July 19, Sunday
SUNDAY MORNING I made the tactical error of introducing the concept of a chore chart while everyone still had food in front of them.
"Here's the thing," I said, sliding the paper across the breakfast bar. "With me at the courthouse all week, some things are falling through the cracks. So I need each of you to take a few things off the list."
Lily scanned the sheet, set it down, and looked at me with genuine bewilderment. "Can't you just tell the court you're needed at home? Like, buh-bye?" She made a little wave.
"It doesn't work that way."
"But why do they even want you?" She said it without cruelty, which almost made it worse. "I mean—no offense—but you're basically a trad wife. Wouldn't they want someone who actually knows things about the law? Or like, the world?"
I absorbed the blow, sat with it for a few seconds.
"A jury isn't supposed to be made up of experts," I said. "It's supposed to reflect actual people. Because crime doesn't only happen to people with law degrees. It happens to everyone—people in corporate offices and people in neighborhoods like this one."
Lily absorbed this in the way teenagers absorb things they partially agree with but will not be seen agreeing with. She handed the chore list to Josh, who passed it back to me without looking at it.
"You're both taking two things," I said. "Non-negotiable. And since we have the afternoon free, what about bowling?"
"Nope."
"Absolutely not."
"Dad's picking us up," Josh said. "His apartment complex has a pool."
"We have a pool. Right up the street."
"It's full of little kids," Lily said. "Dad's pool is for adults."
Two minutes later the doorbell rang.
I opened the door. Warren stood on the front step wearing his expensive smart glasses, an overly snug T-shirt, and short shorts.
"I rang the bell," he said, gesturing. "You happy?"
"The kids are getting their things."
"You still doing that jury thing?"
"Yes. And if I get selected, you'll need to take care of the kids."
He looked at me the way he looks at check engine lights—acknowledging their existence without accepting personal responsibility for them. "You're not going to be selected, Isabel."
"You don't know that."
"I know how these things work." He made a vague gesture that managed to encompass, in one motion, my bobbed hair, my Sunday clothes, and the general trajectory of my last decade. "They're keeping you around so they can say they considered the suburban Mom demographic, then they'll cut you loose."
Before I could respond, my eyes went past him.
His red convertible was in the driveway. In the passenger seat sat a woman I recognized from a photo a frenemy had forwarded me at the worst possible moment. Heidi Hoyt sported clouds of highlighted hair, sunglasses, and a flowy cover-up. She spotted me looking, lifted one hand, and waved.
My hand went up automatically and waved back, then I wanted to cut it off.
I turned back to Warren. "Do you think it's a good idea—her being there with the kids?"
"Lighten up, Isabel."
Two backpacks came barreling past me from the hallway. No goodbye. The kind of exit that parts around you like water around a rock.
Warren smirked, turned, and walked back to his car.
Numb, I stood in the doorway until the convertible was out of sight.