Cliff and Jubilee were sitting with Denny and Mary, Cliff’s parents on the other side of her and Royal and Cliff’s spine was straighter than steel.
Famke was called to the stand as the first witness for the prosecution. After going through the spiel about telling the truth and reminding her she was under oath, the lawyer smiled gently.
“Ms. Noor, can you tell me how it was you were first introduced to Mindy and Prince Robinson?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “My brother was at the Saint Mary’s hospital, in the specialized children’s ward undergoing cancer treatments ahead of a surgery. They were trying to reduce the size of his tumor with radiation and chemotherapy ahead of the surgery. I spent a lot of my time at the hospital, and I was in the cafeteria having a cup of coffee. Mindy and Prince were a couple of tables over arguing a so I’d noticed them. I didn’t pay them much attention until Mindy sat at my table.”
“Why did she sit there?”
“I overheard Prince demand he wanted her to try one more time before giving up. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but she was crying, and she got up and left the room saying she needed to use the washroom. When she came back, she accidentally sat at my table instead of the one she’d shared with Prince. Prince wasn’t at his table because he was at the counter buying another coffee.”
“You remember it very clearly.”
“Yes. I was annoyed to be honest. I didn’t know what the fight was about but what I heard was a woman who said she couldn’t do it anymore and a man who asked her what it would cost him to convince her to try again.”
“He specifically said, ‘what will it cost me to get you to try one more time? A bigger house? The new car you want? Name it.’ My very first opinion of him was he was insensitive.”
“Mindy introduced herself as Mindy Brown. Prince didn’t correct her.”
She took a breath, “um, well, Prince was constantly on the phone or leaving the cafeteria to talk on the phone over the next several weeks and she and I would sit and chat alone. We commiserated over the maternal figures in our lives.”
“How?”
“She vented a lot about her mother-in-law. I vented about my aunt who I fought for custody of Bram. We both felt alone.”
“Speculation,” Imani’s lawyer called out. “She can’t know the woman felt alone.”
“More than once,” she shrugged. “She told me she felt alone, angry, pressured.”
“Your opinion of Prince. Did it change because he paid Bram’s medical bills?”
“No. In fact I was angry about it. He overstepped but, I wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse. The billing lady sought me out in the cafeteria to let me know the cheque hadn’t cleared and treatments could cease. He passed her his credit card.”
“Not two weeks.” She admitted. “About three and a half weeks from the date I’d met them.”
“Not a lot of time to ask someone for such a huge imposition. Why did you agree?”
She took a deep breath. “My opinion from the time my parents passed away was I was not going to have children. My father was a child psychologist working with the state and I’d heard more than my fair share of stories about kids who came from homes where finances were an issue. I never wanted to bring a kid into it. They assured me I would always be part of the child’s life as an auntie, and I would be able to watch her grow up. I figured it was likely my only opportunity to carry a child and knowing it was going to a woman like Mindy who so desperately wanted to give her husband a family, I felt I was at peace with the decision.”
“When did this change? When were you no longer at peace with your choice?”
“Three weeks before I delivered Precious, I came home from the hospital after an especially brutal visit with Bram. It was a difficult day all around. I got to the house, and she was angry with me.”
“The house they told you they bought as their dream home.”
“Yes.”
“Why was sheangry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did it get better? Did she come around?”
“I was worried about Prince’s reactions actually. Not Mindy’s.”
“Why?”
“I understood why she was upset or at least I thought I did so I tried to be patient. On the other hand, he was cold to her. There was no reassurances or affirmations from him to her. It reminded me of the first time I’d met them when he offered her a car to get pregnant one more time. He was still nice to me, I can’t say he wasn’t but with her, he was short-tempered and insulting. He went so far during one argument to say they wouldn’t have been in this situation if she hadn’t been defective. It was the first time I wondered if I hadn’t made a huge mistake.”
“Did youtalk to anyone?”
“Did he ever apologize for kissing you?”
“No. We never spoke of it again.”
“The day you birthedPrecious. Run us through what happened?”
“I went back to my own apartment to pack my overnight bag for the hospital. I mean, it was already packed at the house, but I wanted a few things from my place to bring with me. Mindy was with me with her little camera. She would print pictures all the time and shewas taking my picture in my kitchen. She told me to smile, and my water broke. We went from giggling in the kitchen to full on panic.”
“Why?”
“My guess would be tomake her refuse to come to the hospital.”
Before the opposing counsel could object, he pushed quickly, “Had this happened before?”
“A few times she missed prenatal assessments because they would argue, and she would say she felt sick.”
“And this was the atmosphere on the way to the hospital?”
“Even in the hospital. When I was situated in the birthing suite, they were bickering about his baby versus their baby. Prince wanted to see the birth. Mindy insisted he not see my vagina. She wasn’t excited anymore. When she’d been in my apartment she was laughing and happy but in the birthing suite she was sullen, angry, as if she didn’t want to be there but was forced to be. Then it was time to push. Precious’s heart rate dropped, and my blood pressure bottomed out. It was chaos. Mindy made a comment about me dying. Prince told them to save me no matter the cost.”
“You. Not the baby?”
“Theytook her?”
“Yes.”
“They brought her home?”
“I assumed they brought her back to the house. I tried calling and texting and never heard from them. I went to the house when I was released from hospital, and they were gone. The house, I found out, was a rental. It was all lies. I was pretty scared. At that point, all I wanted to know was she was okay.”
“Precious, you mean?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and then wiped a tear away. “I really missed her.”
Imani’s lawyer looked to her. “You said you didn’t have romantic feelings for Prince. This wasn’t true though, was it. In fact, his account to his mother and in all the letters he wrote, youshared a torrid love affair right while his wife was in the next room of the house they rented.”
Famke bristled, “I didn’t lie. We didn’t have an affair. I was rarely alone with Prince, other than for prenatal assessments. I spent far more time with Mindy than Prince. Are you going to accuse me of fooling around with her too?”
“She didn’t leave letters outlining her affection for you.”
“You know who also didn’t write letters outlining affection? Me. You know why? Because I didn’t love him like that.”
“He painteda different picture.”
“Did he?”
“I believe you had an affair and when push came to shove and he was forced to choose between you and his wife, he chose his wife, and it left you bitter. Did you threaten to keep the child from them, Famke?”
“No. Not once.”
“Yet, you maintain they stole her from you. You didn’t want her. You say yourself you never wanted to have children. Howdo you steal something from someone when they don’t want it?”
She locked eyes with him, willing herself to not snap at him for doing his job. “The minute I knew she was in danger, everything changed. Themoment I knew she was at risk, I realized how much I loved her and how much I wanted her. Her. Not Prince or Mindy or the pair of them but I wanted her. I wanted my little girl to be okay, to live and to be mine. It took almost losing her to realize how much I wanted to keep her.”
“Basically, it took you forty weeks to decide you wanted something to which you were not entitled. You hadn’t wanted her even momentarily in all that time yet the minute your lover and his wife were ready to leave you, you wanted to take the one thing which would have held them together.”
“That’s nottrue!”
“Isn’t it? No furtherquestions.”