Page 1 of Jury Woman, Part 3 of 6

September 1, Tuesday

I LEFT the knitting bag in my room.

It felt strange to walk into the jury box empty-handed, but sometime around two a.m., staring at the hotel ceiling, I'd decided that a full juror couldn't afford to look like she was making a scarf while a man's freedom hung in the balance. I'd watched the others for a month—legal pads open, pens moving in short bursts whenever a witness said something that mattered. I'd listened, too, and my memory was stellar. But now that I was one of the primary jurors, I needed to look the part.

So when the first witness took the stand, a forensic accountant who traced a single transaction through a maze of shell companies, I picked up the pad the court had issued me and wrote Cayman Islands at the top and underlined it twice, expecting to feel… grounded.

Instead I felt untethered.

Without the rhythm of stitches under my hands, my mind had nowhere to land. The accountant's voice rolled on, flat and numerical, and I found myself writing the same three words over and over—shell company, offshore, transfer—less because they mattered and more because my hand needed something to do. My eyelids grew heavy. There was no texture to hold onto, no small anchor keeping me present. His droning cadence and the recycled courtroom air and the low hum of the ventilation system all conspired against me.

I caught myself blinking too long. Then my chin dipped… before I jerked it back up.

My gaze landed on Deputy Wells.

He was in his usual spot by the side door but instead of scanning the courtroom, he was looking directly at me. He gave the smallest shake of his head, barely a movement at all, and I understood it as clearly as if he'd spoken: Wake up. I sat up straighter, pressed my pen hard into the pad, and forced my eyes to stay open through sheer will for the remaining forty minutes.

When the judge finally called the break, I didn't wait for the other jurors. I walked to the ladies' room, went to the sink, and ran the water cold.

I splashed my face. My pulse was pounding hard. I stared at my reflection—mascara smudged at the corner of one eye, color high in my cheeks—and a thought kept circling in the head.

What if I didn't do this because I wanted to serve?

What if, underneath the talk of civic duty and doing my part, I'd really just wanted somewhere else to be? A hotel room instead of my kitchen. A courtroom instead of carpool. Six months of not being the one everyone needed something from.

Now a man's future was at stake, and I'd nearly slept through testimony that could make a difference.

I turned off the tap and gripped the edge of the sink.

This wasn't what I'd been looking for when I opened that jury summons. But I was here. And I needed to get it together.

Which meant I'd be knitting tomorrow.

September 2, Wednesday

THE SCREEN blinked on at six o'clock, and I felt my chest seize before either of the kids said a word.

Lily leaned in. "Mom." Her voice already had that wobble in it, the one that meant tears were staged and waiting in the wings. "I can't do this anymore."

"Do what, honey?"

"Everything." She held up a fistful of fabric to the camera—unmistakably a pair of underwear, tags still attached. "I had to buy new underwear because the laundry situation has gotten inhumane. There's a pile in the hallway that's basically its own zip code now."

"Have you tried running a load?"

"I don't know how the machine works! It has, like, four dials and none of them make sense."

Josh, wedged into the corner of the frame with Tucker's head in his lap, didn't look up from whatever he was doing on his own phone. "I've worn the same boxers three days in a row," he offered. "It's fine. Nobody can tell."

Lily recoiled. "That's disgusting."

I inhaled for strength. "How's school going, you two? Anything I should know?"

"Fine," Lily said, in the tone that meant nothing was fine and she had no intention of elaborating.

"It's school," Josh said, which I gathered was the male translation of the same sentiment.

"No tests, no projects, nothing due?"