Page 9 of Jury Woman, Part 3 of 6

I felt my stomach drop. "I said something I shouldn't have, to her, on a call last weekend. I've been meaning to fix it."

"Jesus, Isabel." He dragged a hand down his face. "Can you make this any harder on me and the kids?"

"I'll call her."

"Great. Wonderful plan." His phone buzzed somewhere off-screen, and he glanced at it, exhaling hard. "It's the dealership. I have to take this."

"Warren—"

"Don't worry about it." He was already standing, already reaching to end the call. "You've got more important things to focus on. Go play Law and Order. I'll handle the actual family."

The screen went black.

I sat in the small conference room for a long moment and let his words work their way under my skin.

Go play Law and Order.

I'd heard some version of that phrase from him more than once now, tossed off carelessly, and every time I told myself it was just Warren being Warren, reaching for whatever would sting the most in the moment. But sitting there alone, I acknowledged there was some sliver of truth buried in his contempt. Some part of me had wanted this assignment not for any real sense of civic purpose, but because it let me disappear into something that looked important from the outside while everything at home quietly came apart without me.

Warren wasn't entirely wrong.

September 13, Sunday

"CAN I talk to Aunt Elaine for a minute?" I asked, once Lily and Josh had delivered their usual clipped greetings.

Lily was gone before I'd finished the sentence, and Josh followed a beat later. Elaine's face settled into the frame, friendly but guarded.

"I owe you an apology," I said, before she could steer the conversation somewhere safer. "What I said last weekend—about you not knowing what it's like to be a parent—that was cruel, and it wasn't even true. You've always been there for the kids."

"It's fine, Sis."

"It doesn't feel fine."

She was quiet a moment, turning a mug between her hands. "I know you didn't mean it. I know you were tired and you have a lot of responsibility there. We're okay."

I wanted to believe her, but something in her voice still carried the faintest residue of the wound.

"Dad's coming to visit at the end of the month," she said then, almost as an afterthought, and the shift in subject was so abrupt I nearly missed it.

"Dad's coming here?"

"Flying in on a Friday. Staying through Sunday."

I felt something drop through the center of my chest, quick and unexpected. I hadn't seen my father in a long while. He lived a separate life with his new wife. He occasionally called and texted photos of golf courses and other people's grandchildren at his new church.

"What am I supposed to tell him," Elaine asked, "when he wants to know where you are? Because he's going to ask, Isabel. You know he is."

"Tell him I'm serving on a jury. That's all. I can't tell him what kind, or how long, or anything else—not over the phone, not to anyone." I paused. "He won't push much past that. He never really has."

"True enough." She didn't say it unkindly, just factually, the way we'd both learned to talk about our father over the years—a good man in his own limited way, present in the manner of someone checking a box rather than living a relationship.

"Why now, though? He hasn't visited in ages."

Elaine's mouth twitched. "Sandra wants to see the World of Coca-Cola."

I blinked. "The World of Coca-Cola. That's the reason he's flying two thousand miles."

"Apparently she's been wanting to go for years. Saw something about it on a travel show." Elaine shrugged, deadpan. "He mentioned it like it was self-explanatory. Like of course you'd cross the country for a museum devoted to soda pop."