessories to a conspiracy. Silently, Ben wonders
if he did the right thing by dismantling the jack and destroying the
bloody evidence. What if Jacob is innocent? Has he helped him or
damned him?
PART TWO
=========
Ben
-----
On a trip to the local hardware store, Ben is shocked to see Jacob?s
picture posted on a "Wanted Poster." He leaves in numb disbelief. The
next morning an acquaintance calls Ben, telling him that his daughter
has seen Jacob in Cambridge, walking along the river. It was Jacob?s
jacket she recognized first, Corey Weisbach tells him. Ben stammers
his gratitude, followed by Corey?s admission that he has notified the
authorities. Corey?s daughter, Janet, had run up to a policeman in
Cambridge who refused to do anything regarding a possible suspect
from another state, so she had been forced to watch Jacob disappear.
Corey followed through by notifying the New Hampshire police.
Ben is determined to go to Boston to find Jacob. He is shocked by
Carolyn?s reaction. She does not want to be the one to find him. What
would they do? Bring him back? Give him their credit card and tell him
to lose himself? Ben heads to Boston alone.
Carolyn
----------
Carolyn watches Ben leave. She goes up to speak to Judith, asking her
once again about the argument between Jacob and Ben the morning that
Jacob disappeared. It had been a disagreement about money for the
prom. Jacob wanted to rent a limo for his friends and their dates, and
Ben?s reply was to ask Jacob where he was going to come up with the
money.
Carolyn reflects on the qualities that differentiate her from Ben.
They are the same qualities that have served to pull them together.
Nevertheless, she cannot escape the fact when it comes down to the
wire, Ben may lack the necessary judgment to deal with a precarious
situation.
While discussing the reasons that people lie or do mean things,
Judith reveals a side of Jacob to her mother that Carolyn cannot
fathom. Judith remembers the time she walked into the orchard with her
friend and found Jacob throwing stones at a dog that he had tied to a
tree. He didn?t want to kill the dog. He merely wanted to throw stones
while it howled for release from the cruel torture.
Ben
-----
Ben?s trip to Boston turns up nothing other than an on-the-street
hello from an old acquaintance. He arrives back home, only to be told
that the police have found Ben in Cambridge, discovering him during
the drug arrest of the person with whom he?d been staying. Suddenly,
Ben is overtaken by fear.
Carolyn
----------
At the Cambridge jail, Ben and Carolyn watch their son come to the
phone on the other side of the glass. He is vacant, expressionless,
and makes no move to lift the receiver despite his father?s tears and
whispers that they need to talk. Carolyn can see nothing familiar. "It
was as if someone had done an extraordinarily good job of making a
model of Jacob but could not fake an animating spirit; she didn?t
recognize him."
The staring match between Ben and Jacob continues while Carolyn
receives permission for them to visit Jacob in a room without glass
because he is only seventeen. Despite their pleas and attempts to
converse, Jacob remains silent. When it is time to leave, Jacob turns
to the guard as if he cannot wait for them to go.
As Carolyn and Ben walk together to their car, the distance that has
invaded their marriage is apparent. "Why couldn?t they come together
in their grief and talk about it? Why were they walking side by side
alone?" Along the way, they both note an old bookstore that advertises
over 18,000 old cards.
Judith
--------
Judith stays behind with her friend, Celeste, as her parents go to
Boston. While at the movies, some local boys ask them to go for
pizza. In a lame attempt at an adolescent kidnapping plot, the boys
drive Celeste and Judith to an unoccupied house in a wealthy part of
town. Judith remains calm, deriving a strange comfort from the feeling
of alienation from her own body as the car hurtles around corners and
over icy roads at reckless speed. Once within the house, Judith hears
the boys talking about their plan to hold her for ransom until Jacob
turns himself in. Judith feels a calm and unusual power as she informs
the boys that they might as well take her and Celeste home. Jacob is
already in jail.
Back in bed at Celeste?s house, Judith lies awake, knowing that
things will not come to an end "until her brother had been hurt, and
badly." Someone will pay. "A crime for a crime." Judith feels utterly
alone. And she knows, finally, that whether her parents return with
Jacob or not, she will remain alone.
Ben
------
Ben reflects on how his parenting might have failed Jacob. Under
attack from Carolyn, he questions whether he has been too hard on his
son by wanting him to learn to grow up with independence rather than
taking things for granted. In the midst of his self-pity, he reminds
himself of Martha?s parents. "They had to shop for a coffin."
Contemplating bail for Jacob, Ben and Carolyn are forced to turn to
Carolyn?s adoptive parents. In any case, even if bail is not granted,
Wendell has assured them that Jacob will not be executed. Execute!!!
"The word was a black hole; our lives, both, all of them, collapsed
inward, imploded, disappeared at the sound of it." Now, faced with
Jacob?s situation, Ben wonders who Carolyn?s parents will blame for
this disaster. Has Jacob acted upon something passed down through
Carolyn?s genes? Or would they blame Ben, "the immigrant boy."
Wendell returns from a visit to Jacob, who has once again refuses to
speak. As the three of them converse about Jacob?s defense, it becomes
clear to Wendell that Ben and Carolyn might know more about Jacob?s
involvement than they have revealed. Ben realizes that Wendell is not
one to work around the angles of the truth. Clearly, he is not the
lawyer they really need.
Carolyn
----------
Jacob is transferred to New Hampshire where he faces arraignment in
the local courthouse. Though he seems a bit more "permeable", at
least to the point of recognizing them, Carolyn cannot get used to
seeing her son in these "alien places--after his disappearance, it was
the next profound disconnect." Wendell is convinced that Jacob is
frozen with fear. Carolyn is frightened he is merely manipulating
them.
Fran Conklin registers the complaint. Jacob is a suspect in the
murder of Martha Taverner. Carolyn is sure she can feel her son
shudder. "He quivered like a piece of paper lifted by a light breeze."
Ben and Carolyn hold Jacob?s hands as they await the decision
concerning bail. The judge denies the request. Leaning over to the
three of them, the judge tells them he would like to see the town
"cool off a little" before Jacob is allowed back out. Fear and sorrow
mix as Carolyn contemplates what this decision means. Could vigilante
justice be a reality in a town like their own? Were her neighbors so
entrenched in their anger that they would really cause Jacob serious
harm?
Judith
--------
Judith never got to see Jacob. Her parents left her behind when they
went to Boston and didn?t bring her to the arraignment. She was angry
and hurt, and felt her brother would have liked to see her. She had so
many questions she wanted to ask but her anger held her back. Judith
felt invisible.
When her parents finally took her to visit, Jacob drew back from her
hug. Judith knew his role in her life would never be the same. "A
brother is for whispering to, for arguing with about what show, what
channel." She knew she would never have Jacob alone like that again.
"She didn?t even have his shadow."
The next morning, Celeste met Judith before school. She dropped a
bombshell. "Did you know she was pregnant?" Judith realized she was
talking about Martha. All the rumors about her brother naked in the
backseat with Martha turned into realities at that moment. And worse,
there had been a cabin Jacob and Martha had frequented after school.
The police had found all sorts of evidence. Judith went behind a
scrawny pine tree and vomited.
Carolyn
-----------
Carolyn decided to bring Judith shopping for distraction. Small talk
turned to fun and giggles, and Carolyn began to relax for the first
time in a long while. Carolyn felt the sad reality of lost time with
Judith, always because Carolyn had been too busy. Judith?s happiness
eroded as some girls her age came into an adjacent dressing room.
"Wait till he sees this, he will just lie down and roll over!" Tears
began to roll down her cheeks and on to the blouse her mother had
tried on. "We?ll hang it up and it?ll be fine," her mother assures
her. "Nobody can trace tears."
Ben
-----
Ben and Carolyn drive to Manchester to meet with Panos Demaris, an
attorney Wendell had described as "better than the best." They told
him everything except, of course, the parts that Ben had "erased."
Carolyn asks him if he needs to believe a client is innocent in order
to defend them. Panos utters a soft laugh, replying that he has
defended all sorts of juveniles in every kind of trouble. Though a lot
of them have lacked innocence since an early age, he states that they
still deserve a good defense. Will Jacob talk to him, they ask Panos?
Jacob will talk, he assures them. He may not tell the truth, but he?ll
talk.
At their next meeting, Panos grills them. Jacob hasn?t said much. He
doesn?t seem to care about his defense. Panos needs to understand
Jacob. Did Jacob fit in? Was he honest with them? Did he have any
particular problems with expressing anger? Panos tells Ben and Carolyn
that Martha had been bludgeoned not once, but repeatedly. After
striking her once, Jacob had kept on.
Carolyn
----------
The day the court declares Jacob an adult, his anonymity is gone. The
little town of Hyland suddenly seems like a good place to leave, but
that is impossible. There is still the matter of bail, and then the
grand jury. Carolyn?s patient load has dwindled to almost nothing.
Judith has grown depressed to the point that she no longer cares to
please her parents in order to spare them pain. She seems to have been
pushed to a point of sudden hostility.
The bail hearing is emotionless. Jacob is released to the tune of one
hundred thousand dollars. "Cheap for the breath of somebody?s
daughter" thinks Carolyn.
The ride home is agonizing. Jacob does not talk and any subsequent
conversation seems stifled. Jacob?s silence makes him seem like "the
twisted ankle that pulled the entire body into misalignment." The
weight of his deadness drives Ben to anger when they arrive home. "You
can do whatever the hell you want with your catatonic self," Ben says.
"But don?t even think of opening that front door." Jacob doesn?t
reply. As Ben and Carolyn lie in bed for a nap, Jacob stands in the
kitchen, shivering violently.
Unwilling to speak to his family, Jacob reserves his first words for
Carolyn?s sister, Nina. When she calls, Jacob speaks to her as if he
has never lost his knack for talking. Amidst some small talk, Jacob
admits nothing about the crime, but does reveal his fear that he may
not "come out of this alive."
Judith
--------
Judith still wonders if Jacob actually visited all the places on the
postcards he sent. Walking into his room, she asks him to please tell
her, even if it is "in twenty-five words or less." "Sure I went,"
Jacob says. He tells her how he bought the postcards at a funny little
bookshop in Boston and went out to the airport everyday, watching for
a flight that was leaving for a place he would like to go. He would
persuade a passenger to take the postcard and mail it when they
arrived at the destination. He then found a place to sit. "And I
closed my eyes like this. And I went with them." He made Judith
promise not to tell. "Nobody would understand," he said.
Ben
------
The family is seated around the dinner table. The phone rings. It is
another in a long series of recent "ill-wishers", proclaiming that
Jacob should be stoned for his crime. Ben, used to these rants, cuts
the conversation short with what has now become his standard reply. He
reiterates that until Jacob is found guilty by a court of law, he is
innocent and no more guilty than any other man. Ben hangs up the
phone.
Jacob?s voice breaks over Ben "like a memory." "Do you believe that?"
he asks. "Do you believe I?m not guilty?" Ben takes a moment before
responding, a flurry of thoughts running through his head. He tells
Jacob that whatever the truth is, they will stand beside him.
Jacob finally begins to talk. He tells them about the times spent
with Martha, about the isolated cabin they would visit after school,
and about her pregnancy. He breaks into tears as he recounts Martha?s
confession that the baby might not be his. She had been "getting
around" and he hadn?t known. He had always been "responsible", not
wanting her to get into trouble "like that."
Words began to tumble out of his mouth. "This was more talking than
most boys his age do in a year." Martha had dug into him that day,
insulting him, even making fun of him for taking care to use
protection. She preferred rough guys, not "wimps" like Jacob who took
the time to "think ahead." She asked him to do unspeakable things that
day, acts that he could not perform. He was "ashamed, and angry, and
disgusted."
Jacob ended the relationship and they walked out the car. Near
Tuttle?s field, Martha told him she was sorry and convinced Jacob to
pull over. They started to make up, though Jacob felt she only
half-heartedly means what she was now saying. As darkness fell, they
found that the car was stuck in the wet mud. That?s when it all
started to happen. They tried to push the car out, using the car jack
to help raise it up out of the muck. Martha began to insult Jacob
again, calling him a litany of names. He slapped her and she reacted
with a punch, followed by a swing of the jack at his head. As they
fought, he grabbed the jack and swung, hitting her unintentionally.
"The thing is," he finally said, "you say murder, you say dead,
bludgeoned to death, and it sound so - mysterious. And so huge. It
sounds so--impossible to imagine. But it wasn?t. It wasn?t something I
was trying to do, it wasn?t something I thought about. Even after I
did it--I mean after it happened--I couldn?t believe I could have hurt
her like that. No way. Unreal. It was like any accident--you know, if
I?d have swung and missed like she did, just a couple of inches off,
we?d be--everything would just--my biggest problem would be, like, do
I say hello when I see her in the hall at school."
Jacob stopped. He looked at them with bewilderment. A simple accident
"had become a sickening reality."
Carolyn
----------
Doubt was coursing through Carolyn like a "thin stream." Jacob?s
actions did not translate into a mere accident. He had bashed Martha?s
head in and then fled the scene. He did not come to his parents or the
police with tearful, frantic remorse and panic. Instead, he left her
in the snow like a coward who had committed a "hit and run." Nor did
Jacob hit her only once, as he claimed. Carolyn could still see the
girl, "the image crawled up unbidden in her memory." That mangled
skull was the result "of some huge anger, some colossal, unimaginable,
tearing fury."
Carolyn had seen that same slashing fury before, in Ben. When he was
disappointed with his sculptures, he trashed them with reckless force.
He had tried to "throttle" his rage and keep it in check. But if Ben?s
anger had ever been directed at Carolyn, how many times would he have
hit her?
Ben
-----
Ben contemplates Jacob?s fate. One mistep, he thinks, and Jacob will
be eating jail food for the rest of his life. "We did not raise him to
go off into captivity at the height of his strength with his wits
intact and his body barely used." Ben comes up with a plan. He will
offer his own life for Ben?s. He will go to prison in Ben?s place. In
the end, they would have to forgive someone, "either Jacob for what he
had done, or me for having done nothing. I?d rather--no contest, I
though, no contest at all--spend my forgiveness on him."
Judith
--------
Judith is practicing the piano when she overhears Jacob and her
father hatching a plan--a reconstruction of the day that Martha was
killed. Perhaps, says her father, Jacob had argued with Martha and
left, leaving her with the car and the keys. When he reconsidered and
came back, he found her dead. Jacob had panicked, running away to
Cambridge where he could hide and clear his head. But what about the
car? Jacob wondered. Why would I leave it? Ben thought. Because a car
is easy to trace. You were terrified, and really needed to get away.
Could it really work? They continue to discuss all the angles,
considering how it might actually be successful.
"Judith held her breath. If she breathed in, the room would stink
with falsehood..If they knew she was there, they didn?t care."
Her father continued to explain how he destroyed the evidence. He was
somehow proud, conspiratorial. When he told Jacob the evidence had
"self-destructed," Jacob smiled his "most ingratiating grin."
So that was it. Everything could be changed, just like that. But
Martha was still dead. "Whether anybody heard her scream or not."
Judith thought about suicide. If anyone had a reason to commit
suicide, it was Jacob. "He deserved to kill himself. At least, if he
did, he could prove his honest sorrow. Otherwise, he was doubly guilty
if he lived, and her father was worse." Right now, she had no words to
describe how she felt about her father.
Ben
------
Jacobs? newly fabricated story begins to take shape under the
interview of Attorney Panos. He stumbles through his lies,
occasionally coming close to entrapment. Ben listens, encouraging him
along in his mind. "Imagine," Ben wants to say. It wasn?t hard for Ben
to rewrite the events of that day. "It wasn?t any harder for me to see
the new story than the old one. I suppose it was harder for him."
Whether Panos believes Jacob or not is hard to say. Either way, he
seems to be on Jacob?s side, instructing him that even if pressed
about whether he committed the murder, it is not up to him to answer.
It is the prosecution's burden to prove that he committed the act, not
Jacob?s job to prove that he didn?t.
"We had given him the bricks," Ben thought. Now it was up to Panos to
provide the mortar and build "the edifice." Ben did worry, however. He
was a liar, a tamperer and a perjurer. The thought of that reality him
numb. Not to mention the way the lies were destroying his marriage.
When they had left that morning, Carolyn wouldn?t even speak to Ben.
Whether she was silently wishing them luck or wishing them failure, he
couldn?t tell.
On the way home, Jacob began to slouch under his hat, unresponsive.
Finally, he turned on Ben. This was not his story, Jacob said. It was
Ben?s. So, what was a father supposed to do? Sacrifice his own son on
the alter? Ben was no Abraham, he thought to himself. He was not
willing to set his son loose before strangers who cared nothing for
him. No sooner did they pull in the driveway than Jacob was out of the
car.
Carolyn
-----------
It was the day of the Grand Jury hearing. Carolyn watched Jacob as
he sat on the couch, drinking a beer with the men before they left. He
had changed, not only emotionally, but physically. Age seemed to be
creeping in long before it should have been visible. "Innocence was
lost to him. Was it guilt, then--double guilt, the way Bend was
compounding it--or was it fear that kept him aloof?"
Jacob stayed behind. Nothing said he had to appear and they couldn?t
hold it against him if he didn?t. The jury proceedings were not what
Carolyn expected. She sat in the hallway, awaiting her turn to go into
the small room. Everything was quite, appointment-like, as if she were
at the hospital. Ben went in first, while Carolyn sat outside on the
bench, worrying about how she would conduct herself. Then came the
surprise. Carolyn?s turn to testify would have to wait until Friday.
Ben came out of the door, red-faced and enraged. He had refused to
testify. He was ranting something about his Fifth-Amendment rights.
"There?s got to be some protection, there?s immunity, some kind of
privilege so the state can?t make you snitch on your own flesh and
blood." Panos turned on him with anger. Why didn?t Ben tell him he
wasn?t going to testify? Ben tried to put him in his place, telling
Panos that he was the one paying "him", not the other way around.
"Oh buddy," Panos said, recoiling, "this has nothing to do with who?s
paying anybody anything...This is about trying to keep your stubborn
hide out of prison. If it?s not too late."
Ben
------
Panos and Ben continued to argue. Ben demanded privilege against
testifying and Panos cursed him for believing he could be granted such
special immunity. Ben was not treating Panos with the respect due to
an attorney, and he was close to going to jail for contempt. Worse,
Ben?s behavior was raising suspicions about his son. Ben raged on,
refusing to give in, and Panos was so angry "he couldn?t even come
near" Ben.
What had he told them in there?, Panos wondered. "I don?t bargain for
my son, and I don?t help them convict him. That?s what I told them."
Panos cornered him. "Don?t you have anything to say that would help
him? I thought you were satisfied with his side of the story." Ben
would not back down. There was no way he was going to help the state
perform their responsibility.
Ben was doing no more than his own father had done for him. He was
going to honor his child, just as his father had honored him. "Out
there in the enemy world, even if he didn?t believe my perjured
version of the event, it was the most basic point of pride with him to
be my shield and my defender."
Judith
--------
A reporter showes up at Judith?s school, determined to get her to
talk. She holds her ground. But she has to face the ugly facts. "How
many seventh-graders were on the Boston Evening news." After a
birthday party at Celeste?s, Mr. Charters drives her home. From a
distance, Judith can see a bright glow on the lawn outside of their
house. As they come closer, Mr. Charters gasps. There, on the lawn,
stands a burning cross. Judith is fascinated, even thinking it is
strangely beautiful as the flames lick the darkness. Her father comes
out to find a series of signed pages tacked to the door, demanding
that Jacob?s bail be rescinded. He is a menace, it says, and his
behavior is too dangerous and unpredictable to allow him loose in the
community.
As her father rages, Jacob leans down to throw a snowball at the
cross. It smacks against the wood. He makes a dozen more, and throws
them into the flames. Judith thinks about the dog, so long ago, in the
meadow, cowering under Jacob?s stones. "She wanted to see him repent.
She wanted to see him make a dash for the burning body of the cross
and try to throw himself into the fire...she wanted to see him accept
his guilt for at least an instant, and bleed for it. Or burn." She
throws herself against Jacob. She tells him she wishes he was dead.
Then she takes off running.
Carolyn
-----------
Judith can hold in her rage no longer. She confronts her mother while
she is taking a bath. She cannot take the lying, the deliberate hiding
of the truth. How can you go along with it, Mom? Judith asks. Carolyn
tries to smooth over the situation, saying that people don?t
necessarily tell the whole truth when they go to court. If anyone can
prove otherwise, well, that is another matter. Judith is outraged,
disgusted, and runs to her room.
As Carolyn walks toward Judith?s bedroom, she hears her daughter call
to her with a disembodied voice. "What if it was me, Mom? What if I
was the one who somebody killed?" Carolyn stopps. "What if you were
the one who killed somebody?" she replies to Judith.
Carolyn is volunteering at the local blood drive when she finally
confronts Martha?s mother. They face one another in the ladies rooms,
unexpected but now unavoidable. Carolyn tries to apologize for
Martha?s death and to convey some sense of shared grief. She will be
losing her son also, Carolyn says. Terry Taverner is cruel, unwilling
to listen, and blames Carolyn and Ben for "not keeping that freak on a
leash." She lashes out until the tears stream down her cheeks. They
are lucky, she says, that her husband has not been to their house
himself with a shotgun... Thoughts race through Carolyn?s head but she
can utter nothing in return.
As Jacob is putting some wood in the stove, his shirt catches on fire
and he burns his arm. Carolyn takes him to the hospital, thoughts
filling her mind as she cleans and bandages the burn. The moment of
truth has come. Will she let go of her son to keep her daughter? Jacob
will not be alone, she tells herself. He will have his father on his
side. And she will have Judith. "She felt a sudden peculiar falling
inside her, like dominoes tumbling down, keeling over in a slow heap,
inevitable. Their collapse went on for a long minute and then stopped,
as if they?d come to the last, they?d leaned against the bottom one
and it gave and the whole fluid collapse was finished." And with
that, she let herself abandon him. "I?m leaving you, she thought, my
best darling boy, I?m abandoning you to yourself."
She tells the Grand Jury the truth. Panos congratulats her when she
tells him. But the truth that Panos thinks he knows is not the real
truth as Carolyn knows it. He is shocked, and then shaken when he
hears the story Ben and Jacob have concocted. At least, Panos says,
Carolyn can not be made to testify against her husband. And since she
has never actually seen the tire jack, it is hearsay. Panos begins to
waver, to question how he can ethically stay on the case when he knows
his client is lying. Aside from that, Carolyn now realizes that she
will be out there on her own, testifying for the prosecution. Can she
hold up under the pressure of questions about why she has changed
sides?
Ben
-----
Ben drags Jacob down the hall to hear his mother?s confession. "Tell
him," Ben says, as he pushes Jacob into their bedroom. Carolyn
explains why she had to tell the truth. "Because she was a person,
too," says Carolyn. "That?s all. I love you and want to protect you,
but her parents loved her and wanted to protect her, too." She cries
as Jacob stands quietly, listening, absorbing it all. Ben breaks in,
accusing her of worrying more about Martha?s parents than caring about
their own son. She turns to Jacob, asking him if he can understand why
she has had to do this. "Your asking a hell of a lot of him if you
expect your own son to understand that you?ve betrayed him," Ben
accuses.
Jacob finally answers. "It?s not betraying, Dad." "Martha could use
some defending." Carolyn circles her arms around Jacob as Ben pictures
the faces of the Grand Jury looking at him, accusingly. His own wife
has just handed everything over to them. And then, the words spill out
of Carolyn?s mouth. "Jacob, Jacob, how could I have doubted you for a
minute? Who do I think you were?"
PART III
=======
Judith
--------
Judith reflects on her family, now living in Houston. In the past,
something awful had happened and her family had been sentenced to
sadness. Judith still feels what is left of the guilt. Judith is
paying for her part in it now, says her mother, by distancing herself
from the family. Jacob is something of a stranger. Judith shies away
from him, just in case he does something strange. Her family, Judith
thinks, is "a mess of threats and surrenders and regrets and things
they won?t say to each other, and maybe they always were."
In Houston, Judith has come clean with her past to those she knows
well. "Well, you see, my brother killed somebody," she says. After a
long stare and silence, it is over. Most kids at her new school are
strange, with families hiding colorful pasts, so Judith?s situation
doesn?t get that much attention. She is grateful for that.
After her mother had testified to the Grand Jury, her parents did not
speak. Her father spent six months in jail for perjury. Pride kept
them from talking to each other, though they went on living in the
same house. Judith really didn?t care to talk to her father either,
since he seemed to love Jacob more than he loved the truth. Judith,
for one, would have rather paid for her mistakes and felt honest and
clean. Jacob never said a single word. She didn?t blame Jacob as much
as she blamed her father, though. Jacob had acted under shock. Her
father had chosen.
Then there was the trial. They suspected her father had tampered with
the car but they couldn?t be sure. There was plenty of evidence that
the cabin had been used, but that was nothing new. No one could bring
up enough evidence to accuse Jacob of being any worse than a ruffian.
Martha?s mother cried terribly and Judith?s father said Mr. Taverner's
act seemed to be contrived. Judith felt that if her parent?s could
lie, why couldn?t Martha?s parents fake whatever they wanted. Later,
they watched the tapes of the trial and finally got to see what
everyone else had seen all along. The paper had summed it up this way:
"This is a story full of fire and ice, of inflamed love and fierce
coldness. A winter story."
The jury was hung, twice. Judith could only imagine how Mr. Taverner
felt, watching his daughter?s accused killer go free. The law had
given Jacob more rights than Martha had been given. That is when they
were advised to leave town. "Go someplace you never even imagined in
your wildest dreams you?d live. Go where you can leave the albatross
at the state line."
Ben
-----
"The punishment is exile." In a city of 1,924,763 people, "only four
of them know about my son and Martha Taverner." Carolyn works at a
nearby hospital. And Ben now works with hard metals. His sculptures
now have an edge.
"What it comes down to is, the worse our history the more we had to
stay together--only we knew all the parts, good and bad, even if we
added them up differently...We were cripples with congruent wounds.
This is not sentiment. It?s realism."
Carolyn
-----------
Carolyn comes to Ben one night. She thinks they might need another
baby. Hasn?t the battle been too much? Is she sure they can begin
again?
Jacob isn't thriving but he is doing okay. He is driving a forklift,
disengaging himself from anything that might carry a consequence. He
is too quiet. He has a hopeless acceptance about him that worries
Carolyn. She worries that he might be a coiled spring, eventually
exploding with the effort of staying so clean.
And Judith? She has developed a strong will and a judgmental heart.
The change frightens Carolyn. "She had one fierce child and one mild
one. But they had changed places....She did not have a child left that
she could trust."
What could a new baby do for them? A baby could allow them to go on.
To be resilient. After all, Carolyn?s parents had chosen her. "There
was nothing wrong with choosing against loss--it was the best you
could do, in fact." Besides, they needed "one soul among us that will
feel at home here. One of us who wasn?t shown the gate under a flaming
sword."
But the baby did not happen. How could Ben admit that he was weary?
He had not contributed to a child with any conviction. In the end, he
was not convinced that a new child was what they needed to "complement
the troubled ones they already had in their charge."
The four of them float in a canoe down the bayou right in the midst
of Houston. Strange how the city streets are right above them, yet
they remain hidden on the water by the banks of trees. Carolyn will
never escape the Taverners. They are with her everywhere she goes.
They had never missed the opportunity to tell her that her family had
lost nothing "real." Only their house, some time, some money and
respect. Carolyn could not deny that they were all together. Look at
them now. However battered, they could still look forward to new
things together. They could still say, "One of these days...."
************************
I hope you have enjoyed the reading and that my summary proves
helpful for your needs!
Sincerely,
umiat
Search Strategy
----------------
"Before and After" Rosellen Brown
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