Tomorrow Will Mean Everything
"Victoria, may I have a word with you?"
Judge Farnham's voice came quietly from behind her. Her sons kept on going, Nick guiding Jarrod by the arm, Heath holding the door to the courtroom open. They didn't hear Judge Farnham, but Audra did, and she stopped and turned. Victoria said to her, "Why don't you wait for me out at the surrey?"
Audra nodded and went through the courtroom, glancing at her brothers as they got themselves organized by the prosecution table. She knew she couldn't stay. The judge wanted a word alone with her mother, and her brothers had work to do that only they could do.
Judge Farnham closed the door to the courtroom and escorted Victoria to his chambers. Once inside, he closed that door too and held a chair for Victoria. "Sit down, please, Victoria," he said.
Victoria sat down and watched him take his robe off and hang it up. "I know what you're going to say, Tom," she started.
"No, I don't think you do," the judge said and sat down behind his desk. Then he leveled his gaze at Victoria. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. Jarrod is your son and you want to support him and get him back functioning as he was, but Victoria, I think you're asking too much of him too soon."
Victoria listened.
"It isn't just a question of getting him reacquainted with the room and getting him so he can get around without bumping into things and falling down," the judge went on. "Not that that isn't important. We all saw the confidence get ripped out of him when he fell, but there's much more to trying a case than that, Victoria."
"His brothers will work with him. He'll get accustomed to that room again and his brothers will help him with the witnesses and the exhibits."
The judge took a deep breath. "Perhaps, but that's not all it's going to take. What you and the rest of your family don't understand is the work that goes into preparing a case like this one before it ever gets to the courtroom, work Jarrod didn't have time to do before that explosion last week and work that his brothers really can't help him to do. There are documents he has to know inside and out, examination and cross examination he has to prepare and have written down so he can refer to it while he's trying the case. Victoria, no lawyer can try a case without preparing it thoroughly, and a lawyer who's been recently blinded has virtually no chance of doing a proper job. You're asking too much of him. He can't do it, and when he fails again, it will rip the heart out of him. And the result will be that Joshua Cunningham will go free because of incompetent prosecution. What do you think that's going to do to Jarrod?"
Victoria shivered inside. The judge's words were getting to her. Maybe Judge Farnham was right, maybe she was asking too much too soon from Jarrod. But then she thought about Mark Bromley, about how he could not try this case, though she couldn't tell the judge why. There were only suspicions that Bromley had sold out, no proof. She couldn't destroy that boy's career without proof.
She thought for a moment that of course, Jarrod could pull this off and had to. She knew how much bringing Cunningham to justice meant to Jarrod and she knew he had it in him to try this case, but then everything flipped around on her again. She started hearing Jarrod's words from just a few minutes ago. A lawyer has to be able to see. He can't plead his case to the wall.
And – will you stop trying to tell me how brave I am?
But then, he hadn't left the room when she said they could go. He sat down again. He did not want to give up.
"Victoria," the Judge said quietly, "I'll give him one more chance, but if Jarrod struggles again tomorrow like he did today, I'm going to have to declare a mistrial, and I'm going to have to put it on the record why I'm declaring a mistrial. It will break my heart to do that, but I'll have no choice." Then, he said the wrong thing to Victoria Barkley. "Jarrod was a fine lawyer - was a fine lawyer. You may have to accept that all that is in the past now."
Victoria shook her head. "If we have to accept that his career is over, we'll find a way to accept it. But I know my son. He will accept it but only if he goes down fighting. If he doesn't try one more time, he will sit in the dark for the rest of his life, being afraid and being defeated. I can't let that happen."
Judge Farnham sighed. "I'll let him try once more tomorrow, but we're not here to rehabilitate a blind man, Victoria. We're here to try a man for a crime. If I have to for the sake of justice, I will call a halt to the whole thing. I'll have no choice."
Victoria nodded and stood up, offering her hand. "I understand, Tom, and I thank you for staying with Jarrod so far."
The judge stood up and took her hand. "For the record, Victoria, I'm pulling for him all the way. If this doesn't work, I won't think any less of him. He'll always be one of the best men I've ever had before me in court, and beside me as a friend."
Victoria felt the sting of tears and left before they could show too much. She went to the courtroom, opening the door softly, stopping for a moment just beside the judge's bench, watching. Nick and Heath were already out of their suit jackets and ties, sitting at the prosecutor's table. Jarrod was still in his jacket but had loosened his tie, and for a moment Victoria froze where she was, unable to move.
Jarrod was literally feeling his way around the room, moving up from the back of the gallery toward the jury box, his hands against the wall as he felt his world around him. God, it hurt her to see him like that. He bumped sideways into the jury box and moved his hands down to the rail. Wordlessly, he felt his way to and along the front of the jury box. Victoria moved forward into the room, because he was coming her way and would run right into her if she didn't. She stopped beside Nick and Heath but still watched Jarrod, feeling his way to the door beside the judge's bench, then to the witness stand and the bench. She almost wept to watch this and to know he did not know she was watching.
Am I asking too much of him? she wondered. He's a blind man feeling his way around walls and chairs and the whole world. How can I expect him to be a lawyer too?
Jarrod stopped in front of the judge's bench and turned to face his brothers, still not aware his mother was there. "All right," he said. "I'm back where I started, in front of the bench, right?"
"Right," Nick said, and he stood and gave his mother a peck on the cheek. He whispered to her, "Go on. We'll get rooms at the hotel and see you in the morning."
"Who's here?" Jarrod asked, startled to hear Nick whispering.
"It's me," Victoria said, approached him and kissed his cheek.
It made him jump. "Mother, I thought you'd left."
"I'm leaving now," she said. "I'll leave you to your work."
Jarrod raised his hand, found her face and turned it toward him to return the kiss. He said nothing more.
Victoria walked out through the gallery and was soon outside.
Jarrod heard the door close behind her. Nick and Heath exchanged looks, noticing Jarrod had turned his face toward the closing door. Nick had an idea. "Think you can walk straight down the aisle to where you just heard that door close, Pappy?"
It would mean walking through empty space, no wall to feel along, just furniture to run into. Jarrod took a big, frightened breath. "We'll give it a try."
Jarrod kept both hands out in front of him, walking slowly, counting, correcting himself when he felt an obstacle and was going off course. He finally found his way to the door, knowing it was the door because he could feel the knob. He sighed, letting the tension out.
He had no idea his mother was on the other side of the door, listening from only inches away. With the fear and the pain only a mother could feel knowing her son was struggling, she let herself feel his blindness for a few moments, just listening to him and feeling him on the other side of the door. She smiled at his success in making it there, but she was heartbroken, too, heartbroken that this was happening to him. It was terrifying, knowing that his whole career, his whole life, hinged on what would happen tomorrow in a room he could only feel his way around today.
Tomorrow would mean everything. Tomorrow would tell her if Judge Farnham was right, that she was asking too much of Jarrod too soon. If she was, if he couldn't make it through tomorrow -
"Mother?"
Victoria hadn't heard Audra come up behind her. She turned, embarrassed at the tears in her eyes. She had been a rock through this, but now -
Audra took her mother into her arms, and Victoria let herself cry where her son couldn't hear it happening. "Oh, Audra," she said. "This has to work." She prayed, as hard as she had ever prayed in her life, that tomorrow was going to be everything she needed it to be, that Jarrod needed it to be. That they all needed it to be.
But now Jarrod did hear her voice through the door and realized she was still there, even if Nick and Heath didn't. Something inside him clicked. He knew he had to do this, for her, for his family, for Sharon Scanlon and for what he had always believed in - justice. He knew he had to do more than learn the room – he had to teach Nick and Heath everything he could remember about the documentation he had to introduce and the testimony he had to present. He made up his mind and steeled his nerve. He was terrified, but he knew he wasn't alone, and he knew couldn't let down the woman crying on the other side of the door. With another deep breath, he gathered his courage together, turned and went back toward the bench, counting his steps. "One, two, three, four..."
The End