September 8, Tuesday
THE MEDICAL examiner took the stand this morning, and within the first five minutes I understood why every juror in that box instinctively turned toward juror number three Ashanti Doyle the moment the terminology got thick.
The M.E. used words like petechial hemorrhaging and lividity patterns as though we'd all spent our careers in a morgue alongside him, and I watched half the panel's faces go carefully blank, the universal expression of people nodding along to a language they don't speak.
But Ashanti leaned forward slightly, and when the prosecutor paused to let the jury absorb a particularly dense stretch of testimony, she caught my eye and murmured, low enough for just our row, "He means the bruising happened before death, not after.
" No performance in it, no showing off. Just a woman accustomed to breaking down what a doctor said into something a frightened family can actually hold onto.
She's thirty-three, younger than I expected when I first learned her profession, with the kind of stillness under pressure that I associate with people who've spent years being the calm center of other people's worst nights.
She's a nurse practitioner who works nights at Emory's ER, Atlanta's busiest trauma center.
From hallway conversations, I know she's raising a five-year-old mostly on her own, with her mother filling in the gaps.
"I missed her first day of kindergarten," she told me once. "But my mama sent pictures. She looked so small in that uniform, but she did just fine."
Today, watching her absorb the pathologist's testimony, I felt grateful for the members of the jury who brought expertise to the process.
And I wondered again why I'd been selected.
Warren's previous remark that they were going for the soccer mom demographic might've been on point—it wasn't like I brought anything else to the table.
Did other jurors resent me? I think I would, if I were in their shoes.
At lunch Ashanti mentioned, almost in passing, that her daughter had asked on last night's video call when Mommy was coming home, and that she hadn't had a real answer to give.
"I understand," I said automatically, then gave her a smile.
"We're in it together," she said. "Long-distance mamas." Then she patted my hand.
I felt like a fraud. I would've missed my kids like crazy if I'd been away from them when they were younger, but now… notsomuch.
And it was starting to concern me.