Page 3 of Jury Woman, Part 4 of 6

I was still a member of the jury… for now.

October 3, Saturday

WARREN WAS already on the screen when I sat down, which hadn't happened once in three months of these calls. Heidi sat at his elbow on the living room sofa, knees pressed together, twisting a ring around her finger. She didn't smile at me this time. She looked like someone waiting for news outside an emergency room.

Deputy Wells took his post by the door. After yesterday, I couldn't pretend he was part of the furniture anymore.

"How's Lily?" I asked.

Warren's nostrils flared. "How do you think she is? She's traumatized, Isabel. All she wanted was for her mother to come home. And what does she get instead? A police detective and a United States Marshal standing in the living room."

"Warren—"

"She cried for an hour after they left." He put an arm around Heidi's shoulder. "And Heidi's traumatized, too."

I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I'd regret. Then I registered what they were wearing. Warren had on his charcoal blazer with a pocket square the color of merlot. Heidi wore emerald silk, her hair swept into a glossy twist, diamond studs winking at her ears. They didn't look like a family in the midst of a crisis.

"You've done it again," Warren said. "Every time this family starts to find its footing, you yank the rug out."

"I wasn't the one who broke the rules. Lily was."

"She's a teenager!" His voice distorted through the speaker, and Heidi flinched. "Teenagers are supposed to break the rules!"

Behind me, the carpet whispered as Deputy Wells shifted his weight. I pressed my palms flat against the table.

"We really need to change the subject," I said. "How's Josh?"

Some of the air went out of Warren. "Couldn't tell you. He never comes out of his room."

"What about soccer?"

"He still goes to the games. The coach never puts him in anymore." He shrugged. "So I told him he might as well quit."

I stared at him. "Warren, that's the worst thing you could've told him."

"I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances." He leaned toward the camera. "The circumstances you put us all in."

Heidi touched his wrist and tipped her head toward her watch—gold, of course.

"We have to go," Warren said. "We have reservations at Nam Moon."

The Vietnamese place in town the food critics couldn't stop raving about. Two years ago I'd clipped the review and stuck it to the refrigerator under a magnet shaped like a peach. I'd suggested it for our anniversary, then for his birthday, then on some random Friday when I simply wanted to put on a dress and eat something I hadn't cooked. Every time, he'd said the drive wasn't worth the trouble.

I told myself not to say it. I said it anyway. "I thought you didn't like Vietnamese food."

"Heidi changed my mind." He was already reaching for the keyboard. "Bye, Isabel."

The call blinked out, leaving me facing the laptop's stock wallpaper, a turquoise lagoon none of us would ever stand beside.

I closed the lid and walked out. My feet dragged across the patterned carpet as if I were wading through wet sand. Somewhere between the conference room and the elevator, I'd become the woman who traumatized her daughter, frightened her ex's girlfriend, and ruined her son's soccer season.

Deputy Wells walked beside me, nearer than he normally did. At my door, he paused.

"For what it's worth," he said quietly, "your daughter didn't seem traumatized to me. She seemed truly regretful and she handled herself well under the circumstances."

I looked up at him. Nothing in his face changed, but he didn't look away, either.

"Thank you," I said, and meant it more than he could possibly know.