Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

And then, finally, it was Alex’s turn to take the hot seat. She sat in the Executive Council office in the State House, fielding questions that ranged from What was the last book you read? to Who has the burden of proof in abuse and neglect cases? Most of the questions were substantive and academic, until she was thrown a curve.

Ms. Cormier, who has the right to judge someone else?

“Well,” she said. “That depends on whether you’re judging in a moral sense or a legal sense. Morally, no one has the right to judge anyone else. But legally, it’s not a right-it’s a responsibility.”

Following up on that, what is your position on firearms?

Alex hesitated. She was not a fan of guns. She didn’t let Josie watch anything on television that showed violence. She knew what happened when you put a gun in the hand of a troubled kid, or an angry husband, or a battered wife-she’d defended those clients too many times to dismiss that kind of catalytic reaction.

And yet.

She was in New Hampshire, a conservative state, in front of a group of Republicans who were terrified she would turn out to be a left-wing loose cannon. She would be presiding over communities where hunting was not only revered but necessary.

Alex took a sip of water. “Legally,” she said, “I am pro-firearms.”

“It’s crazy,” Alex said as she stood in Lacy’s kitchen. “You go to these robe sites online, and the models are all linebackers with breasts. The public perception of a female judge is one that looks like Bea Arthur.” She leaned into the hallway and yelled up the stairs. “Josie! I’m counting to ten and then we’re leaving!”

“Are there choices?”

“Yeah, black…or black.” Alex folded her arms. “You can get cotton and polyester or just polyester. You can get bell sleeves or gathered sleeves. They’re all hideous. What I really want is something with a waist.”

“Guess Vera Wang doesn’t do judicial,” Lacy said.

“Not quite.” She stuck her head into the hallway again. “Josie! Now!”

Lacy put down the dish towel she had been using to dry a pan and followed Alex into the hall. “Peter! Josie’s mother has to get home!” When there was no response from the children, Lacy headed upstairs. “They’re probably hiding.”

Alex followed her into Peter’s bedroom, where Lacy threw open the closet doors and checked beneath the bed. From there, they checked the bathroom, Joey’s room, and the master bedroom. It wasn’t until they went downstairs again that they heard voices coming from the basement. “It’s heavy,” Josie said.

Then Peter: “Here. Like this.”

Alex wound down the wooden stairway. Lacy’s basement was a one-hundred-year-old root cellar with a dirt floor and cobwebs strung like Christmas decorations. She homed in on the whispers coming from a corner of the basement, and there, behind a stack of boxes and a shelf full of home-canned jelly, was Josie, holding a rifle.

“Oh my God,” Alex breathed, and Josie swung around, pointing the barrel at her.

Lacy grabbed the gun and pulled it away. “Where did you get this?” she demanded, and only then did Peter and Josie seem to realize that something was wrong.

“Peter,” Josie said. “He had a key.”

“A key?” Alex cried. “To what?”

“The safe,” Lacy murmured. “He must have seen Lewis taking out a rifle when he went hunting last weekend.”

“My daughter has been coming over to your house for how long now, and you’ve got guns lying around?”

“They’re not lying around,” Lacy said. “They’re in a locked gun safe.”

“Which your five-year-old can open!”

“Lewis keeps the bullets-”

“Where?” Alex demanded. “Or should I just ask Peter?”

Lacy turned to Peter. “You know better. What on earth made you do this?”

“I just wanted to show it to her, Mom. She asked.”

Josie lifted a frightened face. “I did not.”

Alex turned. “So now your son’s blaming Josie-”

“Or your daughter’s lying,” Lacy countered.

They stared at each other, two friends who had separated along the fault lines of their children. Alex’s face was flushed. What if, she kept thinking. What if they’d been five minutes later? What if Josie had been hurt, killed? On the edges of this thought, another one ignited-the answers she’d given the Executive Council weeks before. Who has the right to judge someone else?

No one, she had said.

And yet, here she was doing it.

I am pro-firearms, she had told them.

Did that make her a hypocrite? Or was she only being a good mother?

Alex watched Lacy kneel beside her son and that was all it took to trip the switch: Josie’s steadfast loyalty to Peter suddenly seemed to only be a weight dragging her down. Maybe it was best for Josie if she started making other friends. Friends who did not get her called to the principal’s office and who placed rifles in her hand.

Alex anchored Josie to her side. “I think we ought to leave.”

“Yes,” Lacy agreed, her voice cool. “I think that would be best.”

They were in the frozen-food aisle when Josie began her tantrum. “I don’t like peas,” she whined.

“You don’t have to eat them.” Alex opened up the freezer door, letting the cold air kiss her cheek as she reached for the Green Giant vegetables.

“I want Oreos.”

“You’re not getting Oreos. You already had animal crackers.” Josie had been contentious for a week now, ever since the fiasco at Lacy’s house. Alex knew she couldn’t keep Josie from being with Peter at school during the day, but that didn’t mean she had to cultivate the relationship by allowing Josie to invite him over to play afterward.

Alex hauled a vat of Poland Spring water into her cart, then a bottle of wine. On second thought, she reached for another. “Do you want chicken or hamburger for dinner?”

“I want tofurkey.”

Alex started laughing. “Where did you hear about tofurkey?”

“Lacy made it for us for lunch. They’re like hot dogs but they’re better for you.”

Alex stepped forward as her number was called at the meat counter. “Can I have a half pound of boneless chicken breasts?”

“How come you get what you want, but I never get what I want?” Josie accused.

“Believe me, you’re not as deprived a child as you’d like to think you are.”

“I want an apple,” Josie announced.

Alex sighed. “Can we just please get through the grocery store without you saying I want again?”

Before Alex realized what her daughter was doing, Josie kicked out from the seat of the shopping cart, catching Alex hard in the middle. “I hate you!” Josie screamed. “You’re the worst mom in the whole world!”

Alex was uncomfortably aware of the other shoppers looking at her-the old woman feeling melons, the grocery employee with his fists full of fresh broccoli. Why did kids always fall apart in venues where you would be duly measured for your actions? “Josie,” she said, smiling through her teeth, “calm down.”

“I wish you were like Peter’s mother! I wish I could just go live with them.”

Alex grasped her shoulders, hard enough to make Josie burst into tears. “You listen to me,” she said in a heated undertone, and then she caught a distant whisper, and the word judge.

There had been an article in the local paper about her recent appointment to the district court; it ran with a photo. Alex had felt the spark of recognition when she passed people in the baking aisle and the cereal aisle: Oh, that’s her. But right now, she also felt the checks and balances of their stares as they watched her with Josie, waiting for her to act-well-judiciously.

She relaxed her grasp. “I know you’re tired,” Alex said, loud enough for the rest of the entire store to hear. “I know you want to go home. But you have to behave when we’re out in public.”