Drew looked from Josie to her mother. “I thought maybe, you know, you might need a ride.”

Suddenly Matt was standing there with them; Josie could feel his fingers on her back.

“Thanks,” her mother said, “but I’m going to take Josie in today.”

The monster in Josie uncoiled. “I’d rather go with Drew,” she said, grabbing her backpack off the newel post of the banister. “I’ll see you at pickup.” Without turning around to see her mother’s face, Josie ran to the car, which gleamed like a sanctuary.

Inside, she waited for Drew to turn over the ignition and pull out of the driveway. “Are your parents like that?” Josie asked, closing her eyes as they sped down the street. “Like you can’t breathe?”

Drew glanced at her. “Yeah.”

“Have you talked to anyone?”

“Like the police?”

Josie shook her head. “Like us.”

He downshifted. “I went over to the hospital to see John a couple of times,” Drew said. “He couldn’t remember my name. He can’t remember the words for things like forks or hairbrushes or stairs. I kind of sat there and told him stupid things-who’d won the last few Bruins games, things like that-but the whole time I was wondering if he even knows he can’t walk anymore.” At a stoplight, Drew turned to her. “Why not me?”

“What?”

“How come we got to be the lucky ones?”

Josie didn’t know what to say to that. She looked out the window, pretending to be fascinated by a dog that was pulling its owner, instead of the other way around.

Drew pulled into the parking lot of the Mount Lebanon School. Beside the building was a playground-this had been an elementary school, after all, and even once it became administrative, neighborhood kids would still come to use the monkey bars and the swings. In front of the school’s main doors stood the principal and a line of parents, calling out the names of students and encouraging them as they walked inside.

“I have something for you,” Drew said, and he reached behind his seat and held out a baseball cap-one Josie recognized. Whatever embroidery had once been on it had long since unraveled; the brim was frayed and curled tight as a fiddlehead. He handed it to Josie, who ran a finger gently along the inside seam.

“He left it in my car,” Drew explained. “I was going to give it to his parents…after. But then I kind of thought you might want it instead.”

Josie nodded, as tears rose along the watermark of her throat.

Drew bent his head against the wheel. It took Josie a moment to realize that he was crying, too.

She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you,” Josie managed, and she settled Matt’s baseball cap onto her head. She opened the passenger door and reached for her knapsack, but instead of heading toward the school she walked through the rusted gates onto the playground. She strode into the middle of the sandbox and stared at her shoe prints, wondered how much wind or weather it would take to make them disappear.

Twice Alex had excused herself from the courtroom to call Josie’s cell, even though she knew Josie kept it turned off during classroom hours. The message she left both times was the same:

It’s me. I just wanted to know how you were holding up.

Alex told her clerk, Eleanor, that if Josie called back, she was to be disturbed. No matter what.

She was relieved to be back at work, but had to force herself to pay attention to the case in front of her. There was a defendant on the stand who claimed to have no experience with the criminal justice system. “I don’t understand the court process,” the woman said, turning to Alex. “Can I go now?”

The prosecutor was in the middle of his cross-examination. “First, why don’t you tell Judge Cormier about the last time you were in court.”

The woman hesitated. “Maybe for a speeding ticket.”

“What else?”

“I can’t remember,” she said.

“Aren’t you on probation?” the prosecutor asked.

“Oh,” the woman replied. “That.”

“What are you on probation for?”

“I can’t remember.” She looked up at the ceiling, her brow wrinkling in thought. “It begins with an F. F…F…F…felony! That’s it!”

The prosecutor sighed. “Didn’t it have to do with a check?”

Alex looked at her watch, thinking that if she got this woman off the damn stand, she could see if Josie had called in yet. “How about forgery,” she interrupted. “That starts with an F.”

“So does fraud,” the prosecutor pointed out.

The woman faced Alex blankly. “I can’t remember.”

“I’m calling a one-hour recess,” Alex announced. “Court will resume at eleven a.m.”

As soon as she was through the door that took her to her chambers, she stripped off her robes. They felt suffocating today, something that Alex didn’t really understand-this was where she had always felt comfortable. Law was a set of rules she understood-a code of behavior where certain actions had certain consequences. She could not say the same of her personal life, where a school that was supposed to be safe turned into a slaughterhouse, where a daughter carved from her own body had become someone Alex no longer understood.

Okay, if she was going to be honest, that she’d never understood.

Frustrated, she stood up and walked into her clerk’s office. Twice, before the trial began, she’d called on Eleanor for trivial things, hoping that instead of hearing “Yes, Your Honor,” the clerk would let down her guard and ask Alex how she was doing, how Josie was doing. That for a half a moment, she wouldn’t be a judge to someone, just another parent who’d had the scare of a lifetime.

“I need a cigarette,” Alex said. “I’m going downstairs.”

Eleanor glanced up. “All right, Your Honor.”

Alex, she thought. Alex Alex Alex.

Outside, Alex sat down on the cement block near the loading zone and lit a cigarette. She drew in deeply, closed her eyes.

“Those’ll kill you, you know.”

“So will old age,” Alex replied, and she turned around to see Patrick Ducharme.

He turned his face up to the sun, squinted. “I wouldn’t have expected a judge to have vices.”

“You probably think we sleep under the bench, too.”

Patrick grinned. “Well, that would be just plain silly. There’s not enough room for a mattress.”

She held out the pack. “Be my guest.”

“If you want to corrupt me, there are more interesting ways.”

Alex felt her face flame. He hadn’t just said that, had he? To a judge? “If you don’t smoke, why’d you come out here?”

“To photosynthesize. When I’m stuck in court all day it ruins my feng shui.”

“People don’t have feng shui. Places do.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

Alex hesitated. “Well. No.”

“There you go.” He turned to her, and for the first time she noticed that he had a white streak in his hair, right at the widow’s peak. “You’re staring.”

Alex immediately jerked her gaze away.

“It’s all right,” Patrick said, laughing. “It’s albinism.”

“Albinism?”

“Yeah, you know. Pale skin, white hair. It’s recessive, so I got a skunk streak. I’m one gene away from looking like a rabbit.” He faced her, sobering. “How’s Josie?”

She considered putting up that Chinese wall, telling him she didn’t want to talk about anything that could compromise her case. But Patrick Ducharme had done the one thing Alex had wished for-he’d treated her like a person instead of a public figure. “She went back to school,” Alex confided.

“I know. I saw her.”

“You…Were you there?”

Patrick shrugged. “Yeah. Just in case.”

“Did anything happen?”

“No,” he said. “It was…ordinary.”

The word hung between them. Nothing was going to be ordinary again, and both of them knew it. You could patch up whatever was broken, but if you were the one who had fixed it, you’d always know in your heart where the fault lines lay.

“Hey,” Patrick said, touching her shoulder. “Are you all right?”