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I slap my cheeks with a little extra vigor this time, enough to put more color in them without more makeup.
I walk out of there having decided, and not for the first time, that whoever it was that said what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger was full of it.
Seventy-Nine
“THE DEFENSE CALLS CLAIRE JACOBSONto the stand, Your Honor,” I say five minutes later.
She is back in the front row, her old seat, behind her husband and me. She ignores her husband as she makes her way past our table, slowing just barely enough to shoot a look at me that makes me want to check to see if she’s the one who’s drawn blood.
Rob Jacobson sees the look, leans over, and whispers to me, “Now you know how I feel.”
Claire Jacobson is sworn in. As I approach the stand, I ask her, for the record, to state her relationship with my client.
“I’m his wife.”
There is no heavy lifting after that for either one of us; it’s all strictly boilerplate stuff as I ask her how long they’ve been married, what kind of father Rob Jacobson has been to their children, her role in the community along with his. All bullshit legal foreplay.
“Would it be fair to say, Mrs. Jacobson, that until your husband was charged with these crimes, both of you were regarded as pillars of the community?”
“I believe that’s fair.”
“And wouldn’t it be equally fair to say that you, more than anybody else, were shocked when he was charged with this hideous crime?”
“I was.”
“Because you know him.”
I am afraid, in the moment, that she might say that she thought she knew him.
But she does not.
“Yes,” she says.
“So I can only imagine what this experience has been like for you. Not just you but your children, their father locked up for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Objection,” Kevin Ahearn says, almost wearily. “Counsel sounds as if she’s putting a fact into the record, as opposed to her opinion.”
“Sustained,” Judge Prentice says. “Save it for your summation, Ms. Smith.”
“I apologize, Your Honor. It’s just that I believe so passionately in my client’s innocence.”
“Objection,” Ahearn says again. “Still editorializing, Your Honor.”
“Sustained. Ms. Smith, how about we focus on your witness and not any and all of your deeply held beliefs.”
“Noted.”
I turn back to Claire Jacobson.
“Mrs. Jacobson. We were talking about how difficult these charges against your husband, this entire process, has been for you and your children.”
“Not as hard as it’s been on Rob, of course.”
His first name. Nice touch. As if she’s actually on his side. And mine.
“Of course.”
“At least the children and I are able to live our normal lives,” she says.
