Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

“Why weren’t you?”

“I was working. Hard,” Alex said.

“Lots of parents work hard-”

“But I’m good at being a judge. And lousy at being a mother.” Alex covered her mouth with her hand, but it was too late to take back the truth, which coiled on the bar in front of her, poisonous. What had she been thinking, confessing that to someone when she could barely admit it to herself? She might as well have drawn a bull’s-eye on her Achilles’ heel.

“Maybe you should try talking to Josie the way you talk to the people who come into your court, then,” Patrick suggested.

“She hates it when I act like a lawyer. Besides, I hardly talk in court. Mostly, I listen.”

“Well, Your Honor,” Patrick said. “That might work, too.”

Once, when Josie had been a baby, Alex let her out of her sight long enough for Josie to climb up on a stool. From across the room, Alex watched in terror as Josie’s slight weight upset the balance. She couldn’t get there fast enough to keep Josie from falling; she didn’t want to yell out, because she was afraid that if she startled Josie, that would make her fall, too. So Alex had stood, waiting for an accident to happen.

But instead, Josie managed to perch herself on the stool; to stand up on its little disc seat; to reach the light switch she’d been heading for all along. Alex watched her flick the lights on and off, watched her face split with a smile every time she realized that her actions could transform the world.

“Since we’re not in court,” she said hesitantly, “I’d like it if you called me Alex.”

Patrick smiled. “And I’d like it if you called me Your Majesty King Kamehameha.”

Alex couldn’t help herself; she laughed.

“But if that’s too hard to remember, Patrick would be fine.” He reached for the coffeepot and poured some into her mug. “Free refills,” he said.

She watched him add sugar and cream, in the same quantities that she’d used for her first cup. He was a detective; his job was to notice details. But Alex thought that probably wasn’t what made him such a good cop. It was that he had the capacity to use force, like any other police officer-but instead, he’d trap you with kindness.

That, Alex knew, was always more deadly.

It wasn’t something he’d put on his résumé, but Jordan was especially gifted at cutting the rug to Wiggles songs. His personal favorite was “Hot Potato,” but the one that really got Sam jazzed up was “Fruit Salad.” While Selena was upstairs taking a hot bath, Jordan put on the DVD-she was opposed to bombarding Sam with media, and didn’t want him to be able to spell D-O-RO-T-H-Y, as in Dinosaur, before he could even write his own name. Selena always wanted Jordan to be doing something else with the baby, like memorizing Shakespeare or solving differential equations-but Jordan was a big believer in letting the television do its job in turning one’s brain into porridge…at least long enough to get one good, silly tango session out of it.

Babies were always just the right weight, so that when you finally put them down, you felt like something was missing. “Fruit salad…yummy yummy!” Jordan crooned, whirling around until Sam opened his mouth and let a peal of giggles ribbon out.

The doorbell rang, and Jordan sashayed himself and his tiny partner through the entryway to answer it. Harmonizing-sort of-with Jeff, Murray, Greg, and Anthony in the background, Jordan opened the door. “Let’s make some fruit salad today,” he sang, and then he saw who was standing on his porch. “Judge Cormier!”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

He already knew that she’d recused herself from the case-that happy announcement had been passed down this afternoon. “No, that’s fine. Come on…in.” Jordan glanced back at the trail of toys that he and Sam had left in their wake (he had to clean those up before Selena came back downstairs, too). Kicking as many as he could behind the couch, he led the judge into his living room and switched off the DVD.

“This must be your son.”

“Yeah.” Jordan looked down at the baby, who was in the process of deciding whether or not to throw a fit now that the music had been turned off. “Sam.”

She reached out, letting Sam curl his hand around her forefinger. Sam could charm the pants off Hitler, probably, but seeing him only seemed to make Judge Cormier more agitated. “Why did you put my daughter on your witness list?”

Ah.

“Because,” Jordan said, “Josie and Peter used to be friends, and I may need her as a character witness.”

“They were friends ten years ago. Be honest. You did this to get me off the case.”

Jordan hefted Sam higher on his hip. “Your Honor, with all due respect, I’m not going to allow anyone to try this case for me. Especially not a judge who isn’t even involved in it anymore.”

He watched something flare behind her eyes. “Of course not,” she said tightly, and then she turned on her heel and walked out.

Ask a random kid today if she wants to be popular and she’ll tell you no, even if the truth is that if she was in a desert dying of thirst and had the choice between a glass of water and instant popularity, she’d probably choose the latter.

As soon as she heard the knock, Josie took her notebook and shoved it between the mattress and the box spring, which had to be the world’s lamest hiding spot.

Her mother stepped inside the bedroom, and for a second, Josie couldn’t put her finger on what wasn’t quite right. Then she figured it out: it wasn’t dark out yet. Usually by the time her mother got home from court, it was dinnertime-but now it was only 3:45; Josie had barely gotten home from school.

“I have to talk to you,” her mother said, sitting down beside her on the comforter. “I took myself off the case today.”

Josie stared at her. In her whole life, she’d never known her mother to back down from any legal challenge; plus, hadn’t they just had a conversation about the fact that she wasn’t recusing herself?

She felt that sick sinking that came when the teacher called on her and she hadn’t been paying attention. What had her mother found out that she hadn’t known days ago?

“What happened?” Josie asked, and she hoped her mother wasn’t paying attention enough to hear the way her voice was jumping all over the place.

“Well, that’s the other thing I need to talk to you about,” her mother said. “The defense put you on their witness list. They may ask you to go to court.”

“What?” Josie cried, and for just one moment, everything stopped: her breath, her heart, her courage. “I can’t go to court, Mom,” she said. “Don’t make me. Please…”

Her mother reached out for her, which was a good thing, because Josie was certain that at any second, she was going to simply vanish. Sublimation, she thought, the act of going from solid to vapor. And then she realized that this term was one she’d studied for the science test she’d never had because of everything else that had happened.

“I’ve been talking to the detective, and I know you don’t remember anything. The only reason you’re even on that list is because you used to be friends with Peter a long, long time ago.”

Josie drew back. “Do you swear that I won’t have to go to court?”

Her mother hesitated. “Honey, I can’t-”

“You have to!”

“What if we go talk to the defense attorney?” her mother said.

“What good would that do?”

“Well, if he sees how upset this is making you, he might think twice about using you as a witness at all.”

Josie lay down on her bed. For a few moments, her mother stroked her hair. Josie thought she heard her whisper I’m sorry, and then she got up and closed the door behind her.