Brigid stands suddenly, saying she doesn’t want to be here any longer, she’s already heard this once. I watch my sister make her way through the lunch crowd, not looking back until she’s out the door and out on Main Street.
“Is it terminal?” I ask Sam. “And please don’t tell me we’re all terminal, I’m in no mood to play that particular game today.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Jane,” Sam says. “This is bad.”
“How bad?” I shake my head, almost in disbelief. “Are you telling me that I have a better shot at beating this than she does? Goddamn, Sam, she was supposed to be in remission.”
“We’ve had this conversation about cancer before,” she says.“No one is ever really in the clear, no matter how much you love them. But in my opinion? Yes, you do have a much better shot of beating your cancer at this point than she does hers.”
I feel the air come out of me and then my throat closes, as if it’s just slammed shut.
And then I am looking all the way across the front room at Van’s, across the busy, noisy lunch crowd, and see Brigid standing at the window, her nose pressed against it, like she’s staring in at a normal world that doesn’t include her and might never again.
Before she walks away.
I want to run after her, except I don’t know what I’d say.
“This is so not fair,” I say to Dr. Sam Wylie.
“I run into a lot of that in my line of work,” she says.
NINETY-FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING ROB Jacobson and I, just the two of us, are sitting in our usual conference room down the hall from the courtroom. I have already prepared myself on the ride here from Amagansett for an extremely long day in court, mostly because I know what Katherine Welsh has in store for us:
A parade of Garden City cops who will slow-walk the jury through everything they encountered when they arrived at the crime scene the night of the shootings, complete with grisly crime-scene photos. After she’s done with them, she plans to call an audiovisual expert who will use computer-generated animation—based on the findings of all those cops—to show how they believe the events of that night unfolded, beginning with the killer shooting Hank Carson on the first floor of the house before proceeding upstairs to where he found Lily and Morgan Carson in their respective bedrooms.
Jimmy or I have already interviewed these same cops. So I know they’re certain the shooter used a suppressor, which is why the neighbors didn’t hear anything, and why the cops believe neither Lily nor Morgan knew that Hank Carson was already dead as the shooter made his way up the stairs and finished his work.
I’ve already objected to the use of the animation, evenknowing there is absolutely no chance, none, that Judge Horton won’t allow it. The truth is, I’ve used animation like this myself in the past, knowing what a powerful evidentiary tool animation like this can be.
All the jury will be seeing in Katherine Welsh’s little movie is an avatar moving from room to room and doing the shooting. But I know she’ll do everything in her power to make those twelve people see Rob Jacobson moving from room to room and firing his weapon. And I’ll do everything in my power to distract them.
For now, Rob Jacobson and I are seated across from each other. He keeps looking up at the wall clock behind me, waiting for the moment when the two of us will make the walk down the hallway a few minutes before nine o’clock.
From the time I walked into the room, I haven’t said anything to him.
“You have that look,” he says finally, unable to wait for me to break the silence between us.
“And what look would that be?”
“The one that makes me feel like I’ve stepped in it all over again.”
I notice, and not for the first time, that he’s managed to maintain his summer tan. I assume that he’s got a tanning machine tucked away somewhere in his rental home. But what his bronzing can’t hide is his weight loss, the way the skin is starting to sag below his chin, the general strain on his face, despite an almost relentless effort on his part to appear—especially with me—as cocky and as sure of himself as ever.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that he’s the one who’s sick.
“I had lunch with my sister yesterday,” I tell him.
“Oh, so that’s it.” He nods. “She told you I don’t want to see her anymore.”
Now I’m the one nodding, a little too vigorously. “Yeah,Rob, she was so upset at you kicking her out of your bed that she almost forgot to mention that she’s dying.”
I am fighting to maintain my composure. But by now I have learned, the hard way, that restraining myself from losing my temper in his presence—or hauling off and slugging him again—isn’t the real battle for me. The real battle continues to be convincing myself that as much of a guttersnipe—one of my mother’s favorite words—as he is, he’s not a monster.
“You really should be thanking me,” he says.
I turn and look at the clock. Still ten minutes before we need to leave.
