“No,” Alex said. “I’m all set.”

He left her in chambers, which were freezing cold. She adjusted the thermostat and pulled her robe out of her briefcase to dress. There was an adjoining bathroom; Alex stepped inside to scrutinize herself. She looked fair. Commanding.

And maybe a little like a choirgirl.

She sat down at the desk and immediately thought of her father. Look at me, Daddy, she thought, although by now he was in a place where he couldn’t hear her. She could remember dozens of cases he’d tried; he’d come home and tell her about them over dinner. What she couldn’t remember were the moments when he wasn’t a judge and was just her father.

Alex scanned the files she needed for that morning’s run of arraignments. Then she looked at her watch. She still had forty-five minutes before court went into session; it was her own damn fault for being so nervous that she’d gotten here too early. She stood up, stretched. She could do cartwheels in this room, it was that big.

But she wouldn’t, because judges didn’t do that.

Tentatively, she opened the door to the hall, and immediately Ishmael materialized. “Your Honor? What can I do for you?”

“Coffee,” Alex said. “That would be nice.”

Ishmael jumped on this request so fast that Alex realized if she asked him to go out and buy a gift for Josie’s birthday, he would have it wrapped and on her desk by noon. She followed him into the lounge, one shared by attorneys and other judges, and walked toward the coffeemaker. Immediately, a young attorney fell back. “You go right ahead, Your Honor,” she said, giving up her place in line.

Alex reached for a paper cup. She’d have to remember to bring a mug to leave in chambers. Then again, since her position was a rotating one that would take her through Laconia, Concord, Keene, Nashua, Rochester, Milford, Jaffrey, Peterborough, Grafton, and Coos, depending on what day of the week it was, she’d have to find a lot of coffee mugs. She pushed down on the thermal coffee dispenser, only to have it whistle and hiss-empty. Without even thinking about it, she reached for a filter to make a fresh pot.

“Your Honor, you don’t have to do that,” the attorney said, clearly embarrassed on Alex’s behalf. She took the filter out of her hand and started to make the coffee.

Alex stared at the lawyer. She wondered if anyone would ever call her Alex again, or if she should just have her name officially changed to Your Honor. She wondered if anyone would have the guts to tell her if she had toilet paper hanging off her shoe as she walked down the hall, or if she had spinach in her teeth. It was a strange feeling to be scrutinized so carefully and to know all the same that no one would ever dare to tell her to her face that something was wrong.

The lawyer brought her the maiden cup of fresh coffee. “I wasn’t sure how you liked it, Your Honor,” she said, offering sugar and creamer cups.

“This is fine,” Alex said, but as she reached for the cup, her bell sleeve caught the edge of the Styrofoam, and the coffee spilled.

Smooth, Alex, she thought.

“Oh, gosh,” the lawyer said. “I’m sorry!”

Why are you sorry, Alex wondered, when it was my fault? The girl was already setting out napkins to clean up the mess, so Alex stripped off her gown to clean it. For one giddy moment she thought about not stopping there-disrobing completely, down to her bra and panties, and parading through the courthouse like the Emperor in the fairy tale. Isn’t my gown beautiful? she’d say, and she would listen to everyone answer: Oh, yes, Your Honor.

She rinsed the sleeve off in the sink and wrung it dry. Then, still carrying her robe, she started back to chambers. But the thought of sitting there for another half hour, alone, was too depressing, so instead Alex began to wander the halls of the Keene courthouse. She took turns she’d never taken before and wound up at a basement door that led to a loading zone.

Outside, she found a woman dressed in the green jumpsuit of a groundskeeper, smoking a cigarette. The air was full of winter, and frost glittered on the asphalt like broken glass. Alex wrapped her arms around herself-it was quite possibly even colder out here than in chambers-and nodded at the stranger. “Hi,” she said.

“Hey.” The woman exhaled a stream of smoke. “I haven’t seen you around here before. What’s your name?”

“Alex.”

“I’m Liz. I’m the whole property maintenance department.” She grinned. “So where do you work in the courthouse?”

Alex fumbled in her pocket for a box of Tic Tacs-not that she wanted or needed a mint, but because she wanted to buy some time before this conversation came to a screeching halt. “Um,” she said, “I’m the judge.”

Immediately, Liz’s face fell, and she stepped back, uncomfortable.

“You know, I hate telling you that, because it was so nice the way you just struck up a conversation with me. No one else around here will do that and it’s…well, it’s a little lonely.” Alex hesitated. “Could you maybe forget that I’m the judge?”

Liz ground out the cigarette beneath her boot. “Depends.”

Alex nodded. She turned the small plastic box of mints over in her palm; they rattled like music. “You want a Tic Tac?”

After a moment, Liz held out her hand. “Sure, Alex,” she said, and she smiled.

Peter had taken to wandering his own home like a ghost. He was grounded, which had something to do with the fact that Josie didn’t come over anymore, even though they used to see each other after school three or four times a week. Joey didn’t want to play with him-he was always off at soccer practice or playing a computer game where you had to drive really fast around a racetrack that was bent like a paper clip-which meant that Peter, officially, had nothing to do.

One evening after dinner, he heard rustling in the basement. He hadn’t been down there since his mother had found him with Josie and the gun, but now he was drawn like a moth to the light over his father’s workbench. His father sat on a stool in front of it, holding the very gun that had gotten Peter into so much trouble.

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for bed?” his father asked.

“I’m not tired.” He watched his father’s hands run down the swan neck of the rifle.

“Pretty, isn’t it? It’s a Remington 721. A thirty-ought-six.” Peter’s father turned to him. “Want to help me clean it?”

Peter instinctively glanced toward the stairs, where his mother was washing dishes from dinner.

“The way I figure it, Peter, if you’re so interested in guns, you need to learn how to respect them. Better safe than sorry, right? Even your mom can’t argue with that.” He cradled the gun in his lap. “A gun is a very, very dangerous thing, but what makes it so dangerous is that most people don’t really understand how it works. And once you do, it’s just a tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver, and it doesn’t do anything unless you know how to pick it up and use it correctly. You understand?”

Peter didn’t, but he wasn’t about to tell his father. He was about to learn how to use a real rifle! None of those idiot kids in his class, the ones who were such jerks, could say that.

“First thing we have to do is open the bolt, like this, to make sure there aren’t any bullets in it. Look in the magazine, right down there. See any?” Peter shook his head. “Now check again. You can never check too many times. Now, there’s a little button under the receiver-just in front of the trigger guard-push that and you can remove the bolt completely.”

Peter watched his father take off the big silver ratchet that attached the butt of the rifle to the barrel, just like that. He reached onto his workbench for a bottle of solvent-Hoppes #9, Peter read-and spilled a little bit on a rag. “There’s nothing like hunting, Peter,” his father said. “To be out in the woods when the rest of the world is still sleeping…to see that deer raise its head and stare right at you…” He held the rag away from him-the smell made Peter’s head swim-and started to rub the bolt with it. “Here,” Peter’s father said. “Why don’t you do this?”