Secrets#@#@#@ Chapter Seven

Tim lowered his head. He did not expect to hear such things from Rosa. Tear flooded down his cheeks. No one had ever seen such tears in the eyes of a man, a man who played the role of toughness so well. But beneath those tears, he just learned that some degree of happiness could be achievable in this world, as his heart overflowed with gratitude and awe.

As he was filled with a feeling that he had never experienced, he thought to himself about the small bit of universe he occupied. His piece of world that he occupied, in comparison to the rest of the world, seemed so minute and small but it belonged to him and it was not a great concern to others. He thought of the period of the time which was his, and his only, to live. It was indefinitely and exceedingly small compare to the entire eternity, the infinity in which he had not been and would not be. But yet, here in this house, in this small bit, himself, in this period of exactness, precision, and accuracy, his blood flowed, his brain worked affectedly, and his heart longed ambitiously. He sighed and said under his tongue: "Life, what an atrocious business!"

He walked to the window and looked through the open window at the nature outside. A withered leaf was separated from its stem and hovering to the ground. Its movement to him was like a butterfly. He thought how strange something so dead, so mournful, the withered leaf, could be so alive like a butterfly, a living thing so happy and full of life!

The awe among others continued. When Tim returned to his seat, he realized by looking at others that no one in that room had any animosity against him anymore. That made him happy and comfortable, after all comfort, he could not deny, was something he had always liked. But at the same time he felt no desire or very little desire to live. He knew what other thought at that moment.He said to himself: "Let them render this opposite contradiction as best as they can!" It was not his place anymore to prove his position or to fight for his dignity. He knew from looking into their eyes that he was just a pure infirmity then to them.

He was happy, a happiness he had not felt for so long. He was contented because he could not see if time was passing, if it was passing fast or slow! His orderly routine was now in place, it was not upset and he liked it. All his life he had managed to live with such an irreproachable normality that there was not any place left for sadness or dullness. Nevertheless, since he had learned about his deadly disease, his methodical custom was disturbed. This morning, in this house, among these people, he suddenly felt peace again.

The feel of the fresh air, coming from the open window on his face and body made him to tear apart from that sad restlessness he had felt that entire night. He knew now for fact that Rosa, as he had thought before, was not patronizing him. With her, he had always had the feeling that he should be grateful to her. But now, right now, that was not how he felt or thought. He now recognized that young hearts, like Rosa's, would not be burdened by those kind s of sensations; but by feelings of gratitude and understanding.

Putting aside all his vanities, at that moment, he thought to himself that young people like Rosa, however were much further from the truth of the matter than people like him, old, because of sickness. Nonetheless, he could not help thinking that those young had something that he, the old, lacked; something that gave them a gain and power over him. Perhaps it was not all their youth. He thought their advantage, perhaps, was because they had less marks of their mental slavery than him.

To Be Continued

Secrets- <><><><> Chapter Six

"I told him once that he was an evil man, and that he made me to be like him. I said that I was looking for a place, at this point I didn't have my apartment anymore, and I was planning to leave him. He looked at me in a way that I knew this time I had truly insulted him. Then he asked me a question so appallingly that I knew he was outraged. I also realized that this was not the time to forsake this intelligent, yet troubled man, who was desperately in search of something. His question was: 'Had I known that Jacob had another child before I met you?' I answered him no. Then he told me that how could I accuse him of something that I started it! But I wanted to stop and he thought it was too late to stop. The damage was done. Vickie was not the same woman anymore.

"He never told me about his own troubles. Only one time he mentioned that he once was married and he had a son. It was only when he got the invitation for the party tonight that he told me about his son's troubles, not all of it, and about Ed. Then all my attempts to make him tell me more was useless. It seemed that he opened his arms against his many troubles all alone. My feelings for him was mixed. At times, I loved him, other times, I hated him, many times I felt sorry for him; but when I was in his class, I admired him.

"In his class, he always glowed. He was, is, an excellent teacher and lecturer. When he taught, it was obvious that he was living on the edge of his thoughts, struggling with the fundamental problems of his life, or life in general. I wanted to save his damned spirit.

"Nonetheless, he was so persuasive in any matter that after every argument, I was always enthralled. I knew that it was me who approached him for my plan. I knew when I had sputtered out my story, those hateful words that were planted in me by my mother, to him, there was no return. I knew it much later. But when later came, I was terrified at the finality of what I had told him; and became the confused woman that my mother had predicted I would be.

"How could we, Tim and I, achieve any kind of meaningful living that I had sought desperately all my life? It seemed impossible. I gave up. I knew he had given up a long time ago. Nevertheless, in my own instability, I thought of what I could do to stabilize him, to support him in his loss. I didn't know about his loss then, but I was suspicious that he must have some great hopelessness somewhere hidden in him.

"The interesting thing was that all my friends thought I was very lucky that Tim had picked me. He was very popular among girls. My friends told me that living with him was like an explosion, living on the edge, which was full of surprises; nonetheless, it was wonderful. They said my life with Tim was like a movie which was full of scenes of renderable and normal manners; and unimaginative interpretation of what seemed so odd. However, as bizarre as our connection was, it caused envy among my friends.

"Anyway, I thought I had designed a plan for the deliverance of what was possible in an impossible shape. Yes, it was possible to deceive Vickie, for she was very naive, and yes, it was impossible for me to see the result of what I had done. In the two months before she left home. I saw before my eyes the changes in her. It was scary, truly, I began to have feeling for her. I started liking her. When she told me she was seeing Fred, I was frightened. I knew him; he was the worst of all men I knew. He was an absolute user, who even didn't have charm. He was crude and acted vulgar. I needed to stop this; and I tried. But I couldn't stop what I'd started.

To Be Continued

Secrets-:":":":" Chapter Five

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Six months later, in Dallas Harold died of a slow killing heart attack, which no one suspected, even his doctor; and Left Thui nothing. Even though he had asked his children to give her $20,000 in case of his death, they did not. They wanted to punish her for the act of their father. Besides why would they give any money to this foreign girl who had adhered herself to their father for coming to America. Since he had not included her in his will, and Thui did not know anything about American legal system, did not have any money to hire a lawyer, her immigration status was still in limbo, and her English had not yet been perfect, she allowed Harold children treated her unfairly. She knew a day will come that she would get out of this. She was contented and happy that she was finally in America. Let them come and throw her out! It was there, in Harold's son's home, where they were making her to do their house keeping to earn her ticket back to Vietnam, that for the first time she met Ed. A window of opportunity opened for her that night.

The only memory she had left from Harold which for many years came to her vision was him being in death bed. His death was sudden, very sudden. He was not feeling good for a little over a week, but it took him only one day to die. Afterwards, his doctor said that saving him was impossible. After not feeling good for a while, he got really sick Monday morning and died the same afternoon. Thui had no idea that he had heart attack. Afterwards, his doctor said that saving him, even if he was in hospital, was impossible. Thui was in the kitchen preparing chicken soup for him. He was resting in bed all morning and early afternoon. Thui had checked on him may times and talked to him. But in the late afternoon when she returned to the bedroom with a tray of food and juice and his medicine, she saw he was not lying down but sitting up in his white pajamas. His back was against the head board of the cherry wood. He was covered by a white sheet up to his chest. She was so shocked to see that everything about him and around him was so white- his white hair, his ashen face, his white pajamas, the white pillow case, the white sheet. All that whiteness somehow harmonized with the peace on his face. An unfamiliar gesture of kindness showed in his dead face... She put the tray down on the table, and went to the bedside.

She looked at his hand folded over his chest; and she realized that he was entirely dead. He could not be just a little dead. It was all or nothing. His face was smooth, white, his eyes were half opened. To the end, he was a military man. He had died with dignity, sitting straight not lying, hands folded on his chest not in some gesture of fright and horror of the last moment. Thui touched his forehead, and a sweat ran into her body. His body was still warm. It should had happened just recently. She sat on the corner of the bed and thought: "What am I going to do next?"

Ever since that death, Thui's eyes were always seen like ice; but one could not make sure that there was a fire smoldered beneath that ice. She kept remembering the last days, the last weeks of Harold's life. This man, who had brought her to America and had bought so many things from clothes to jewelry for her, a man that always gave her more money for household expenses that she needed, now was gone. In fact what Harold had done for her in six months marriage was much greater than what Ed had done in eleven years of their marriage and without any prenuptial agreement. Ed was a very stingy man. Thui had to beg him for money even to buy things for their three children.

In Harold's last days of life, without knowing that he had suffered a heart attack, she noticed how pathetic he looked. She saw unruly tears in his eyes, and she knew why he was crying. He was not a man ever to show weakness or to tolerate dependency. To watch him not being able to do what he always did for himself, was a reminder to Thui of the ultimate failure of all men. On the third day of his sickness, Thui forced him to go to his doctor with her. The doctor's guess was just some kind of virus, "it must be a bug". That is how the doctor said. He wrote the name of some vitamins and ordered chicken soup and a lot of liquid.

Notwithstanding, on his last days, he proved to Thui that he, the quite, dignified man, could bare the accident of life with honor, to the end a Military Colonel.

The six months between Harold's death and meeting Ed, Thui often tried to evaluate her life candidly! She never gave up her habit for walking in the evening; and in one of those evening, walking in dusk, she asked herself that question again. The answer that came to her was like a blow to her face. She analyzed herself in a brutal way and realized that she had been afraid to know herself because of its horrifying result.

Nevertheless, in that six months she lived life with boredom and irritation. She tried to figure out why she did not have any feeling for anything even the nature which once she so admired. She was anxious, worried; even her childish dreams kept coming back to her. She tried like a light switch to turn on and off her emotions to a different path; but it was always ambiguity that came to surface. She thought a lot about Harold, her dead husband, the old romantic man which was a lot better than many young men she had been with. With her, he had stimulated his nerves and his emotions to the point that they finally broke him down and killed him. He always wanted to prove to his young wife that he could be equal to her, and he was.

Sometimes she would lock herself in her bedroom. Harold's oldest son would hear her silent sobbing. Thui now was living in his house. He felt sorry for her, but he was not about to save her. She needed to save herself, to work for it. He was not about to respect his father's wish and to give Thui the money that his father wanted him to give. On the other hand, Thui hated him, her step son, older than her, with every cell in her body. But for now she had to endure this life and put a mask on her face so he would not know the degree of her disgust.

Their house was cozy and luxurious. He and his wife, both lawyers, had enough money to save her, or to gave her the money Harold had asked them to give her, but no, they did not. He was nothing like his father. He was a mean, unkind man. They had a very good idea that the marriage between Their father and this Vietnamese girl, his grand children's age, was not for a true love, but it was infatuation on Harold's part and coming to America and fast money on Thui's part.

Thui felt like a prisoner in this peaceful, luxury home which looked hospitable from outside. she thought about leaving them, that darkness, but she did not have the strength to separate herself from it. Besides, she did not have any skill for any type of work, except the house keeping. That was not in her plan. She had not finished even her high school. She had one more year when she had had that unnamed baby. The dilemma she was in was greater than any other things she had faced in her life. She waited for a miracle. It happened the day Ed saw her there for the first time.

To Be Continued

Secrets##### Chapter Four

"I knew it at the very beginning," Ed began with a muffled voice: "that John was guilty. He confessed to me and to the authorities, too. I told him that I couldn't defend him. He was guilty as sin. Then his father came and visited me. He offered me a million dollars first. I said I couldn't jeopardize my reputation for any money. Let me tell you this man, John's father, is a true politician. He knew how to bring me around. I finally agreed for five million dollars. I told him that a big portion of the money go to other people, whom I have to pay to help me, to destroy the evidence, to temper with the witnesses. But my answer didn't come very quickly. I did my research about finding another suspect. Christopher was the best candidate. To me, he was just a name then." Ed stopped, dropped his head into his chest and draped his hands behind his neck.

"What happened after?" Jacob demanded.

"I was able to prove that the night of the crime, John was with two friends, Christopher was not one of them. He had dined with them in a restaurant, and then spending the rest of the night playing pool. I demanded that they should throw the confession out, since they did not read his right and they took that confession without his lawyer's presence. I proved that confession was under duress after police had beaten him up. I manipulated the waiter in the restaurant, the people in the bar that John was there. At the end, those people really believed that John was there. I made them admit in the court that he was there. I actually didn't give them any money, as you may call bribery because then they would know that I was trying to make them lie. But I gave them nice gifts for their cooperation, for their help. I gave those gifts at the end of the trial when he was acquitted and pretended that they were from John's father. I told them that he is grateful that their testimony have saved his innocent son. I told them that John's father was thanking them to help his faultless son.

"The medical report was inconclusive. No finger print, no murder weapon were found anywhere. The only finger print was Christopher's at the woman's house. We knew that he was there earlier that evening. The medical report showed that condom was used by the rapist. There was no evidence found in her body or on her clothes.

"I taught John how to point his finger at Christopher when the police were doing their investigation. All these preparation took an entire year before we went to trail. Then It came selecting of Jury."

"You mean that you even tempered with Jurors!" Tim said angrily.

"Not exactly; but all lawyers, both defense and prosecutor use this technique..."

"We need to stop this. I don't want to hear anymore." Thui cut off Ed. She was at the verge of tears. This was the first time the others saw that she showed any emotion.

"You must listen."Tim said furiously. "You, too, are taking advantage of my son's misery, aren't you. I am sure that money are spent in your household."

"I didn't know, I didn't know." Thui sat back, and covered her face while crying aloud.

"What about jurors? What is the technique?" Jacob asked somberly.

Ed got up. The emotions agitating his heart would not be appeased easily. He began pacing the room, staring thoughtfully at his feet. He was particularly struck by his own confession.

"You think that I tempered the jurors? No, I didn't. But I used this method to pick them. Many defense lawyers that their clients can afford use this procedure. It is like, how should I say, like a service which is provided by this firm.

"What they do is to establish a profile of the defendant, all his back ground, his interests, his weakness, his religion, his disbelief, and his family. Then they make a profile of the crime, how it happened, why it happened; and then they try to match the profile of the defendant with the crime. The last part of their service is to sketch a profile of the prospective jurors who would be more compassionate to the defendant.

"The defense attorney tries to match the most of potential jurors to the psychological description is provided by that firm during Voir Dire. Finally they come up with the twelve jurors and even the alternates which can serve the best the defendant. After impalement, that firm really dig into the lives of those jurors. Such analysis contains many things about the jurors that are already selected, their habits, their prejudice, their jobs, the neighborhood they live in, their education, their religion, their nationality, their weakness and strength. Everything about them are included in their report.

"When the defense attorney knows so much about the jurors, he bases his defense, his manner, the way he is dressed, and everything else upon that. In the court room, the defense lawyer talks to them as though he is talking to their awareness. Since he knows their biases, fears, hopes, and even hidden desires, he touches them incredibly. That is the service I used to free John and it worked. He was acquitted of all charges."

To Be Continued

Secrets- ~*~*~* Chapter Three

"Listen, Tim," Jacob began: "I can't share your hatred for subjugation, grievance, and inhumanity. Unlike you, I can't rest easily in my speculative scope; and that is exactly what you're doing. You're asking my forgiveness! I don't know what to say. Without knowing your story, I feel sorry for you. Let me hear what you have to say, and then I decide how I feel!"

"Tomorrow morning will be a real day, a real dawn." Tim began. Tear rose in his throat. "I want to know if any of you believe in God. No, no, let me ask Ed, only him. Ed, do you believe in God?"

"Of course I do." Ed raised his head. He seemed disgusted. He still did not know anything about Tim's son. He needed something more to bring back his case to his mind. He knew he had taken cases for just money while deep in his heart he did not believe in his client's innocence.

"I thought so. Your God is an unknown and unseen God. We know nothing about him. You can pray, and feel and wait. Like when you pray to win a case. Winning a case for you is saving your name and reputation, so you can get more cases and make more money, isn't that so? But God doesn't do what you think he'll do. It is the human corruption that every time makes you win, makes you get more money. And it is also human misery that you take advantage of.

"You may say if God doesn't do what I expect from him, he must have a reason. You may say it is only for the time being, incidental, it's not done because of the external impact. But let me tell you, you love and worship what your God hates; you hate what He adores; you acknowledge absolutely what he declines. You get frustrated, you turn your eyes, do whatever you must do. And then you go to church Sunday morning and pray.

"I can't worship the God that is your God. Your God is corrupt like you. Listen, I'm not here to judge you, you're the one that want to become a judge. I'm just telling you and everyone else the reality. I believe that I am devoted to truth, and the truth is what we know before dawn."

"Listen," Ed began: "I am an honest lawyer. You're probably mistaking me with someone else. And I hate your opinion, your arrogance, your negativity, your horrifying mental capacity of life and human. I am sure what happened to your son had been awful; but I have nothing to do with it. I don't even recall a person by his name."

"Because my son has his mother's maiden name, and I'm going to tell you why!"

"Thank God, you're finally stopping philosophy and getting on your story." Ed retorted.

"What I said is just common sense; but because you don't have any sense, you don't understand common sense." Tim answered abruptly.

"Will you two stop fighting and have a little respect for each other." Rosa said after a long silence.

"Sweetheart, I'm not fighting. I'm here tonight to face this man. All I'm asking is just to listen. All of you listen to what I must say; and stop interrupting me.

"See how time flies. I heard it flies in prison even faster. Maybe that is good... I don't know... My son has to spend the rest of his life there. If he behaves, he may get out in forty years. So I guess it's good that time flies fast. But all of these are just vague thinking." He reflected, putting his hand on his forehead.

"I've lost everything I have because I've lost my past. I can't deny that my past exist, but I lost it. Is there anything more precious in this world than a beautiful woman with her child? I keep remembering this picture in my mind when she had Christopher in her arm. This is the only thing I have left, only a memory, a picture, an image.

To Be Continued