Lily sat at the table as if she had been turned to stone. When Ben turned to face her, shewhispered, “Lost.”
CHAPTER 20
In Buzz Dobson’s dingy office, over cold sandwiches no one seemed to have much of an appetitefor, Buzz, Lily, and Ben grimly discussed the morning’s proceedings.
“I just don’t understand how that bastard got hold of that tape,” Lily said, pushing away heruneaten sandwich.
“Oh, he probably got it from Charlotte’s crazy brother,” Ben said. “That group he’s president ofhas a whole collection of videos of gay marches —so they can use them to show the evils ofhomosexuality.”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter how Hamilton got it,” Lily sighed. “All that matters is that he gotit, and now we’re screwed.”
“Come on now, Mrs. McGilly,” Buzz cajoled. “We’ve not even made our argument yet. Thetestimony of the McGillys holds a lot of water in this town.”
Lily refused to be comforted. “Yeah, well, it’s kinda hard to compete with a man in drag shrieking,
‘We’ve come for your children!’ Did you see Judge Sanders’ face when he saw that? He turned positivelygray.”
“Well, all we can do is get out there on the field and give it all we’ve got,” Buzz said.
Great, Lily thought. Super-slick Stephen Hamilton has proven our entire marriage to be a fraud,and now our lawyer thinks he’s back on the high school football team. Well, what do you expect fromsomeone who graduated from a law school in a building that sits smack-dab between a Krystal and aChurch’s Fried Chicken?
Back at the hearing, Jeanie McGilly testified that Lily was as good a mother as she had ever seen
—that she not only saw to Mimi’s basic physical needs, but also spent a great deal of time reading to herand playing with her. When Stephen Hamilton rose to cross-examine Jeanie, Lily’s stomach knotted infear for her mother-in-law.
She needn’t have worried. When talking to Buzz, Jeanie’s demeanor had been warm and maternal,soft as the petals of a magnolia. But when she faced Hamilton, her entire presence changed until shecould’ve been Joan Crawford playing a tough-as-nails businesswoman.
“Mrs. McGilly,” Hamilton smiled. “I just have to ask you... when you saw the videotape, the onewith Miss Maycomb and your son and daughter-in-law and the man holding Mimi who was shouting,
‘We’ve come for your children ...’ “ He paused. “How did you feel when you saw that videotape, Mrs.
McGilly?”
Jeanie smiled a little. “Well, I didn’t laugh out loud the way my husband did, but I did think it waskinda funny. I mean ... you just had to know Dez. He didn’t mean nothing by what he was saying; he was