Chapter 32
— Rosalind on the Stand
When Rosalind was called, she stood up from her seat in the waiting area and walked to the stand with her back straight and her chin up, the way Meredith used to walk when she had made up her mind about something and would not be moved. I had known Rosalind for years, since before Meredith died, since the days when she and Meredith would sit at our kitchen table with cups of tea gone cold, talking about school and books and the small, ordinary things that make up a friendship, and I had never seen her look frightened, not even now, in a courtroom, with Veronica watching her from across the room. She took the oath in a clear voice, and she sat down, and she folded her hands in her lap, and she waited for Oliver to begin, and I felt a rush of gratitude toward her, because she had come here unasked, the morning after the night Poppy lost her curls, and she had told me a truth I had not known, and she was telling it again now, in public, because it mattered.
Oliver asked her first about Meredith, and Rosalind spoke about her friend with a warmth that filled the room, about the teacher who wrote stories for her daughter, about the woman who had kept a notebook by her bed, about the friend who had told her things she had told no one else. Then he asked her about the night Poppy was born, and Rosalind's voice grew quieter, but it did not waver. She said that she had been at the hospital that night, that she had sat with Meredith in the hours before the birth, and that she had known there was a young woman in the room next door, also in labour, also alone, and that the two rooms had been side by side, separated by a thin wall, so that the sounds of one birth had carried faintly into the other. She said that Meredith had spoken about that young woman afterwards, with kindness, and with worry, because the baby had come early, and because the young woman had seemed so young and so frightened.
She told the court that the young woman had been Veronica, although she had not known her name at the time, and that she had learned it only later, when Meredith's notebook and the hospital records had brought the pieces together. She said that Meredith had kept the bracelet from that night, and the photograph of two bassinets in the nursery, and that she had written in her notebook about the girl in the next room, not with gossip, but with the careful attention of a teacher who noticed when someone needed help. Oliver showed her the photograph, and she looked at it for a long moment, and she nodded, and she said yes, that was the nursery, that was the night, and that those two small beds had held two babies born hours apart, one of whom was Poppy, and one of whom was the baby who would become Maisie. Oliver asked her whether Meredith had ever spoken of fear, and Rosalind said yes, that Meredith had worried the young woman would be left alone with a baby she could not keep, and that she had wished she could do more than sit beside her through the night. She said Meredith had written that the wall between their rooms was thin, and that she had heard the other baby cry, a small, thin sound, and that she had never forgotten it, because it had sounded so alone in the world. She said she had come because Meredith could not, and because someone had to speak for the friend who had written the truth down.
Veronica's lawyer cross-examined her, and he tried to make her sound as if she were guessing, or remembering things that suited her, or carrying a grudge against his client. He asked how she could be sure, after six years, which room had been which, and she said that she remembered because Meredith had remembered, and because Meredith had written it down the next day, while it was fresh, and because some nights stay with you, and that night had stayed with her. He asked if she had any proof beyond a notebook and a photograph, and she said that the proof was in the adoption papers, and in Marlene's statement, and in Elspeth's testimony, and that she was here to tell what she knew, not to prove it alone. He asked if she disliked Veronica, and she paused, and she said honestly that she had not liked what Veronica had done to Poppy, and that she had come here because a child had been frightened in her own home, and that seemed to her a good enough reason to tell the truth.
When she stepped down, she walked past our table, and she gave me a small, steady nod, and I nodded back, and I felt as if a weight had shifted, because the story of that night, which had lived for years in a notebook in a desk drawer, was now part of the record, spoken aloud in a courtroom, and it could not be put back in the drawer. The judge thanked her, and she returned to her seat, and Oliver stood again, and he called the next witness, and I sat a little straighter, because I knew what Elspeth was about to say, and I knew how much it had cost her to come here and say it.