Page 16 of Jury Woman, Part 4 of 6

Instead, I rested my hand over the knitting bag in my lap, where Lily's pink gloves lay folded, and I held on.

October 16, Friday

BY THE time the marshals herded us into the private dining room, the whole panel moved like people coming off a double shift. Nobody said much. Dwayne didn't even crack his usual joke about the mystery casserole.

Tonight it was baked chicken, green beans, and a rice pilaf that had spent too long under a heat lamp. I didn't mind—it was still a treat to have food someone else prepared set in front of me. I carried my tray to the end of the long table and ended up across from Ashanti Doyle, who was pushing her green beans from one side of the plate to the other without eating any of them.

"Rough day," I said.

"Rough week." She set down her fork. "Kiara lost her first tooth yesterday. My mom FaceTimed so she could show me the hole, and I just sat there smiling at a phone screen while my baby held up a tooth in a Ziploc bag." Her voice caught. "Five years old. She wanted to know if the Tooth Fairy will be able to find her at my mom's house."

"Oh, Ashanti."

I thought of Lily's first tooth, which she'd lost biting into a caramel apple at the county fair, and of the dollar I'd tucked under her pillow at midnight with glitter sprinkled across the sheets. Warren had said I made too much of a fuss, but the look on Lily's face had been priceless.

"My daughter has her homecoming dance tonight," I said. "Right about now, actually." I glanced at the clock over the door. Seven-fifteen. She'd be taking pictures on somebody's front lawn by now, wearing the dress Elaine had helped her choose. "I'm not there to help with her hair."

Ashanti gave a long sigh. "Homecoming. Lord. I remember high school dances. The DJ played the same six songs all night, and my date stepped on my feet so many times I went home with bruised toes." She smiled. "Best night of my junior year, though."

I nodded. But the truth was, I didn't have a memory to trade back.

I'd never been to a high school dance. By sixteen, I was the one making sure Elaine had lunch money and clean socks, the one who knew which days Mom would be able to get out of bed and which days she wouldn't. Friday nights meant grocery lists and laundry. Other girls went to football games wrapped in their boyfriends' letter jackets. I heard about them on Monday in the hallway, the way you hear about a movie you'll never see.

No dances. No ballgames. No drama club, no yearbook staff. No boyfriend, either. Not one.

And then came college, and Warren.

He was the first boy who ever really looked at me. Tall, funny, so sure of himself that I borrowed his confidence the way I sometimes borrowed his sweatshirts. I'd poured everything I had into him from the very first day, as if I'd been saving it up for years and finally found somewhere to spend it. He became my boyfriend, my best friend, my social life, my family, all at once.

That was a lot to ask of a twenty-year-old boy. It was a lot to ask of anyone.

And I'd never actually asked. I'd expected. When he didn't deliver, I'd held it against him quietly for seventeen years.

I wasn't letting Warren off the hook. He'd earned plenty of my anger on his own. But maybe the whole weight of our marriage hadn't been his to carry. Maybe some of that load had been mine.

Somewhere under my breastbone, a knot I'd carried so long eased a tiny bit.

"Isabel?"

I blinked. Ashanti was watching me, her head tilted.

"I said, do you want your roll? You've been staring at it for a solid minute." She raised an eyebrow. "You seem a million miles away."

"Not miles." I passed her the roll. "A million memories."

October 17, Saturday

WARREN ANSWERED from the kitchen with his car keys already hooked on one finger. He was standing, not sitting, and the laptop sat on the counter at such an angle that I mostly got his chin and the underside of the cabinets. Behind him, the coffeemaker hissed and sputtered. Nothing else in the house made a sound.

"Is everyone still asleep?" I asked.

"Heidi and the kids, yeah." His eyes flicked to the microwave clock. "Make it fast, okay?"

I'd been awake since dawn, picturing Lily in her dress fingering the corsage Scott had brought her, and Elaine snapping photos on the front steps. "Did Lily have a good time at the dance?"

"She didn't go."

For a second I thought the connection had frozen. "What do you mean, she didn't go?"