hese are the things he takes: his Yomega Brain yo-yo; the starfish arm he found on a beach. His Bravest Boy ribbon, a flashlight, a Batman trading card. Seventy-six pennies, two dimes, and a Canadian quarter. A granola bar and a bag of jellybeans left over from Easter. They are treasures he brought with him when he moved to the motel with his father; he cannot leave them behind now. Everything fits in the white pillowcase and thumps lightly against Nathaniel's stomach when he zips it up inside his coat.

“You all set?” his father asks, the words lobbed like a stick into a field an d forgotten. Nathaniel wonders why he's even bothered to try to keep this a secret, when his dad is too busy to notice him anyway. He climbs into the passenger seat of the truck and fastens the seat belt-then on second thought, unlatches it.

If he's going to be really bad, he might as well start now.

Once, the man at the cleaner's offered to take Nathaniel to see where the big moving millipede of pressed clothes began. His dad had lifted him over the counter and he'd followed Mr. Sarni into the way back, where the clothes were being cleaned. The air was so heavy and wet that Nathaniel wheezed as he pushed the big red button; started the conveyor of hangers chugging in its loop again. The air in the courthouse, it reminds Nathaniel of that. Maybe it's not as hot here, or as sticky, but it is hard to breathe all the same. When his dad brings him to the playroom downstairs with Monica, they speak in marshmallow bites of words that they think Nathaniel cannot hear. He does not know what a hostile witness is, or juror bias. But when his father talks the lines on his face appear on Monica's, like it is a mirror.

“Nathaniel,” she says, fake-bright, as soon as his dad goes upstairs. “Let's take off that coat.”

“I'm cold,” he lies, and he hugs his pack against his middle. She is careful to never touch Nathaniel, and he wonders if that's because Monica has the X-ray vision to see how dirty he is on the inside. She looks at him when she thinks he doesn't see, and her eyes are as deep as a pond. His mom stares at him with the same expression. It is all because of Father Gwynne; Nathaniel wishes just once someone would come up to him and think of him as some kid, instead of The One This Happened To. What Father Gwynne did was wrong-Nathaniel knew it then, from the way his skin shivered; and he knows it now, from talking to Dr. Robichaud and Monica. They have said over and over that it isn't Nathaniel's fault. But that doesn't keep him from turning around sometimes, really fast, sure that he's felt someone's breath on his neck. And it doesn't keep him from wondering if he cut himself open at the belly, like his father does when he catches a trout, would he find that black knot that hurts all the time?

“So, how are we doing this morning?” Fisher asks, as soon as I sit down beside him.

“Shouldn't you know that?” I watch the clerk set a stack of files on the judge's bench. The jury box, without its members, looks cavernous. Fisher pats my shoulder. “It's our turn,” he assures me. “I'm going to spend the whole day making the jurors forget what Brown told them.” I turn to him. “The witnesses-”

“-will do a good job. Trust me, Nina. By lunchtime, everyone in this court is going to think you were crazy.”

As the side door opens and the jury files in, I look away and wonder how to tell Fisher that's not what I want, after all.

“I have to pee,” Nathaniel announces.

“Okay.” Monica puts down the book she has been reading to him and stands up, waiting for Nathaniel to follow her to the door. They walk down the hall together to the restrooms. Nathaniel's mother doesn't let him in the boy's room by himself, but it's okay here, because there's only one potty and Monica can check before he goes inside. “Wash your hands,” she reminds him, and she pushes open the door so Nathaniel can go inside.

Nathaniel sits on the cold seat of the toilet to muddle it all out. He let Fa ther Gwynne do all those things-and it was bad. He was bad; but he didn't get punished. In fact, ever since he was so bad, everyone's been paying extra at tention to Nathaniel, and being extra nice.

His mother did something really bad, too-because, she said, it was the best way to fix what happened.

Nathaniel tries to make sense of all this, but the truths are too tangled in his head. All he knows is that for whatever reason, the world is upside-down. People are breaking rules like crazy-and instead of getting into trouble, it's the only way to make things right again.

He pulls up his pants, cinches the bottom of his jacket, and flushes. Then he closes the lid and climbs from the tank to the toilet tissue holder to the little ledge up high. The window there is tiny, only for fancy, because this is a basement floor. But Nathaniel can open it and he's small enough to slip through.

He finds himself behind the courthouse, in one of the window wells. Nobody notices a kid his size. Nathaniel skirts the trucks and vans in the parking lot, crosses the frozen lawn. He starts walking aimlessly down the highway, not holding an adult's hand, intent on running away. Three bad things, he thinks, all at once.

“Dr. O'Brien,” Fisher asks, "when did Mrs. Frost first come to your office?

“On December twelfth." At ease on the stand-as he should be, for all the testimony he's given in his career-the psychiatrist relaxes in the witness chair. With the silver hair at his temples and his casual pose, he looks like he could be Fisher's brother.

“What materials had you received before you met with her?”

“An introductory letter from you, a copy of the police report, the videotape taken by WCSH-TV, and the psychiatric report prepared by Dr. Storrow, the state's psychiatrist, who had examined her two weeks earlier.”

“How long did you meet with Mrs. Frost that first day?”

“An hour.”

“What was her state of mind when you met?”

“The focus of the conversation was on her son. She was very concerned about his safety,” O'Brien says. “Her child had been rendered mute; she was frantic with worry; she was feeling guilt as a working mother who hadn't been a round enough to see what had been going on. Moreover, her specialized knowl edge of the court system made her aware of the effects of molestation on children . . . and more anxious about her son's ability to survive the legal process without significant trauma. After considering the circumstances that led Mrs. Frost to my office, as well as meeting with her in person, I concluded that she was a classic example of someone suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“How might that have affected her mental stability on the morning of October thirtieth?”

O'Brien leans forward to address the jury. “Mrs. Frost knew she was heading to court to face her son's abuser. She believed wholeheartedly that her son was permanently scarred by the event. She believed that testifying-as a witness, or even at a competency hearing-would be devastating to the child. Finally, she believed that the abuser would eventually be acquitted. All this was going through her mind, and as she drove to the courthouse, she became more and more agitated-and less and less herself-until she finally snapped. By the moment she put the gun to Father Szyszynski's head, she could not consciously stop herself from shooting him-it was an involuntary reflex.” The jury was listening, at least; some of them were brave enough to sneak glances at me. I tried for an expression that fell somewhere between Contrite and Shattered.

“Doctor, when was the last time you saw Mrs. Frost?”

“A week ago.” O'Brien smiles kindly at me. “She feels more capable of protecting her son now, and she understands that her means of doing it was not right. In fact, she is filled with remorse for her previous actions.”

“Does Mrs. Frost still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder?”

“PTSD isn't like chicken pox, which can be cured forever. In my opinion, however, Mrs. Frost is at a point where she understands her own feelings and thoughts and can keep herself from letting them overwhelm her. With subsequent outpatient therapy, I believe she will function quite normally.” This lie cost Fisher, and therefore me, two thousand dollars. But it is worth it: Several members of the jury are nodding. Maybe honesty is overvalued. What's truly priceless is picking out from a stream of falsehoods the ones you most need to hear.

Nathaniel's feet hurt, and his toes are frozen in his boots. His mittens are in the playroom, so the tips of his fingers have turned pink, even buried in the pockets of his jacket. When he counts out loud, just to have something to do, the numbers hang in front of him, curled in the cold.

Because he knows better, he climbs over the guardrail and runs into the middle of the highway. A bus zooms by, its horn flaring as it swerves into the distance.

Nathaniel spreads his arms for balance, and begins to walk the tightrope of the dotted line.

“Dr. O'Brien,” Quentin Brown says. “You believe Mrs. Frost feels capable of protecting her son now?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So who's she going to pull a gun on next?”

The psychiatrist shifts in the chair. "I don't believe she'll go to that extreme."

The prosecutor purses his lips, considering. “Maybe not now. But what about in two months . . . two years? Some kid on the playground threatens her son. Or a teacher looks at him the wrong way. Is she going to spend the rest of her life playing Dirty Harry?”

O'Brien raises a brow. “Mr. Brown, this wasn't a situation where someone looked at her son the wrong way. He had been sexually molested. She believed that she knew beyond a reasonable doubt who'd done it. I also understand that the individual who was eventually identified as the real perpetrator has since died of natural causes, so she certainly no longer has an alleged vendetta to fulfill.”

"Doctor, you reviewed the state psychiatrist's report. Isn't it true that you reached the exact opposite conclusion that he did, regarding Mrs. Frost's mental state? That he not only deemed her competent to stand trial but also believed she was sane at the time of the offense?"

“Yes, Dr. Storrow did indicate that. But this is the first evaluation he's done for a court. On the other hand, I've been a forensic psychiatrist for over forty years.”

“And you don't come cheap, do you?” Brown says. “Isn't the defense paying you for your testimony today?”

“My fee is two thousand dollars per day, plus expenses,” O'Brien answers, shrugging.

There is a stir in the back of the courtroom. “Doctor, I believe you used the words 'she finally snapped.' Is that correct?”

“That's not the clinical term, of course, but it's the way I would describe it in conversation.”

“Did she snap before or after she drove to the gun store?” Brown asks.

“Clearly, that was part of her continuing mental decline ...”

“Did she snap before or after she loaded six rounds into a nine millimeter semiautomatic handgun?”

“As I said earlier, that would be part-”

“Did she snap before or after she slipped past the metal detector, knowing the bailiff wouldn't stop her?”

“Mr. Brown-”

“And, Doctor, did she snap before or after she very carefully aimed at one person and only one person's head in a crowded courtroom?” O'Brien's mouth flattens. “As I told the court before, at that point Mrs. Frost had no control over her actions. She could no more stop herself from shooting the priest than she could stop herself from breathing.”

“She sure managed to stop someone else from breathing, though, didn't she?” Brown crosses toward the jury box. “You're an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder, aren't you?”

“I'm considered to be rather knowledgeable in the field, yes.”

“And PTSD is triggered by a traumatic event?”

“That's correct.”

“You first met Mrs. Frost after Father Szyszynski's death?”

“Yes.”

“And,” Brown says, “you believe that it was the molestation of Mrs. Frost's son that triggered her PTSD?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know it wasn't shooting the priest?”

“It's possible,” O'Brien concedes. “It's just that the other trauma came first.”

“Isn't it true that Vietnam veterans can be plagued by PTSD their whole lives? That thirty years later these men still wake up with nightmares?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can't, with any degree of scientific certainty, tell this jury that the defendant is over the illness that-in your words-caused her to snap?” More raised voices from the rear of the courtroom. I focus my attention forward.

“I doubt that Mrs. Frost will ever completely forget the events of the past few months,” O'Brien says diplomatically. “However, in my personal opinion, she is not dangerous now . . . nor will she be dangerous in the future.”

“Then again, Doctor,” Brown says, “you're not wearing a white collar.”

“Please,” a familiar voice shouts, and then Monica shoves away from the bailiff restraining her and runs up the central aisle of the courtroom. Alone. She crouches down beside Caleb. “It's Nathaniel,” she sobs. “He's gone missing.”

The judge grants a recess, and the bailiffs in the courtroom are sent to look for Nathaniel. Patrick calls in the county sheriff and the state police. Fisher volunteers to appease the frenzy of media that's caught wind of a new problem.

I can't go, because I am still wearing that fucking electronic bracelet. I think of Nathaniel, kidnapped. Of him wandering into the boxcar of an old train and freezing to death. Of the ship where he might stow away when no one is looking. He could travel the world, and I would still be imprisoned by these four walls.

“He told me he had to go to the bathroom,” Monica says tearfully. We wait in the lobby, which has been emptied of reporters. I know she wants absolution, but I'll be damned if I am going to give it to her. “I thought maybe he was feeling sick, because it was taking so long. But when I went in, that window was open.“ She grabs my sleeve. ”I don't think he was taken by anyone, Nina. I think he just did this for the attention.”

“Monica.” I am holding onto the thinnest filament of control. I remind myself that she could not have known what Nathaniel would do. That nobody is perfect; and that I had not protected him any better, apparently, than she could. But still.

Irony: I will be acquitted, and my son will be gone.

Out of a crowd of cries, I have always been able to hear Nathaniel's. As an infant; on a playground full of children; even with my eyes closed, playing Marco Polo in the shallow end of a pool. Maybe if I cry loud enough, now, Nathaniel will be able to hear me.

Two bright circles of color have appeared on Monica's cheeks. “What can I do?” she whispers.

“Bring him back.” Then I walk away, because guilt is not only contagious but also deadly.

Caleb watches the police speed away in their cruisers, the lights flashing. Maybe they'll attract Nathaniel; maybe not. He knows one thing-these officers have forgotten what it is like to be five. To this end, he puts his back up a gainst the window that leads into the basement bathroom. He kneels, until he is Nathaniel's height. Then he squints, taking into account everything that might capture his attention.

A clump of matted bushes, bare and shaking. An umbrella, turned inside out by the wind and discarded. A handicapped ramp painted with yellow zigzagged lines.

“Mr. Frost.” The deep voice startles Caleb. He gets to his feet and turns to find the prosecutor standing there, shoulders hunched against the cold. When Monica ran into the courtroom to deliver the bad news, Fisher Carrington took one look at Nina's face and requested a recess. Brown, on the other hand, stood up and asked the judge if this might not be a ploy for sympathy. “For all we know,” he said, “the boy is safe and sound in a conference room upstairs.”

It didn't take him long to realize his tactical error, as the jury watched Nina become hysterical. But all the same, he is the last person Caleb expects to see out here.

“I just wanted to tell you,” Brown says now, “if there's anything I can do ...” He lets his sentence trail off. “You can do something, all right,” Caleb replies. Both men know what it is; know it has nothing to do with Nathaniel. The prosecutor nods and walks inside. Caleb gets down on his knees again. He begins to move in a spiral around the court building, like the way he lays stone in a round patio-widening his circles so that he leaves out no space and maintains the arc of the ring. He does this as he does everything-slowly and tenaciously-until he is certain that he's seeing the world through the eyes of his son.

On the other side of the highway is a steep hill that Nathaniel slides down on his bottom. His pants snag on a branch and rip and it doesn't matter, because no one will punish him. He steps in melting puddles of icy water and through the ragged seam of the treeline, where he walks until he stumbles over a piece of the forest that has been left out by mistake.

It is the size of his bed at home and has been flattened by the tracks of animals. Nathaniel sits down on a log at the edge and pulls his pillowcase out from inside his coat. He takes out his granola bar and eats halfway, then decides to save the rest. He turns on his flashlight and holds it up to his palm so that the back of his hand glows red.

When the deer come, Nathaniel holds his breath. He remembers what his father told him-they are more afraid of us than we are afraid of them. The big one, a doe, has a coat the color of caramels and tiny high-heeled hoofs. Her baby looks the same, with white spots on her back, as if she has not been colored in the whole way. They bend their long throats to the ground, pushing through the snow with their noses.

It is the mother deer who finds the grass. Just a tuft, hardly a bite. But instead of eating it she shoves the fawn closer. She watches the baby eat, although it means she herself will get nothing.

It makes Nathaniel want to give her the other half of his granola bar. But the minute he reaches into his pillowcase the heads of the deer jerk up, and they leap from all four feet, their tails white sails as they disappear far ther into the woods.

Nathaniel examines the rip on the back of his pants; the muddy tops of his boots. He places the half of the granola bar on the log, in case the deer come back. Then he gets up and slowly heads back toward the road. Patrick has canvassed a one-mile square around the courthouse, certain that Nathaniel left of his own free will, and even more certain that the kid couldn't have gotten much farther. He picks up his radio to place a call to the Alfred dispatch, asking if anyone's found anything yet, when a movement at the side of the road strikes his eye. As he watches, a quarter mile up the road, Nathaniel crawls over the iron horse of the guardrail and starts walking along the shoulder of the highway.

“I'll be damned,” Patrick breathes, pulling his truck forward slightly. It looks like Nathaniel knows exactly where he is going; from this spot, even someone as small as Weed would be able to see the high roof of the courthouse. But the boy can't see what Patrick can, from the high cab of his truck-Caleb, coming closer on the opposite side of the road.

He watches Nathaniel look right and then left, and Patrick realizes what he is planning to do. Sticking his flashing magnetic light on the roof of the truck, Patrick hurriedly swerves to block traffic. He gets out and clears the way, so that by the time Nathaniel sees his father waiting, he can run across the highway and into Caleb's arms safely.

“Don't do that again,” I say into Nathaniel's soft neck, holding him close to me. “Ever. Do you hear me?”

He pulls back, puts his palms on my cheeks. “Are you mad at me?”

“No. Yes. I will be, anyway, when I'm done being so happy.” I hug him tighter. “What were you thinking?”

“That I'm bad,” he says flatly.

Over Nathaniel's head, I meet Caleb's eyes. “No you're not, sweetheart. Running away, that wasn't good. You could have been hurt; and you worried me and Daddy like you can't believe.” I hesitate, picking my words. “But you can do a bad thing and not be a bad person.”

“Like Father Gwynne?”

I freeze. “Actually, no. He did a bad thing, and he was a bad person.” Nathaniel looks up at me. “What about you?”

Shortly after Dr. Robichaud, Nathaniel's psychiatrist, takes the stand, Quentin Brown is on his feet to object. “Your Honor, what does this witness have to offer?”

“Judge, this goes to my client's state of mind,” Fisher argues. “The information she received from Dr. Robichaud regarding her son's declining condition was highly relevant to her mental status on October thirtieth.”

“I'll allow it,” Judge Neal rules.

“Doctor, have you treated other children who were rendered mute after sexual abuse?” Fisher asks.

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“In some of these cases, do children never regain their voices?”

“It can take years.”

“Did you have any way of knowing whether this would be a long-term condition for Nathaniel Frost?”

“No,” Dr. Robichaud says. “In fact, that was why I began to teach him rudimentary sign language. He was becoming frustrated with his inability to communicate.”

“Did it help?”

“For a while,” the psychiatrist admits. “Then he began talking again.”

“Was the progress steady?”

"No. It broke down when Nathaniel lost contact with Mrs. Frost for a week."

“Do you know why?”

“I understood she was charged with violating her bail conditions and was imprisoned.”

“Did you see Nathaniel during the week that his mother was in jail?”

“Yes, I did. Mr. Frost brought him in, quite upset that the child was no longer speaking. He'd regressed to the point where all he would sign for was his mother.”

“In your opinion, what caused that regression?”

“Clearly, it was the sudden and prolonged separation from Mrs. Frost,” Dr. Robichaud says.

“How did Nathaniel's condition change when his mother was released again?”

“He cried out for her.” The psychiatrist smiles. “A joyful noise.”

“And, Doctor, were he to undergo a sudden and prolonged separation from his mother again . . . what do you think the likely outcome would be for Nathaniel?”

“Objection!” Quentin calls.

“Withdrawn.”

Moments later, the prosecutor stands up to cross-examine. “In dealing with five-year-olds, Doctor, don't you find that they often become confused about events?”

“Absolutely. That's why courts have competency hearings, Mr. Brown.” At the very mention, Judge Neal gives him a warning glance. “Dr. Robichaud, in your experience, court cases of this type take several months to several years to come to trial, don't they?”

“Yes.”

“And the developmental difference between a five-year-old and a seven-year-old is significant, isn't it?”

“Definitely.”

“In fact, haven't you treated children who seemed like they might have trouble testifying when they first came to you . . . yet a year or two later-after therapy and time had healed them a bit-they were able to take the stand without a setback?”

“Yes.”

“Isn't it true that you have no way of predicting whether Nathaniel would have been able to testify a few years from now without it causing significant psychological harm?”

“No, there's no way to say what might have happened in the future.” Quentin turns toward me. “As a prosecutor, Mrs. Frost would certainly be aware of this time lag for court appearances, don't you think?”

“Yes.”

“And as the mother of a child this age, she would be aware of the development changes possible over the next few years?”

“Yes. In fact, I tried to tell Mrs. Frost that in a year or so, Nathaniel might be doing far better than she expected. That he might even be capable of testifying on his own behalf.”

The prosecutor nods. “Unfortunately, though, the defendant killed Father Szyszynski before we could find out.”

Quentin withdraws the statement before Fisher can even object. I tug on the edge of his jacket. “I have to talk to you.” He stares at me as if I have lost my mind. “Yes,” I say. “Now.”

I know what Quentin Brown is thinking, because I have seen a case through his eyes. I proved she murdered him. I did my job. And maybe I have learned not to interfere in the lives of others, but surely it's my responsibility to save myself. “It's up to me,” I tell Fisher in the conference room. “I need to give them a reason to say it doesn't matter.”

Fisher shakes his head. “You know what happens when defense attorneys overtry a case. The prosecution has the burden of proof, and all I can do is pick holes in it. But if I pick too hard, the whole thing deflates. Put on one too many witnesses, and the defense loses.”

“I understand what you're saying. But Fisher, the prosecution did prove that I murdered Szyszynski. And I'm not your average witness.” I take a deep breath. “Sure, there are cases where the defense loses because they put on one witness too many. But there are other cases where the prosecution loses because the jury hears from the defendant. They know horrible things have been done-and they want to hear why, right from the horse's mouth.”

“Nina, you can barely sit still when I'm doing cross-exams, you want to object so badly. I can't put you on the stand as a witness when you're such a goddamned prosecutor.” Fisher sits down across from me, splaying his hands on the table. “You think in facts. But just because you're telling the jury something doesn't mean they're going to accept it as reality. After all the groundwork I've laid, they like me; they believe me. If I tell them you were so overcome with emotion you were beyond rational thought, they'll buy it. On the other hand, no matter what you say to them, they're predisposed to think you're a liar.”

“Not if I tell them the truth.”

“That you really meant to shoot the other guy?”

“That I wasn't crazy.”

“Nina,” Fisher says softly, “that'll undo your whole defense. You can't tell them that.”

"Why not, Fisher? Why can't I make twelve lousy people understand that somewhere between a good deed and a bad deed are a thousand shades of gray?

Right now, Quentin's got me convicted, because he's told them what I was thinking that day. If I take the stand, I can give them an alternative version. I can explain what I did, why it was wrong, and why I couldn't see that, then. Either they'll send me to jail ... or they'll send me home with my son. How can I not take that chance?"

Fisher stares down at the table. “You keep this up,” he says after a moment, “and I may have to hire you when we're through.” He holds out a hand, counting off on his fingers. "You answer only the questions I ask. The minute you start trying to educate the jury I'm yanking you off. If I mention temporary insanity, you damn well find a way to support it without perjuring yourself. And if you show any temper whatsoever, get ready for a nice long stay in prison.'

“Okay.” I leap to my feet, ready to go.

But Fisher doesn't move. “Nina. Just so you know . . . even if you can't convince that jury, you've convinced me.”

Three months ago, if I'd heard that from a defense attorney, I'd have laughed. But now I smile at Fisher, wait for him to come up beside me at the door. We walk into that courtroom as a team.

My office, for the past seven years, has been a courtroom. It's a space that is intimidating for many people, but not for me. I know what the rules are there: when to approach the clerk, when to talk to the jury, how to lean back and whisper to someone in the gallery without calling attention to myself. But now I am sitting in a part of that office I've never been in before. I am not allowed to move. I am not allowed to do the work I usually do. I'm starting to see why so many people fear this.

The witness box is so small my knees bump up against the front. The stares of a couple hundred people poke at me, tiny needles. I think of what I have told thousands of witnesses during my career: Your job is to do three things: Listen to the question, answer the question, and stop talking. I remember something my boss used to say all the time-that the best witnesses were truck drivers and assembly line workers because they were far less likely to run off at the mouth than, for example, overeducated lawyers. Fisher hands me the restraining order I took out against Caleb. “Why did you procure this, Nina?”

“I thought at the time that Nathaniel had identified my husband as the person who'd sexually abused him.”

“What did your husband do to make you believe this?” I find Caleb in the gallery, shake my head. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Yet you took the extraordinary step of getting a restrainingorder to preve nt him from seeing his own child?”

“I was focused on protecting my son. If Nathaniel said this was the person who hurt him . . . well, I did the only thing I could to keep him safe.”

“When did you decide to terminate the restraining order?” Fisher asks.

“When I realized that my son had been signing the word father not to identify Caleb, but to identify a priest.”

“Is that the point where you believed Father Szyszynski was the abuser?”

“It was a lot of things. First, a doctor told me that anal penetration had occurred. Then came Nathaniel's hand sign. Then he whispered a name to Detective Ducharme that sounded like 'Father Glen.' And finally, Detective Ducharme told me he'd found my son's underwear at St. Anne's.” I swallow hard.

“I've spent seven years putting together pieces to make cases that will stand up in court. I was just doing what seemed absolutely logical to me.” Fisher glares at me. Absolutely logical. Oh, damn.

“Nina, listen carefully to my next question, please,” Fisher warns. “When you started to believe that Father Szyszynski was your son's abuser, how did you feel?”

“I was a mess. This was a man I'd trusted with my own beliefs and my family's beliefs. With my son. I was angry with myself because I'd been working so hard-if I'd been home more, I might have seen this coming. And I was frustrated because now that Nathaniel had identified a suspect, I knew the next step would be-”

“Nina,” Fisher interrupts. Answer the question, I remind myself with a mental kick. Then shut up.

Brown smiles. “Your Honor, let her finish answering.”

“Yes, Mr. Carrington,” the judge agrees. "I don't believe Mrs. Frost is done."

“Actually I am,” I say quickly.

“Did you discuss the best plan of action for your son with his psychiatrist?” I shake my head. “There was no best plan of action. I've tried hundreds of cases involving child victims. Even if Nathaniel started speaking normally again, and got stronger . . . even if there were a year or two before the case went to trial . . . well, the priest never admitted to what he did. That means it all hinged on my son.”

“What do you mean?”

"Without a confession, the only thing a prosecutor's got against the defendant is the child's testimony. That means Nathaniel would have had to go through a competency hearing. He'd get up, in a room full of people like this, and say what that man had done to him. That man, of course, would be sitting six feet away, watching-and you can be sure that he's told the child, more than once, not to tell. But no one would be sitting next to Nathaniel and nobody would be holding him, nobody would be telling him it's okay to talk now.

“Either Nathaniel would be terrified and fall apart during this hearing, and the judge would rule him not competent to stand trial-which means that the abuser would never get punished ... or Nathaniel would be told he was able to stand trial-which means he'd have to go through it all over again in court, with the stakes cranked up a notch and a whole new set of people watching. Including twelve jurors predisposed to not believe him, because he's only a child.“ I turn to the jury. ”I'm not all too comfortable here, now, and I'v e been in a courtroom every day for the past seven years. It's scary to be trapped in this box. It's scarring for any witness. But we were not talking about any witness. We were talking about Nathaniel.”

“What about the best-case scenario?” Fisher asks gently. “What if, after all that, the abuser was put in jail?”

“The priest would have been in prison for ten years, only ten years, because that's what people with no criminal record get for destroying a child's life. He would have most likely been paroled before Nathaniel even hit puberty.” I shake my head. “How can anyone consider that a best-case scenario? How can any court say that would protect my son?”

Fisher takes one last look at me and requests a recess.

In the conference room upstairs, Fisher crouches down in front of my chair.

“Repeat after me,” he says. “Oh, come on.”

“Repeat after me: I am a witness. I am not an attorney.” Rolling my eyes, I recite, “I am a witness. I am not an attorney.” “I will listen to the question, answer the question, and shut up,” Fisher continues.

If I were in Fisher's shoes, I would want the same promise from my witness. But I am not in Fisher's shoes. And by the same token, he isn't in mine. “Fisher. Look at me. I am the woman who crossed the line. The one who actually did what any parent would want to do in this horrible situation. Every single person on that jury is looking at me and trying to figure out whether that makes me a monster or a hero.” I look down, feeling the sudden prick of tears. “It's something I'm still trying to figure out. I can't tell them why I did it. But I can explain that when Nathaniel's life changes, mine changes. That if Nathaniel never gets over this, then neither will I. And when you look at it that way, sticking to the testimony doesn't seem quite as important, does it?“ When Fisher doesn't answer, I reach as far down inside me as I can for whatever confidence has been left behind. ”I know what I'm doing,“ I tell Fisher. ”I'm completely in control.”

He shakes his head. “Nina,” he sighs, “why do you think I'm so worried?”

“What were you thinking when you woke up the morning of October thirtieth ?” Fisher asks me, minutes later.

“That this would be the worst day of my life.”

Fisher turns, surprised. After all, we have not rehearsed this. “Why? Father Szyszynski was about to be arraigned.”

“Yes. But once he was charged, that speedy trial clock would start ticking. Either they'd bring him to trial or let him go. And that meant Nathaniel would have to get involved again.”

“When you arrived at the courthouse, what happened?”

“Thomas LaCroix, the prosecutor, said they were going to try to clear the courtroom because this was such a high-profile case. It meant the arraignment would be delayed.”

“What did you do?”

“I told my husband I had to go to the office.”

“Did you?”

I shake my head. "I wound up at a gun shop, in the parking lot. I didn't really know how I'd gotten there, but I knew it was a place I was supposed to be."

“What did you do?”

“I went in when the store opened, and I bought a gun.”

“And then?”

“I put the gun in my purse and went back to court for the arraignment.”

“Did you plan what you were going to do with the gun during the drive?” Fisher asks.

“No. The only thing on my mind was Nathaniel.”

Fisher lets this lie for a moment. “What did you do when you arrived at the courthouse?”

“I walked in.”

“Did you think about the metal detectors?”

“No, I never do. I just walk around them because I'm a prosecutor. I do it twenty times a day.”

“Did you purposefully go around the metal detectors because you were carrying a gun in your purse?”

“At that moment,” I answer, “I was not thinking at all.” I am watching the door, just watching the door, and the priest is going to come out of it at any moment. My head, it's pounding past the words that Caleb says. I have to see him. I can't hear anything but my blood, that buzzing. He will come through that door.

When the knob turns, I hold my breath. When the door swings open, and the bailiff appears first, time stops. And then the whole room falls away and it is me and him, with Nathaniel bound between us like glue. I cannot look at him, and then I cannot look away.

The priest turns his head and, unerringly, his eyes find mine. Without saying a word, he speaks: I forgive you.

It is the thought of him pardoning me that breaks something loose inside. My hand slides into my purse and with almost casual indifference I let it happen.

Do you know how sometimes you know you are dreaming, even while it occurs?

The gun is tugged forward like a magnet, until it comes within inches of his head. At the moment I pull the trigger I am not thinking of Szyszynski; I am not thinking of Nathaniel; I am not even thinking of revenge. Just one word, clamped between the vise of my teeth: No.

“Nina!” Fisher hisses, close to my face. “Are you all right?” I blink at him, then at the jury staring at me. “Yes. I'm . . . sorry.” But in my head I'm still there. I hadn't expected the recoil of the gun. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Kill a man, and you will be punished.

“Did you struggle when the guards fell on top of you?”

“No,” I murmur. “I just wanted to know he was dead.”

“Is that when Detective Ducharme took you into the holding cell?”

“Yes.”

“Did you say anything to him back there?”

“That I didn't have any choice. I had to do it.”

Which, it turns out, was true. I had said it, at the time, to deliberately sound crazy. But what those psychiatrists have testified to is technically accurate-I had no conscious control of my actions. They are only wrong in thinking that this means I was insane. What I did was no mental illness, no psychotic break. It was instinct.

Fisher pauses. “You found out some time later that, in fact, Father Szyszynski was not the man who sexually abused your son. How did that make you feel?”

“I wanted to be put in jail.”

“Do you still feel that way?” Fisher asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

In that instant, my eye falls on the defense table, where neither Fisher nor I are sitting. It is already a ghost town, I think. “I did what I did to keep my son safe. But how can I keep him safe when I'm not with him?” Fisher catches my eye meaningfully. “Will you ever take the law into your own hands again?”

Oh, I know what he wants me to say. I know, because it is what I would try to draw from a witness at this moment too. But I have told myself enough lies. I'm not going to hand-feed them to this jury, too.

"I wish I could tell you I never would . . . but that wouldn't be true. I thought I knew this world. I thought I could control it. But just when you think you've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with you.

“I killed someone.” The words burn on my tongue. "No, not just someone, but a wonderful man. An innocent man. That's something I'm going to carry with me, forever. And like any burden, it is going to get heavier and heavier . . . except I'll never be able to put it down, because now it's a part of who I am.

“ Turning to the jury, I repeat, ”I would like to tell you that I'd never do anything like this again, but then, I never thought I was capable of doing anything like this in the first place. And as it turned out, I was wrong." Fisher, I think, is going to kill me. It is hard to see him through the tears. But my heart isn't hammering, and my soul is still. An equal and opposite reaction. After all this time, it turns out that the best way to atone for doing something blatantly wrong is to do something else blatantly right. But for the grace of God, Quentin thinks, and it could be him sitting in that box. After all, there is not that much difference between himself and Nina Frost. Maybe he wouldn't have killed for his son, but he certainly greased wheels to make Gideon's conviction for drug possession go down much easier than it might have. Quentin can even remember that visceral pang that came when he found out about Gideon-not because he'd broken the law, like Tanya thought, but because his boy must have been scared shitless by the system. Yes, under different circumstances, Quentin might have liked Nina; might even have had something to talk to her about over a beer. Still, you make a bed, you've got to lie in it ... which has landed Nina on the other side of the witness box, and Quentin six feet away and determined to take her down.

He raises one eyebrow. “You're telling us that in spite of everything you know about the court system and child abuse cases, on the morning of October thirtieth you woke up with no intention of killing Father Szyszynski?”

“That's right.”

“And that as you drove to the courthouse for this man's arraignment, which-as you said-would start the clock ticking ... at that point, you had no plans to kill Father Szyszynski?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Ah.” Quentin paces past the front of the witness stand. “I guess it came to you in a flash of inspiration when you were driving to the gun store.”

“Actually, no.”

“Was it when you asked Moe to load the semiautomatic weapon for you?”

“No.”

“So I suppose when you skirted the metal detector, back at the courthouse, killing Father Szyszynski was still not part of your plan?”

“It wasn't.”

“When you walked into the courtroom, Mrs. Frost, and took up a position that would give you the best vantage point to kill Glen Szyszynski without harming anyone else in the room . . . even that, at that moment, you had no plans to kill the man?”

Her nostrils flare. “No, Mr. Brown, I didn't.”

“What about at the moment you pulled the gun out of your pocket-book and shoved it up to Glen Szyszynski's temple? Did you still have no plans to kill him then?”

Nina's lips draw tight as a purse. “You need to give an answer,” Judge Neal says.

“I told the court earlier I wasn't thinking at all at that moment.” Quentin's drawn first blood, he knows it. "Mrs. Frost, isn't it true that you've handled over two hundred child molestation cases in your seven years with the district attorney's office?"

“Yes.”

“Of those two hundred cases, twenty went to trial?”

“Yes.”

“And of those, twelve were convictions.”

“That's true.”

“In those twelve cases,” Quentin asks, “were the children able to testify?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, in several of those cases, there was no corroborating physical evidence, as there was in the case of your son, isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“As a prosecutor, as someone with access to child psychiatrists and social workers and an intimate knowledge of the legal process, don't you think you would have been able to prepare Nathaniel to come to court better than just about any other mother?”

She narrows her eyes. “You can have every resource in the world at your finger tips, and still never be able to prepare a child for that. The reality, as you know, is that the rules in court are not written to protect children, but to protect defendants.”

“How fortunate for you, Mrs. Frost,” Quentin says dryly. “Would you say you were a dedicated prosecutor?”

She hesitates. “I would say ... I was too dedicated a prosecutor.”

“Would you say you worked hard with the children you put on the stand to testify?”

“Yes.”

“In light of those twelve convictions, wouldn't you consider the work you did with those children to be successful?”

“No, I wouldn't,” she bluntly replies.

“But didn't all those perpetrators go to jail?”

“Not long enough.”

“Still, Mrs. Frost,” Quentin presses. “You made the justice system work for those twelve children.”

“You don't understand,” she says, her eyes blazing. “This was my child. As a prosecutor, my responsibility was completely different. I was supposed to take justice as far as I could for each of them, and I did. Anything else that happened outside the bounds of that courtroom was up to the parents, not me. If a mother decided to go into hiding to keep an abusive father away from her child-that was her decision to make. If a mother walked away from a verdict and shot an abuser, it had nothing to do with me. But then one day I wasn't just the prosecutor anymore. I was the parent. And it was up to me to take every step to make sure my son was safe, no matter what.” It is the moment Quentin's waited for. Finely tuned to her anger, he steps closer to her. “Are you saying that your child is entitled to more justice than another child?”

“Those kids were my job. Nathaniel is my life.”

Immediately, Fisher Carrington bobs out of his seat. “Your Honor, may we take a short break-”

“No,” Quentin and the judge say simultaneously. “That child was your life?” Quentin repeats.

“Yes.”

“Were you willing to exchange your freedom, then, to save Nathaniel?”

“Absolutely.”

“Were you thinking about that when you held the gun up to Father Szyszynski's head?”

“Of course I was,” she answers fiercely.

“Were you thinking that the only way to protect your son was to empty those bullets into Father Szyszynski's head-”

“Yes!”

“-and to make sure he never left that courtroom alive?”

“Yes.”

Quentin falls back. “But you told us you weren't thinking at all at that moment, Mrs. Frost,” he says, and stares at her until she has to turn away. When Fisher stands up to redirect, I am still shaking. How could I, who knew better, let that get away from me? I frantically scan the faces of the jury, but I can't tell a thing; you can never tell a thing. One woman looks near tears. Another is doing a crossword puzzle in the corner.

“Nina,” Fisher says, “when you were in the courtroom that morning, were you thinking that you would be willing to exchange your freedom to save Nathaniel?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“When you were in the courtroom that morning, were you thinking that the only way to stop that clock from ticking was to stop Father Szyszynski?”

“Yes.”

He meets my gaze. “When you were in the courtroom that morning, were you planning to kill him?”

“Of course not,” I reply.

“Your Honor,” Fisher announces, “the defense rests.” Quentin lies on the godawful bed in the efficiency suite, wondering why the heat hasn't kicked in, when he's cranked it up to eighty degrees. He yanks the covers over himself, then flips through the channels on the television again. An entertainment program, Wheel of Fortune, and an infomercial for balding men. With a small grin, Quentin touches his shaved head. He gets up and pads to the refrigerator, but the only thing inside it is a six-pack of Pepsi and a rotting mango he cannot recall buying. If he's going to eat dinner, he's going to have to get dinner. With a sigh, he sinks down on the bed to put on his boots and accidentally sits on the remote. The channel switches again, this time to CNN. A woman with a smooth space helmet of red hair is speaking in front of a small graphic of Nina Frost's face. “Testimony in the DA Murder Trial finished this afternoon,” the anchor says. “Closing arguments are scheduled for tomorrow morning.” Quentin turns off the TV. He ties his boots and then his gaze falls on the telephone beside the bed.

After three rings, he starts debating with himself about whether or not to leave a message. Then suddenly music explodes into his ear, a deafening backfire of rap. “Yeah?” a voice says, and then the sound is turned down.

“Gideon,” Quentin says. “It's me.”

There is a pause. “Me who?” the boy replies, and it makes Quentin smile; he knows damn well who this is. “If you're looking for my mom, she's not here. Maybe I'll tell her to call you back and then again maybe I'll just forget to give her the message.”

“Gideon, wait!” Quentin can almost hear the phone, halfway to its cradle, being brought back to his son's ear.

“What.”

“I didn't call to talk to Tanya. I called to talk to you.” For a long moment, neither of them speaks. Then Gideon says, “If you called to talk, you're doing a lousy job of it.”

“You're right.” Quentin rubs his temples. “I just wanted to say I'm sorry. About the whole rehabilitation sentence, all of it. At the time I really believed that I was doing what was best for you.” He takes a deep breath. “I had no right to start telling you how to live your life when I voluntarily walked out of it years before.” When his son stays silent, Quentin begins to get nervous. Did he get disconnected, without knowing it? “Gideon?”

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” he says finally.

“No. I called to see if you wanted to meet me for some pizza.” Quentin tosses the remote control on the bed, watches it bounce. The moment he waits for Gideon's response stretches to an eternity.

“Where?” Gideon asks.

Funny thing about a jury: no matter how scattered they seem during testimony; no matter who falls asleep in the back row and who paints their nails right during your cross-examinations, the minute it's time to get down to business, they suddenly rise to the challenge. The jurors stare at Quentin now, their attention focused on his closing argument. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he begins, "this is a very difficult case for me. Even though I do not know the defendant personally, I would have called her my colleague. But Nina Frost is not on the side of the law anymore. You all saw with your own eyes what she did on the morning of October thirtieth, 2001. She walked into a courtroom, put a gun up to an innocent man's head, and she shot him four times.

“The ironic thing is that Nina Frost claims she committed this crime in order to protect her son. Yet as she found out later ... as we all would have found out later, had the court system been allowed to work the way it is supposed to work in a civilized society . . . that in killing Father Szyszynski, she did not protect her son at all.” Quentin looks soberly at the jury. “There are reasons we have courts-because it's very easy to accuse a man. Courts hold up the facts, so that a rational judgment can be made. But Mrs. Frost acted without facts. Mrs. Frost not only accused this man, she tried him, convicted him, and executed him all by herself on that morning.”

He walks toward the jury box, trailing his hand along the railing. “Mr. Carrington will tell you that the reason the defendant committed this crime is because she knew the justice system, and she truly believed it would not protect her son. Yes, Nina Frost knew the justice system. But she used it to stack the odds. She knew what her rights would be as a defendant. She knew how to act to make a jury believe she was temporarily insane. She knew exactly what she was doing the moment she stood up and shot Father Szyszynski in cold blood.”

Quentin addresses each juror in turn. “To find Mrs. Frost guilty, you must first believe that the state of Maine has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Father Szyszynski was unlawfully killed.” He spreads his hands. “Well, you all saw it happen on videotape. Second, you must believe that the defendant was the one who killed Father Szyszynski. Again, there's no doubt in this case that this is true. And finally, you must believe that Mrs. Frost killed Father Szyszynski with premeditation. It's a big word, a legal word, but you all know what it is.”

He hesitates. “This morning, as you were driving to court, at least one of you came upon a four-way intersection with a traffic light that was turning yellow. You needed to make a decision about whether or not to take your foot off the gas and stop ... or whether you should speed through it. I don't know what choice you made; I don't need to. All I need to know-all you need to know-is that the split second when you made the decision to stop or to go was premeditation. That's all it takes. And when Mrs. Frost told you yesterday that at the moment she held the gun to Father Szyszynski's head, she was thinking that she needed to keep him from leaving the courtroom alive in order to protect her son-that, too, was premeditation.”

Quentin walks back toward the defense table and points at Nina. “This is not a case about emotions; this is a case about facts. And the facts in this case are that an innocent man is dead, that this woman killed him, and that she believed her son deserved special treatment that only she could give.” He turns toward the jury one last time. “Don't give her any special treatment for breaking the law.”

“I have two daughters,” Fisher says, standing up beside me. “One's a high school junior; the other goes to Dartmouth.” He smiles at the jury. “I'm crazy about them. I'm sure many of you feel the same about your kids. And that's the way Nina Frost feels about her son, Nathaniel.“ He puts his hand on my shoulder. ”However, one completely ordinary morning, Nina found herself facing a horrible truth no parent ever wants to face: Someone had anally raped her little boy. And Nina had to face a second horrible truth-she knew what a molestation trial would do to her son's fragile emotional balance.”

He walks toward the jury. “How did she know? Because she'd made other parents' children go through it. Because she had witnessed, time after time, children coming to court and dissolving into tears on the witness stand. Because she had seen abusers walk free even as these children were trying to fathom why they had to relive this nightmare all over again in front of a room full of strangers.” Fisher shakes his head. “This was a tragedy. Adding to it is the fact that Father Szyszynski was not the man who had hurt this little boy, after all. But on October thirtieth, the police believed that he was the abuser. The prosecutor's office believed it. Nina Frost believed it. And on that morning, she also believed that she had run out of options. What happened in court that morning was not a premeditated, malicious act but a desperate one. The woman you saw shooting that man might have looked like Nina Frost, might have moved like Nina Frost-but ladies and gentlemen, that woman on the videotape was someone different. Someone not mentally capable of stopping herself at that moment.”

As Fisher takes another breath to launch into the definition of not guilty by reason of insanity, I get to my feet. “Excuse me, but I'd like to finish.” He turns around, the wind gone from his sails. “You what?” I wait until he is close enough for me to speak privately. “Fisher, I think I can handle a closing argument.”

“You are not representing yourself!”

“Well, I'm not misrepresenting myself either.” I glance at the judge, and at Quentin Brown, who is absolutely gaping. “May I approach, Your Honor?”

“Oh, by all means, go right ahead,” Judge Neal says. We all go up to the bench, Fisher and Quentin sandwiching me. “Your Honor, I don't believe this is the wisest course of action for my client,” Fisher says.

“Seems to me that's an issue she needs to work on,” Quentin murmurs. The judge rubs his brow. “I think Mrs. Frost knows the risks here better than other defendants. You may proceed.”

Fisher and I do-si-do for an awkward moment. “It's your funeral,” he mutters, and then he steps around me and sits down. I walk up to the jury, finding my footing again, like a long-ago sailor stepping back on the deck of a clipper. “Hello,” I begin softly. “I think you all know who I am by now. You've certainly heard a lot of explanations for what brought me here. But what you haven't heard, straight out, is the truth.”

I gesture toward Quentin. "I know this, because like Mr. Brown, I was a prosecutor. And truth isn't something that makes its way into a trial very often. You've got the state, tossing facts at you. And the defense, lobbing feelings. Nobody likes the truth because it's subject to personal interpretation, and both Mr. Brown and Mr. Carrington are afraid you might read it the wrong way. But today, I want to tell it to you.

“The truth is, I made a horrible mistake. The truth is, on that morning, I was not the vigilante Mr. Brown wants you to believe I was, and I wasn't a woman having a nervous breakdown, like Mr. Carrington wants you to believe. The truth is I was Nathaniel's mother, and that took precedence over every thing else.”

I walk up to one juror, a young kid wearing a backward baseball cap. “What if your best friend was being held at gunpoint, and you had a revolver in your own hand? What would you do?” Turning to an older gentleman, I ask, “What if you came home and found your wife being raped?” I step back. "Where is the line? We're taught to stand up for ourselves; we're taught to stand up for others we care about. But all of a sudden, there's a new line drawn by the law. You sit back, it says, and let us deal with this. And you know that the law won't even do a very good job-it will traumatize your child, it will set free a convict in only a few years. In the eyes of this law that's dealing with your problem, what's morally right is considered wrong . . . and what's morally wrong, you can get away with."

I level my gaze at the jury. “Maybe I knew that the judicial system would not work for my son. Maybe I even knew, on some level, that I could convince a jury I looked crazy even though I wasn't. I wish I could tell you for sure but if I've learned anything, it's that we don't know half of what we think we do. And we know ourselves least of all.”

I turn toward the gallery and look, in turn, at Caleb and Patrick. "For each of you sitting there, condemning me for my actions: How can you know that you wouldn't have done the same thing, if put to the test? Everyday, we do little things to keep the people we love from being hurt-tell a white lie, buckle a seat belt, take away car keys from a buddy who's had one drink too many. But I've also heard of mothers who find the strength to lift cars off trapped toddlers; I've read of men who jump in front of bullets to save women they can't live without. Does that make them insane ... or is that the moment when they are painfully, 100 percent lucid?“ I raise my brows. ”It's not for me to say. But in that courtroom, the morning I shot Father Szyszynski, I knew exactly what I was doing. And at the same time, I was crazy.“ I spread my hands, a supplicant. ”Love will do that to you.“ Quentin stands up to rebut. ”Unfortunately for Mrs. Frost, there are not two systems of justice in this country-one for people who think they know every thing, and one for everyone else.“ He glances at the jury. ”You heard her-she's not sorry that she killed a man . . . she's sorry she killed the wrong man.

“Enough mistakes have been made lately,” the prosecutor says wearily. “Please don't make another one.”

When the doorbell rings, I think it might be Fisher. He hasn't spoken to me since we left court, and the three hours the jury deliberated after closing arguments does tend to support his belief that I shouldn't have gotten up to speak my mind. But when I open it, ready to defend myself-again-Nathaniel pitches into me. “Mom!” he yells, squeezing me so tightly I stumble back. “Mom, we checkered out!”

“Did you?” I say, and then repeat it over his head to Caleb. “Did you?” He sets down his small duffel bag, and Nathaniels. “I thought it might be a good time to come home,” he says quietly. “If that's okay?” By now Nathaniel has his arms around the barrel of our golden retriever's stomach; while Mason, wriggling, licks every spare inch of skin he can find. His thick tail thumps on the tile, a joyous tattoo. I know how that dog feels. Only now-in the presence of company-do I realize how lonely I have been. So I lean against Caleb, my head tucked beneath his chin, where I cannot fail to listen to his heart. “Perfect,” I reply.

330 om?"

The dog was a pillow breathing underneath me. "What happened to Mason's mom?"

My mother looked up from the couch, where she was reading papers with big words printed so tiny it made my head hurt just thinking about them. "She's . . . somewhere."

“How come she doesn't live with us?”

“Mason's mother belonged to a breeder in Massachusetts. She had twelve puppies, and Mason was the one we took home.”

“Do you think he misses her?”

“I guess he used to, at first,” she answered. “But it's been a long time, and he's happy with us. I bet he doesn't remember her anymore.” slid my finger past Mason's licorice gums, over his teeth. He blinked at me.

I bet she was wrong.