Nat, June 24, 2009
It is seven thirty a.m., and the streets of Center City are beginning to fill with the morning's pedestrians and drivers, urgent to get on to the business of the day. Anna brings the silent Prius to the curb and drops me in front of the LeSueur Building.
"I hope it goes well." She reaches out to take my hand. "Text me as soon as you're done." I lean over to receive a quick embrace and then depart. I have not yet managed to give up the student look and mash my nice suit under the straps of my rucksack, swinging it on before I head inside.
It was a bad night. Anna was mortified to hear about the banker's testimony and seemed to take it every bit as hard as I did. She kept saying how sorry she was, which ended up irritating me because it felt like she was expecting me to comfort her. Perhaps she was trapped in the same place as I was, thinking about my mom laying the table for the four of us on the porch that night and knowing that her life was all but over.
With all the drama, I was in no condition yesterday to go over my expected testimony with Marta, so she has come in early this morning instead. With three kids at home, that isn't easy for her and her husband, Solomon, but she brushes off my thanks as she leads me through the office to the coffeepot.
Watching Marta in court over the weeks, I've realized she will never quite have the career of her father. She has the same intellect as her dad, but not the same magic. She is warm and approachable, whereas her father gains from being formal and remote, but it doesn't seem to matter to her. She is one of those people who likes who she is and what has happened in her life. I tell her all the time she is my role model.
"Was it weird when you decided to practice with your father?" I ask her as we are watching the carafe fill. It's a question that's lingered with me for a couple of weeks now, but in the rush of trial there hasn't been much time to ask.
She laughs and admits she never quite made a decision. There was a family crisis years ago after her mother died-she does not mention it, but I am pretty sure that Clara, Marta's mom and Sandy's first wife, was a suicide, a weird thought this morning. Sandy, in her words, was "at sixes and sevens," and Marta slid into the role of her father's sidekick without a lot of thought.
"It's what people mean, though, when they say that things turn out for the best," she says. "I've loved practicing with my dad, and the truth is that if my mom hadn't died, it might not have happened. He's the best lawyer I've ever met, and we have this harmony in the office that we can't find anywhere else. I don't think we've ever raised our voices here. But if I bring him home for dinner when Helen is traveling, I'm screaming at him by the time he's through the door. He breaks every rule I have for the kids. I love my father," Marta adds then as a sudden afterthought, and flushes so quickly that I don't realize at first what's happened. It's the clearest declaration anybody has made yet that Sandy Stern is dying. She stares down into her coffee.
"I haven't recovered from my mother yet," she says, "and that's nearly twenty years."
"Really? I keep waiting to feel normal again."
"It's just a new normal," she says.
Whatever professional distance there is supposed to be between Marta and me has largely vanished. We just have too much in common. Both attorneys. With moms who met untimely deaths and these lawyer dads who seem big enough to block the sun but are each currently imperiled. We have, figuratively speaking, made it through this case holding hands, and I actually put my arm on her shoulder for a minute as we are walking back to the office. She is going to be one of those people I ask for advice the rest of my life.
We go over my testimony quickly. A lot of it is tender stuff after yesterday, but there is no debating the necessity.
"What's the deal with the computer?" I ask her.
"We're taking a little flyer. It was your dad's idea. He says there's no risk. We'll see. But I want you to be able to say in front of the jury that we didn't discuss that part in advance. So just follow my instructions. It won't be complicated."
The point is obvious anyway, to show how easy it would have been for my mom to have signed herself on to his machine.
When I head out to use the john before we go to court, I bump into my dad. He stayed clear of me yesterday, and even now there is, as usual, not a lot for either of us to say.
"I'm sorry, Nat."
My mom was short, so it seemed to surprise everyone, especially me, that I grew a couple inches taller than my father. For the longest time, I felt crazy weird about the fact that I was looking down at him, if just a bit. He grabs my shoulders and I stumble into some kind of hug, and then he goes off in his direction and I go in mine.
The first time I testified, I was an absolute mess. I had never seen a trial before, and here I was, the first witness in the case, called by the prosecution to give evidence against my father for murdering my mother. I just sat up there like a lump and answered as quickly as I could. Judge Yee kept telling me to keep my voice up. When Brand was done, Marta asked me a couple of questions designed to show that my dad seemed to be in a state of shock when he argued with me about calling the police. Then she told Yee she'd reserve any remaining examination until I was recalled in the defense case.
When I ascend this time to the chair under the walnut canopy, it's easier. I'll be seeing this courtroom in my dreams the rest of my life, but I am, in a very strange way, at home.
"Please state your name and spell the last name for the record."
"Nathaniel Sabich, S, A, B, I, C, H."
"You are the same Nathaniel Sabich who testified during the People's case?"
"Same guy." A young Latina in the front row of the jury smiles. She seemed to think I was cool when I was up here the first time.
"And since you testified, you have been present here in court each day, is that right?"
"I have. I'm the only family my dad has got, and Judge Yee said I could be in here to support him."
"But to be clear, Nat, have you discussed the evidence in this case with your father, or your testimony here today?"
"No. You know, he's told me he didn't do it and I've told him I believe him, but no, we don't talk about what the witnesses have said or what I'm going to say."
These last answers, which stray beyond the strict bounds of the rules of evidence, were worked out with Marta in advance. She would have been just as happy to see Brand object when I said I believed my dad, only to reemphasize that fact for the jurors, but I could see Molto touch Brand's wrist as he was about to spring up. By all accounts, Molto was kind of a hothead as a young guy, but time and responsibility have apparently chilled him out. He knows the jurors have seen me here day after day and have to realize whose side I'm on. The dude's my dad, after all. What else am I going to believe?
"And you are a licensed attorney?"
"That's right."
"And so you understand the consequence of being under oath."
"Of course."
"Nat, let me ask you first, about the case of John Harnason. Did you ever discuss that case with your mother?"
"My mom?"
"Well, were you ever present when your mother or your mother and father discussed the case?"
So I tell what happened during my dad's sixtieth birthday dinner, when it became clear that my mom had read about the case on her own. Then we go on to my dad's shopping trip the night my mom died. I explain how I've had this thing for salami and cheese since I was a kid, and yeah, my mom was like everybody's mom and liked to feed me the stuff I'd always craved, and yeah, my mom always sent my dad, or in earlier years me, to do those kinds of errands because she didn't like to leave the house and even did her weekly grocery shopping online. Then I tell the jury that it's true, my dad always picked up my mom's medications, and took them upstairs when he changed out of his suit, and very often put the bottles up on the shelf. Tap, tap, tap. My dad says that Sandy works like a jeweler with his little hammer. And so it's going now. I stand behind my dad's story, link by link.
It's all calm and easy until we get to my mom's suicide attempt when I was ten. The prosecutors raise hell before I can get into it, and the jury has to leave, which is pretty much ridiculous, because it all goes to back up what my dad said yesterday. But once the jury comes back, we don't get very far into what happened before I lose it. Prior to today, there may have been four people on earth I've told that story-even Anna didn't hear it until last night-and now I'm sitting here with reporters and sketch artists in the front row of this immense courtroom, confessing for the five o'clock news that my mom was totally out of control.
"And I walked into the bathroom," I say once I think I've regained composure, and start sobbing again immediately.
I try two or three more times but can't get through it.
"Was she trying to electrocute herself?" Marta finally asks.
I just nod.
Judge Yee intervenes then. "Record reflect witness nodded to mean yes. Think we all understand, Ms. Stern," he says, calling a halt on this subject. He recesses for ten minutes to give me a chance to pull myself together.
"I'm sorry," I tell him and then the jury before we adjourn.
"No 'sorry' needed," says Judge Yee.
I leave the courtroom and stand by myself at the end of the corridor, looking out the window at the highway. The truth is that talking about my mom has never been easy for me. I loved my mom, love her now, and always will. My dad was always floating at a distance, coming in and out, big and brilliant, sort of like the moon, but the gravity that held me to the earth was my mother, even though I seem to have struggled with her love all my life. There was a way I knew she loved me too much-that it wasn't good for me, that too much came with it-and as a result, I was always straining to escape the burden of her attention. When I was little, she was forever whispering to me-I'll eternally feel her breath on my neck as she spoke, and the hairs standing back there. She didn't want anyone else to hear what she was saying. And there was a message implicit in that: Only us. There was only us. She told me flat out, 'You are the world to me, you are the whole world, little boy.'
I was thrilled to hear it, of course. But something heavy and dark came with the words. From the time I was a little kid, I sort of felt responsible for her. Maybe all children feel like that. I wouldn't know, since I've only been me. But I realized I was more than important to her. I was her lifeline. I knew that the only time my mom felt completely right was with me, tending to me, talking to me, thinking about me. The only time she was balanced in the world was then.
Looking back, I think it's obvious that my biggest issue once I reached my teens was about the consequence of leaving her. As I watch the cars course down U.S. 843, I suddenly realize something I haven't faced before. I blame my dad for her death, because I don't want to blame myself. But I always knew that when I left home, something like this might happen. I knew it and went anyway. I had to. Nobody, least of all my mom, wanted me to give up my life for hers. But still. My dad acted like an asshole. Yet I also need to forgive myself. When I do, maybe I'll be able to start forgiving him.
"Now let's turn to the subject of computers," says Marta when the trial resumes. My dad's PC has been set up on a table in the middle of the courtroom, and Marta points to it. "Over the years, Nat, have you seen your father use a computer?"
"Sure."
"Where?"
"At home. Or when I visited him in his chambers."
"How often?"
"Countless times."
"And have you talked with him about his computer?"
"Often."
"Have you helped him use his computer?"
"Naturally. For people my age, that's sort of the reverse of having your parents help you ride a bicycle. We all help our parents with computers."
The jurors love this. So does Judge Yee, who more and more I am beginning to see is kind of a cool guy.
"And is your father computer literate?"
"If knowing the difference between on and off makes you literate, then yes. Otherwise, not so much."
There is loud laughter from the jury box. Everybody in this room feels sorry for me, so I am Mr. Popularity.
"And what about you? Are you computer literate?"
"Compared to my father? Yes. I know a lot more than him."
"What about your mother?"
"She was like a genius. She was a PhD in math. Until my friends started doing PhDs in computer science, she knew more than anyone I knew. And even those guys sometimes would call her up with questions. She was way inside the machine."
"Did you know the password on your father's computer?"
"I think I did. My father used the same password on everything."
"Which was?"
"Let me explain. His proper name. Rozat. It has that little mark over the 'z' when he writes it correctly, so in English sometimes he'd spell it R, O, Z, H, A, T. That was the password on our voice mail at home. On the burglar alarm system. The ATM. On bank accounts. Always 'Rozhat.' He was like everybody else. How can you have sixteen different passwords and remember what they are?"
"And did you ever discuss this fact-that your father used only one password-with your mother?"
"A zillion times."
"Do you specifically recall any occasions?"
"I can remember two years ago, I was visiting my folks, and my dad got a new credit card in the mail and he had to call in to activate it, and they asked him for the password on his account and he actually covered the phone and asked my mom, 'What's my password?' And she rolled her eyes and was like, 'Oh, for God's sake,' and she just turned to me, you know, this kind of hopeless look, and I about fell off my chair, and my dad still was bewildered, and then we both said to him at the same time, 'Rozhat,' and he was like, 'Oh, shit.' And when he put down the phone, he was just shaking his head at himself and we were all hysterical."
Across the courtroom, my dad is actually laughing. He smiles now and then, but this may be the first outright laughter I've seen since the trial started. The jury too is enjoying the story, and so I say to them, "Excuse me, you know, for using that word."
"Now, Nat," says Marta. "Are you aware that I am going to ask you to do a demonstration with your father's computer?"
"Yes."
"And do you know what I am going to ask you to demonstrate?"
"No."
"Now you've heard some testimony about shredding software, is that right?"
"Sure."
"Have you ever downloaded shredding software?"
"No."
"Have you ever known your father to download shredding software?"
"It's impossible."
Brand objects, and my answer is stricken.
"Sorry," I tell the judge.
He raises a hand obligingly. "Just answer question," he says.
"All right, Nat," says Marta, "I'm going to ask you to come down from the witness stand to start your father's computer. I'll ask you to enter the password, Rozhat, and if it works, to download the shredding software mentioned by the prosecution to see if you can use it."
"Objection," Brand says.
The jury has to leave again. Brand argues that because I know the password doesn't mean that my mom did, and even if I have difficulty using the shredding software, that doesn't mean that my father couldn't have practiced.
Judge Yee rules for Marta. "First, let's see if password is right password, because Mrs. Sabich knew that password. And since prosecutors say the judge use this shredding software, defense has right to show what it takes to do that. If young Mr. Sabich got problems doing that, defense can't argue that proves judge would have problems. But defense can argue this is too hard for the judge. Prosecutor can argue otherwise. Okay, bring in jury."
I am standing in front of the computer by the time they're all back in their seats. Judge Yee has come down from the bench to see, and everybody from the prosecution table is standing around me as well. Marta asks the judge if she can turn the monitor toward the jury, which he allows, although it is also projected on the screen beside the witness stand. Then I push the on switch on the tower, and the machine purrs to life and cycles through. The sunny screen comes on and prompts for the password, at which point Marta speaks.
"Judge, if I may, I'm going to ask Mr. Sabich to type in the letters R, O, Z, H, A, T, for the password, with the Court's permission."
"Proceed," says the judge.
It works, of course. There is that canned musical tone, and then, to my amazement, a Christmas card appears, addressed to my dad. I become aware of how quiet the courtroom has suddenly become.
The card says, "Seasons Greetings 2008," and within the borders an animated script becomes visible line by line, the murmur growing among the spectators with each word. Roses are redViolets are blueYou're in trouble againAnd I did it to you.Love, You Know Who.