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“Kate, Kate! What is your response to Madeleine Cooper’s testimony this afternoon, particularly her assertion that you are just as much to blame for Rosie’s illness? Kate? Kate, do you think that Madeleine Cooper has a point? Did your own decision regarding Rosie’s vaccination—”
“Please, I just want to go home now. My daughter is waiting...”
“Let us past, please! It’s been a long enough week.”
“Kate, like Madeleine said in court, if you could go back in time and change things, would you alter any of the choices you made?”
“The very idea is nonsense, of course. But if I could go back in time, it would be to the dinosaur expo Rosie and I visited last Easter in the RDS, the last time I saw my daughter truly healthy and happy.”
“But, Kate...”
“Thank you. Please...we need to go. As Kate’s representative, I’ll be more than happy to make a full statement when all of this is over.”
* * *
A complete and utter disaster.
Madeleine still couldn’t get over just how badly her performance on the witness stand had turned out to be. How had she ever thought it would be a good idea?
She had known deep down that the damning blog post had been out there somewhere, but still, she’d been rattled by it. And then if that cocky barrister hadn’t done enough in getting her worked up by throwing her words back in her face, he’d also succeeded in making her angry enough to try to defend herself by basically suggesting that Kate was just as much at fault for Rosie’s troubles.
She could only imagine what the judge, let alone the public, thought of that.
Case closed.
Far from coming across as rational and sympathetic, now she looked like the world’s most heartless woman. Her head ached with the reality of it all and she felt like throwing up. She couldn’t bring herself to watch any news coverage of the trial or listen to what the talking heads on TV were saying; Madeleine already knew that they were going to lose and that when the trial resumed next week, the judge was sure to rule against them.
Their lives as they knew it were over. She and Tom were going to have to completely remake themselves—her especially. Now there was no going back to blogging, would definitely be no more radio or TV segments. All of that was over, for good. All her hard work undone. Publishing deal withdrawn, advertising pulled.
Nothing left of Mad Mum but a collection of blog posts that now, in hindsight, seemed trite and naive.
And when she considered the bigger problems they were about to have financially, as well as personally—after today Tom hadn’t known what to say to her—her head swam with anxiety.
Looking around her already scrupulously clean kitchen, Madeleine needed something to do. The kids were in bed and Tom had been holed up in his office since they got back from court. He said he had some work to catch up on, but Madeleine knew better. Likely her husband was examining their bank statements, checking their insurance limits and protections. Thanks to his wife’s performance that afternoon, Tom had no choice to concede that however spurious Kate O’Hara’s claims might have been, it wouldn’t be long before the judge cleaned them out and handed their life savings over to her.
How were they going to survive this? Madeleine wondered as she made her way upstairs to her office. Frankly, she had no idea, but she knew what she could do. In fact, it was something that had been on her mind for a while now. She had been putting it off over the last year in case things miraculously turned in their favor.
Tonight, though, seemed like a fitting time to check this last task off her to-do list.
It was time to delete her website and all of her social media pages.
Mad Mum was dead in the water.
Sitting down at her desk with a heavy heart, Madeleine recounted all the happy times she had spent chronicling her life as a parent, from the early days of Jake’s and Clara’s babyhood to the trials of the toddler years, and now their school-going exploits. It was a montage of sorts, all this detailing of her children’s comings and goings through her eyes, and logging their adventures as a family. She had the sudden thought then that maybe she should just unpublish it, rather than delete everything in its entirety.
After all, weren’t these a big part of her family memories?
No, she thought, no sense in looking back. Already Madeleine knew that going forward, her life, would be divided into two parts: Before the Trial and After the Trial.
And, in truth, it would probably do her sanity some good if she did just delete all of this stuff. She would then also be spared the temptation to go online and read all the angry, judgmental opinions complete strangers seemed so dedicated in making known to her. The hate mail was something that she wouldn’t miss.
Not in the least.
Logging on to her website, she pulled up the email platform that held all communications coming through the Mad Mum contact form. As expected, there were endless messages from angry people who felt it necessary to offer commentary on her testimony that day. And, as always, her parenting choices.
She didn’t read any of them. Madeleine simply clicked delete as she made her way down the list, emptying the inbox as quickly as she could.
But all of a sudden, one email in particular caught her eye. It had been flagged as of high importance and a little red flag sat next to the sender’s name. The email address didn’t ring any bells, but the subject line was enough to stop her in her tracks: Rosie O’Hara not your fault and I can prove it.
Curious, but wary that this blatantly intriguing subject line was simply another tactic to get her to open the message before cursing her out or worse, Madeleine prepared herself for a verbal—albeit virtual—assault.
Instead, she found a simple message from a City College student called Scott Ferguson.
Furrowing her brow, she felt like her synapses weren’t connecting fast enough. Was it just some medicine student who thought they had something interesting to say about the spread of infectious disease? Or perhaps another one of those flag-waving social-justice warriors so eager to attach themselves to their anti-vaccination stance, considering it a fashionable “cause.” Students seemed to be all over that kind of thing.
But, for some reason, and she truly couldn’t say why, Madeleine was intrigued. And there was no denying that their defense of this case was at rock bottom, so why not? If this kid had something to offer, be it “proof” or otherwise, how was it going to hurt at this stage?
Hitting reply to his email, she wrote, Thanks for your message. Intrigued by subject line. Pressing Send, Madeleine found herself shocked when a message popped back up in her email inbox not ten seconds later. Scott, whoever he was, was obviously online at that very moment.
At the end of the message, Scott offered his phone number for her to call. And within seconds of reading his message, Madeleine had him on the line.
I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch sooner, but I’ve had my head down studying and haven’t really been keeping up with current news events. But I’m pretty certain that your daughter didn’t infect that little girl with measles, and I think I can prove it.