I opened the door. Warren stood on the front step wearing his expensive smart glasses, an overly snug T-shirt, and short shorts.
"I rang the bell," he said, gesturing. "You happy?"
"The kids are getting their things."
"You still doing that jury thing?"
"Yes. And if I get selected, you'll need to take care of the kids."
He looked at me the way he looks at check engine lights—acknowledging their existence without accepting personal responsibility for them. "You're not going to be selected, Isabel."
"You don't know that."
"I know how these things work." He made a vague gesture that managed to encompass, in one motion, my bobbed hair, my Sunday clothes, and the general trajectory of my last decade. "They're keeping you around so they can say they considered the suburban Mom demographic, then they'll cut you loose."
Before I could respond, my eyes went past him.
His red convertible was in the driveway. In the passenger seat sat a woman I recognized from a photo a frenemy had forwarded me at the worst possible moment. Heidi Hoyt sported clouds of highlighted hair, sunglasses, and a flowy cover-up. She spotted me looking, lifted one hand, and waved.
My hand went up automatically and waved back, then I wanted to cut it off.
I turned back to Warren. "Do you think it's a good idea—her being there with the kids?"
"Lighten up, Isabel."
Two backpacks came barreling past me from the hallway. No goodbye. The kind of exit that parts around you like water around a rock.
Warren smirked, turned, and walked back to his car.
Numb, I stood in the doorway until the convertible was out of sight.
July 20, Monday
THE JURYpool had dropped to about seventy-five, and the room had the compressed, purposeful quality of something approaching a conclusion.
I was knitting a new pair of knockers in a lovely shade of creamed coffee.
The attorneys were still conferring, still producing documents, still doing whatever billable thing they'd been doing for two weeks, but the energy had tightened. Both tables seemed to know we were near the end of the list, and the end of the list had consequences.
When my number was called, I made my way to the witness stand and settled into the seat.
The judge looked at me over his glasses in the way I'd come to recognize as his version of a friendly hello.
"Juror 247, you indicated you have two teenage children living in your home. Who would provide care for them during a six-month trial?"
"Their father has joint custody, so he'd take on more of that responsibility. My sister lives in Atlanta and would step in if needed." I paused, then decided the oath required honesty in both directions. "My kids are sixteen and fourteen. They're not helpless, they just behave as if they are."
A low laugh passed over the gallery.
"Would your absence create a hardship for your family?"
I thought about the texts I'd already received that morning.
mom where are you?
i can't find my good jeans
tucker has the poops
