Page 7 of Jury Woman, Part 3 of 6

I sat there a moment in the quiet, Deputy Wells still positioned by the door, still not looking my way.

I'd hoped this time away from each other would be good for all of us. But so far it looked as if the temporary separation was only benefiting, well… me.

Oh, and the Fulton County judicial system.

September 10, Thursday

JUROR NUMBER four Hank Park doesn't waste words.

I noticed it early in our sequestration, but it wasn't until today, during a slow stretch of testimony from a records custodian walking through years of shipping manifests, that I was able to study him at length. He sat with his thick forearms braced on his knees, watching the witness with the patience of a man who has a long attention span.

He owns a barbecue place out in Gwinnett, has for twenty years, and he mentioned once, at breakfast weeks ago, that he measured most of life's problems against the standard of a bad Saturday dinner rush. He's a man accustomed to dealing with employees and the public, natural disasters and economic rollercoasters. It shows in the flat calm he brings to his seat every morning.

He's quieter than Dwayne, more contained than Priya, and for the first few weeks I mistook his silence for indifference. I know better now. At lunch today, waiting our turn at the makeshift buffet the hotel sets up in the small conference room, he mentioned that his son had taken over the kitchen while he was away, and that the calls home had gone from anxious to confident in the space of a month.

"He's doing fine without me," he said.

"You must be proud," I offered.

"Yeah. I gotta admit I thought the place would fall apart in a week. Instead my son found his own way to run the smoker, and customers like it fine."

"It sounds like you trained him well."

"I guess so," he said, then gave a little laugh. "Maybe too well."

"My teenagers are struggling at home without me," I shared.

"They'll survive," he said. "Might be good for them." He smiled. "Might be good for you, too."

I smiled back. "I hope so."

I could picture Hank standing next to a smoker, showing his son how to prepare the meat, time after time so when his son needed to take over, he knew how.

It struck me that I hadn't done that with Lily and Josh. I'd catered to their every need since they could walk, and now they didn't have the confidence to move through their day on their own resources.

No wonder they felt abandoned.

I marveled at Hank's parental wisdom. The man seems worldly for his years, and it makes me feel like I've lived such a sheltered, suburban life.

Nobody argues with Hank Park. In fact, I've seen him defuse a couple of heated discussions in the dining room. We're forbidden from discussing the case among ourselves, of course, sequestered even from each other in that regard, and so I don't know how any of my fellow jurors are leaning on any points of the trial. But if I had to guess which of my fellow jurors would hold sway when the deliberations begin, I'd put my money on Hank.

September 11, Friday

COURT WAS dark today, which Randall explained had nothing to do with the case and everything to do with the calendar—Judge Arnold, like half the courthouse staff, apparently needed the day for reasons of his own. Nobody spelled it out for us. Nobody had to. We're cut off from newspapers and television and phones with anything resembling an open browser, but a date like this one doesn't need headlines to announce itself. I felt it in the hallway this morning, a low current running under the usual small talk, a certain carefulness in how people moved.

Twenty-five years since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash into the Pennsylvania field.

My reading glasses chose an inconvenient moment to bite the dust, the arm snapping clean off when I fumbled them out of my bag. I brought the broken pieces to Randall Motts half-apologetically. "The hotel gift shop is out of reading glasses. Is there any way I can get another pair?"

"I can authorize a short supervised trip," he said, already reaching for his clipboard. "Deputy Wells is available."

Unbidden, my pulse spiked higher. "That would be… agreeable."

When he pulled his unmarked sedan around to a side entrance, I opened the front passenger door. "Is it okay if I ride up front?"

He blinked. "Um… sure."

I slid into the seat and fastened my seat belt.