SUNDAY MORNINGin a suburb is its own particular kind of theater, on full display as I walked Tucker.
Families emerged in their church clothes or hiking togs to do the things intact families do on Sundays in July. Tucker sniffed along the sidewalk while I watched a jam-packed minivan pull away from the Hendersons' and nursed unsettling envy.
We used to do that. Not always church—Warren was a reluctant churchgoer at best—but the piling in, the having of a plan, the general sense of going somewhere together. Back when he'd been a floor salesman still proving himself, when we'd lived in the smaller house on Birchwood Lane, we'd spent Sundays piling into our one good car and going. Farmers markets. State parks. Matinees where Josh sat in Warren's lap because he was still small enough to. Lily narrating the whole drive from the back seat because she'd come out of the womb with a microphone.
Back then it had felt like a team. Warren building something, me building the framework around it so he could. Both of us pulling in the same direction, which—I understood now, with the forensic clarity of hindsight—is a very different thing from building something together.
Then headquarters decided the dealership couldn't afford to be closed on Sundays. Then the promotions came and the bigger house and the longer hours. Then the kids hit their teens. And slowly, without anyone calling a meeting about it, they'd all moved in different directions. I'd been standing still the whole time in the kitchen and just hadn't noticed until it was empty.
Tucker finished his investigation of the sidewalk and we headed home.
I channeled my feelings into cooking. This is a thing I do.
Mothers everywhere know the surest way to rouse a sleeping household is to fry bacon.
Within minutes of the first strips hitting the pan, Lily appeared in a sleep shirt. Josh materialized behind her, hair tousled.
"Is that bacon?" Lily asked.
"It is." I gave her a pointed look. "Andfirmscrambled eggs."
They settled at the counter. I set heaping plates in front of them, poured orange juice, felt momentarily, completely useful. The kitchen had that warm, purposeful hum that used to be its default setting.
"Hey," I said, going for casual. "What if we caught a matinee this afternoon? That new animated one looks fun."
They stared at me, horrified.
"Or," I pressed on, "we could do game night. We haven't played Catan in forever."
Lily and Josh looked at each other and exchanged a full conversation in one glance.
"We have stuff," Lily said, already reaching for more bacon.
"Yeah, stuff," Josh confirmed.
"Scott'll be here any minute."
"They're giving me a ride to the skatepark."
A horn beep and ten minutes later, they were gone.
I stood in the kitchen and finished the uneaten bacon. I had a hundred things to do—laundry, cleaning… always cleaning. I needed to scour my closet for appropriate outfits for court the next couple of days—I didn't see my time in the jury pool lasting longer than that. I should be checking job postings online to apply for after my inevitable dismissal. I considered weeding the landscape beds, but the temperature was already in the nineties.
So after loading the dishwasher, I settled in the living room in my favorite chair next to the window, with Tucker at my feet and picked up my knitting project.
Knit, knit, purl.
I was the woman who kept knitting while her life unraveled.
July 13, Monday
INDIVIDUAL VOIRdire, it turned out, was the legal system's version of a waiting room where you weren't sure if the doctor was going to tell you good news or bad news, and the magazines were from 2019.
The remaining prospective jurors had been redistributed in the courtroom, spread out evenly over the benches in the gallery. Again, I sat near the back due to my juror number.
"Good morning," Judge Arnold boomed into his microphone. "Thank you again for being here. As I told you on Friday, today will be a day when we'll get to know each of you a little better. When your juror number is called, please proceed to the front of the courtroom and take a seat in the witness stand. I'll ask you questions. There's nothing to be nervous about, just answer to the best of your ability. If you don't want to answer a question, that's okay, too."
Robert Blackthorne sat with his attorneys. I was mildly surprised he was allowed to hear the questioning but recalled from a distant government class that the defendant has as right to be present during jury selection.
