August 10, Monday
THE HOTEL conference room had been repurposed with two armchairs angled toward each other and a small table holding a box of tissues that seemed like a rather pointed piece of set dressing.
Deputy Wells walked me to the door, then took up a position in the hallway with his hands clasped in front of him, present but pointedly out of earshot.
Jill Mathers rose when I entered—a trim woman in her fifties with silver-streaked hair pulled into a loose knot and reading glasses pushed up on her head. Her handshake was warm and unhurried, and something in her face put me at ease before either of us had said anything.
"Isabel. Please, have a seat."
I perched on the edge of the armchair. "I have to confess, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do or say here."
"That's all right. There's no script." Jill settled back, a woman who'd clearly had this exact opening exchange with dozens of anxious jurors before me.
"I'm not here to evaluate your fitness for anything, and nothing you tell me goes back to the judge or the attorneys.
My only job is to make sure this experience doesn't grind you down more than it has to.
Think of it as a conversation, not an interview. "
That loosened something in my shoulders.
She asked about my life with the easy curiosity of someone genuinely interested rather than checking boxes, and I answered plainly—the divorce, the two teenagers, the empty side of the closet I still hadn't reorganized, the knitting that had somehow followed me into a federal courthouse and become, of all things, a talking point.
Jill nodded along, letting silences stretch without rushing to fill them the way most people did.
Somewhere in the middle of describing Josh's soccer schedule, I heard myself add, without quite meaning to, "We're supposed to be in family therapy. Court-ordered, from the divorce. But nobody shows up except me. My therapist finally suggested we pause."
"That sounds discouraging."
"It is. I keep thinking if I just find the right way to say it, they'll come around."
"Are you worried about your family right now? While you're away?"
"Of course I am. Things feel like they're coming apart faster than I can hold them together, and I can't shake the feeling that my being here is making it worse instead of better. That I'm the thing unraveling it faster."
Jill let that sit for a moment before she spoke.
"That's a common feeling for sequestered jurors, especially parents.
You're absent from a role you've spent years occupying, and everyone left behind, including you, is recalibrating in real time.
That doesn't mean you're causing harm. It means change is uncomfortable, for you and for them.
" She tilted her head slightly. "If it ever becomes truly untenable you do have the option to petition the court for release.
I want you to know that door exists, even if you never walk through it. "
I turned that over, surprised by how much comfort there was simply in knowing the door was there. "Do I have to keep meeting with you? Like this, I mean."
"Not if you'd rather not. It's entirely your choice." A small, genuine smile. "But I hope you will. I think you'd find it useful, and honestly, I've enjoyed this conversation more than most of mine this week."
I found myself smiling back and nodding.
Walking out, past Deputy Wells and down the corridor toward my room, I turned the hour over in my mind. I hadn't cried. I hadn't unraveled anything further. I'd simply talked, and been heard, and that felt like enough.