September 28, Monday
JILL HAD my journal open on her knee when I came in. She'd flagged a few pages with small yellow tabs, and something about seeing my own handwriting laid out for review made me feel more exposed than usual.
"How are you settling in as a full juror now that a few weeks have passed?" she asked, once I'd sat.
"Better, actually. I've been getting to know the other jurors. It helps, having faces attached to the days instead of just testimony."
"That's good to hear." She set the journal aside for the moment. "How are things at home?"
I squirmed. "Today's Lily's sixteenth birthday. I'm missing it."
"How do you feel about that?"
I considered lying, then didn't. "Not as bad as I probably should. Which is its own kind of terrible to admit out loud. Besides, everyone makes such a production out of birthdays now. Photo shoots, professional cakes, a whole hashtag. It wasn't like that when I was young."
"What was your sixteenth birthday like?"
The question caught me sideways. "Nothing, really. It came and went."
"No one acknowledged it?"
"My mother wasn't well. Sickly, and there were mental health struggles underneath, but nobody used those words back then. I ran the house, mostly—cooking, laundry, getting my little sister to school on time. A birthday wasn't really on anyone's radar, mine included."
Jill let that settle for a moment. "Is it possible," she said, gently, "that some part of you expects Lily to carry herself the way you had to carry yourself at that age?"
The question sat there, uncomfortably accurate. "Yes," I admitted. "Probably." I picked at the arm of the chair. "Can I tell you something awful?"
"You can tell me anything."
"Sometimes I don't like her very much. My own daughter. I love her—obviously I love her—but liking her is a different thing, and some days I don't know what to do with that."
"Most teenagers are fairly unlikeable," Jill said, matter-of-fact, no judgment in it at all. "That's not a secret confession. That's basic developmental biology."
"It's been worse since the divorce. She blames me for it—says I was too boring, that I drove her father away." My throat tightened. "She's said it more than once."
Jill's gaze stayed steady on me. "Do you agree with her?"
I hesitated long enough that the silence answered before I did. "Sometimes."
Jill didn't push further on that. Instead she picked the journal back up and turned it toward me, open to one of the flagged pages. "I'd like you to read this one. Out loud, if you're willing."
I recognized the entry before I found the exact lines—a night early on, before I'd been bumped up, when I'd written more honestly than I usually let myself.
I read it silently first, my stomach dropping.
I didn't ask to be excused when I had the chance.
Some part of me wanted an excuse to be away from my family. To not be needed for a while.
I looked up. "What does that make me?"
"Completely normal," Jill said, without a flicker of hesitation.
"Wanting distance from the people you love doesn't make you a bad mother.
It makes you a person who was exhausted long before any of this started.
" She let that breathe for a moment, then added, "And it makes you Juror Number Twelve.
You're going to be here for a while yet.
I'd suggest using some of that time to think about what you actually want your family to look like when you go home—not just how to survive the day you walk back through the door, but what happens after. "
I nodded, throat too tight to answer properly, and gathered my things.
Walking back down the corridor beside Deputy Wells, the truth of what Jill had said kept circling. I wasn't at all sure I was looking forward to the day I'd have to walk back into my house and figure out how to be needed again.