We look at each other for a moment, in complete accord. "What's the part you hate most about a trial?"
"Now. Waiting for the jury to come back." Fisher exhales deeply. "I always have to calm down the client, who only wants a prediction about the outcome, and no one can predict that. You prosecutors are lucky; you just win or lose, and you don't have to reassure someone that he's not going to go to prison for the rest of his life when you know perfectly well that he ..." He breaks off, because all the color has drained from my face. "Well. Anyway. You know that no one can guess a jury's outcome."
When I don't look particularly encouraged, he asks, "What's the hardest part for you?"
"Right before the state rests, because that's the last chance I have to make sure I got all the evidence in and that I did it right. Once I say those three words ... I know I'm going to find out whether or not I screwed up."
Fisher meets my eye. "Nina," he says gently, "the state rests."
I lay on my side on an alphabet rug on the playroom floor, jamming the foot of a penguin into its wooden slot. "If I do this penguin puzzle one more time," I say, "I will save the jury some trouble and hang myself."
Caleb looks up from where he is sitting with Nathaniel, sorting multicolored plastic teddy bears. "I want to go outside," Nathaniel whines.
"We can't, buddy. We're waiting for some important news for Mommy."
"But I want to!" Nathaniel kicks the table, hard.
"Maybe in a little while." Caleb hands him a batch of bears. "Here, take some more."
"No!" With one arm, Nathaniel swipes the entire tray off the table. The sorting containers bounce and roll into the block area; the plastic bears scatter to all four corners of the room. The resulting clatter rings inside my head, in the empty spot where I am trying so hard to think of absolutely nothing.
I get to my feet, grab my son by the shoulders, and shake him. "You do not throw toys! You will pick up every last one of these, Nathaniel, and I mean it!"
Nathaniel, now, is sobbing at the top of his lungs. Caleb, tight-faced, turns on me too. "Just because you're at the end of your rope, Nina, doesn't mean that you-"
" 'Scuse me."
The voice at the door makes all three of us turn. A bailiff leans in, nods at us. "The jury's coming in,"
he says.
"It's not a verdict," Fisher whispers to me minutes later.
"How do you know?"
"Because the bailiff would have said so ... not just that the jury was back."
I draw back, dubious. "Bailiffs never tell me anything."
"Trust me."
I wet my lips. "Then why are we here?"
"I don't know," Fisher admits, and we both turn our attention to the judge.
He sits at the bench, looking overjoyed to have finally reached the end of this debacle. "Mr.
Foreperson," Judge Neal asks, "has the jury reached a verdict?"
A man in the front row of the jury box stands up. He takes off his baseball cap and tucks it under his arm, then clears his throat. "Your Honor, we've been trying, but we can't seem to get together on this.
There's some of us that-"
"Hold on, Mr. Foreperson, don't say any more. Have you deliberated about this case and have you taken a vote to see what every juror's position is on the issue of guilt or innocence?"
"We've done it a bunch of times, but it keeps coming back to a few that won't change their minds."
The judge looks at Fisher, and then at Quentin. "Counsel, approach."
