Authors: Julie Frayn
The sheriff led her from the courtroom
and placed her in a holding cell. “If it goes into tomorrow, we’ll take you
back to remand,” he said. The same sheriff each day. Sweet. Kind. Respectful.
“Can I have some water?”
“Of course. You hungry?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Norman stood outside the cell. The sheriff
allowed him in as he exited.
“I called Rachel. They’re standing by
at her house. I’ll text them when there’s a verdict. Ariel wants to be here.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“Impossible to predict.”
Two hours passed as slowly as
glacial ice melts. The sandwich and coffee the sheriff had brought sat like
dead weight in her gut.
“What time is it?” Mazie couldn’t
keep her knees from bouncing up and down.
Norman checked his watch. “Four
minutes later than last time you asked.” He rested one hand on her knee and
squeezed. “It might not happen today. Be prepared for that.”
“How long does it usually take?”
She stared at his hand on her nylons, his long fingers breaching the hem of her
skirt. A slight tremor in his palm exposed his collected manner for what it was
— a cover. He was just as afraid as she was.
“All depends. Sometimes it’s quick.
That could mean they sympathize and see your innocence.”
She squinted at him. “Or?”
“Or it could mean that guilt is so
obvious they don’t need to deliberate for long.” He ran a hand through his
hair. “I’d hope for a moderate length. A couple of days, max.”
She leaned back in her chair and
emptied her lungs, pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
Two more days.
It may as well be a lifetime.
~~~~~~~~
Mazie sat in the box in the same damn
chair she’d endured throughout the trial. The ache in her sacrum crawled up her
spine and shot shards of pain across her shoulder blades. Public opinion hummed
in the seats behind Norman. Strangers had already made their judgements. She
was at their mercy. Control over her life was out of arms reach.
Just another normal day.
The faintest hint of strawberries
floated by. She twisted in her chair and found black hair and emerald eyes. Since
they’d returned to Calgary, Ariel had let her hair grow out. Quit dying it
outrageous colours. Except for the fact she’d become a woman, she was back to
her old self.
Ariel waved and smiled at her,
mouthed ‘I love you.’
“All rise.” The court clerk’s voice
echoed off the walls and brought her out of a small fantasy of her and Ariel
together, shopping for a graduation dress, having coffee. Just being together.
The judge took her place and the
jury filed in. Mazie made eye contact with the ones who were willing to look
her direction. Most of them looked away, two of the women held her gaze. She
had no idea what that meant.
“Have you reached a verdict?”
The court clerk’s words were
muffled by the pounding of Mazie’s heart in her ears. The periphery blurred,
and she trained her eyes on the jury.
“If so, please reply by your
foreperson.”
One woman stood, glanced at Mazie
and shifted her feet. “We have.”
“On the charge of first degree
murder, how do you find?”
Mazie’s entire future, written on one
tiny slip of paper.
He cleared his throat. “On the
charge of murder in the first degree, how do you find?”
Mazie closed her eyes and held her
breath.
“Not guilty.”
Her eyes flung open. The entire
courtroom erupted in a buzz of voices and cries.
“But guilty of manslaughter.”
The room spun around her and her
knees weakened. She fell back into her chair, both hands on the armrests to
steady herself.
“No, no, no!” Ariel’s voice broke
free from the din.
“Settle down, people.” The judge jerked
her head at the spectators and a hush overcame the room except for the
whimpering and sniffing of a broken-hearted girl.
~~~~~~~~
“I am a victim. But not the victim
of the woman you have in jail. Not a victim of my mother.” Ariel focused on the
single piece of lined paper in her hand.
Mazie blinked back tears and stared
at the purple-inked lines of her daughter’s tidy, vertical cursive, barely visible
from the prisoner’s box.
“I am the victim of my father’s
anger and abuse. Even with him dead, I remain a victim. I struggle to trust. I
have difficulty sleeping.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “If my mother
hadn’t done what she did, she would be dead. And I’d be living with a monster
who would continue to heap abuse on me.” She turned and gazed at Mazie. “With
my mother in prison, I am a victim once again. An orphan, really. I need her
presence in my life. Need her guidance and her love.” She scrunched the paper into
a ball and looked up at the judge. “Your honour, I am pleading for her life.
Pleading for mercy. She isn’t a monster. She’d never harm me or anyone else.
She acted in self-defence and in my defence and I love her for it. I thank her
for it.” She bowed her head. “Thank you,” she whispered, and stepped away from
the podium.
The public seats were almost empty,
the circus that had witnessed Mazie’s trial had pulled up stakes and moved on.
Two months waiting for sentencing, waiting to hear her fate, had gone a long
way to cool the attention. Newer cases had arisen. Worse offenders took centre
stage. They could have it. She wanted to slip into anonymity and live out her
life in whatever manner the judge foisted upon her.
The judge looked out at the court.
“After careful consideration of submissions made, evidence presented, and Miss
Reynolds’ statement, I have made a decision regarding sentencing.” The judge
eyed Mazie over green reading glasses.
The hair on her neck bristled.
“Manslaughter is a serious offence.
I believe that you had not planned to kill your husband, and that the jury made
the right decision. But it is impossible to ignore the fact that you did plan
to harm him.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, I know that he hurt you.
Consistently. Horribly. For years on end. For that I wish the Crown had been
given an opportunity to try and convict him. But we will never have that
opportunity. The justice system cannot punish a dead offender.
“Despite your victimization at his
hands, you went too far, and so the charge of manslaughter is appropriate.
Having said that, I don’t believe it is in the best interests of any party to
this affair to lock you up for any extended period. I don’t believe you pose
any threat to the general public.” The judge referred to her papers, stripped off
her glasses, and tossed them on the bench. “Mazie Louise Reynolds, please
stand.”
A blur of scattered voices buzzed
in Mazie’s ears, half-muted by her heart, pounding and thumping like so many
limbs tumbling down the stairs. She gripped the edge of the prisoner’s dock and
stood.
“You are hereby sentenced to time
served. You will remain on probation for a period of three years from today’s
date.”
Mazie stared at the judge. Three
years. She could do that. Probation. Wait, what?
She found Norman’s face, alight
with a toothy smile. He looked like he might vault the pony wall between them. Behind
him, Ariel’s eyes were squeezed shut and her shoulders shook.
“Mrs. Reynolds, do you understand
this sentence?”
Mazie faced the judge. “Yes, your
honour.” No, not really.
“Sheriff, please remove Mrs.
Reynolds’ shackles.”
The sheriff opened the door of the
prisoner’s dock and unlocked her handcuffs. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Way to go, Mazie,” he said under his breath as he guided her free of the box.
She was free? Why wouldn’t her feet
move?
“Mazie?”
She turned to find the judge
smiling.
“You’re free to go.”
Norman pushed through the gate that
separated the public from the court officials, took Ariel by the hand and
jogged to Mazie. Ariel fell into her mother’s arms.
Mazie’s head spun with the smell of
strawberries and the feel of Ariel’s sweet tears soaking into her blouse.
“Mazie?” Norman put one arm around her
shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “Come on, baby. Let’s get out of
here.”
Mazie closed her eyes to find
Cullen looming behind the lids. She opened them to Norman’s kind, smiling face.
Her new reality. She touched his cheek. “I love you,” she whispered. “But don’t
ever call me baby.”
**END**
Thank you for taking the time to read
Mazie Baby
.
If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short
review. Word of mouth is an author’s best advertising tool.
Nothing I do is possible without
the love and support of my children. Thank you, Brynn and Charlie, for being so
wonderful, so funny, so sarcastic. And for cooking me dinner and bringing me
beer when I am locked in my writing cave (a.k.a, a dark corner of my bedroom).
A million thanks to my dear systir,
Carolyn Frayn
, for the gorgeous and
very personal cover for
Mazie Baby
. She found the strength to create
beauty while enduring the pain of
chemotherapy
,
and used my own baby girl, Brynn, as a model for Mazie. This will always be my
favourite cover. ♥
Many thanks to my brother, John
Frayn, for his insights to all things police-related and for reading an advance
copy. To Britta Kristensen, Crown Prosecutor, for educating me on the nuances
of murder trials and ensuring the courtroom details of this story rang true
(especially since the first draft stank of my obsession with American crime
drama). And thanks to Kelly Killick-Smit for introducing me to Britta! Thanks
to Tracy Todd for her enviable eagle eye and enduring sweet ways, and to Shauna
Cooper for her first-hand recollections of trials in Calgary.
Countless thanks to my wonderful
editor,
Scott Morgan
, for not one, but
two full edits. He makes me a better writer, and I’m glad I found him.
Bean counter by day, novelist by
night - Julie Frayn is the author of
Mazie Baby
,
Suicide City (a Love
Story)
(winner of double gold medals in the Authorsdb.com 2013 cover
contest),
It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead
(winner of the BigAl’s Books
and Pals 2014 Readers’ Choice Award for women’s fiction), and
A Trilogy of
Unrelated Shorts
(always free on Smashwords.com).
Julie's fourth novel will tell the
fictionalized story of her parents’ love affair.
The Orphan and the Rose
will hit the virtual shelves in 2015.
Julie pens short stories and writes
for her blog,
www.juliefrayn.com
, as
mental floss between novels. She is mother to two wonderful adults, and keeps a
roof over their heads by working as Chief Financial Officer for the largest
living history museum in Canada.
Praise for Julie Frayn’s fiction
It Isn’t Cheating if He’s Dead:
“Jemima, struggling to understand
how she lost her fiancé and trying to make sense of her life after his death,
is so utterly human that she blooms off the page.” ~ Laurie Boris
“Jemima Stone, Jem for short, is one
those characters I found myself caring about almost immediately. She isn’t
without faults (who among us is?), but she also has a way of taking a negative
and turning it positive, which is a quality we could all emulate.” ~ BigAl’s
Books & Pals
Suicide City, a Love Story:
“Suicide City is gritty,
unrelenting, tragic, desperate, sad, heart-warming, heart-breaking, and
gut-wrenching.” ~ Sean P. Farley
“Hands down, the best ending line
of any book I've read in the thirty-one years I've been a reader. Please, do
not miss this exceptional novel!” ~ Amber Jerome Norrgard
A Trilogy of Unrelated Shorts:
“
These
stories are difficult to read, powerfully written, emotionally draining and
awesome. Frayn’s writing is flawless. There is nothing with which I can find
fault. Frayn gives us a glimpse into a world that might seem bleak but is not
without heroes.” ~ Rabid Readers Reviews
Website/Blog:
www.juliefrayn.com
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/juliefrayn
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/juliebirdfrayn
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Julie-Frayn/e/B00BH47C3G