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I looked out the window while Rafferty went on with the questions, trying to think about Mrs. Mackessy, trying for the millionth time to imagine her side of the story. She had grown up with deaf parents, and might have run wild with bad girls, coming home late and signing lies, squandering her promise on men who ill-treated her. She would probably always think of me as someone who was without question thoroughly evil. She wouldn’t care that we’d lost a way of life; I had deserved my misfortunes and so did my family. I wondered if she could ever begin to bring any of Robbie’s tragedy back to herself.

Before Rafferty finished with Theresa he asked her, as I knew he would, about our friendship. I remember how she looked out at us, first at me, sitting at the table alone, and then at Howard, who was behind me. She studied us, as if she was evaluating our bonds. I thought she was going to get choked up. “Yes,” she responded, “we were neighbors and friends.”

“Did your children play together?”

“Very often. Several times a week.”

“Did you ever suspect my client of neglect or foul play?”

“No,” Theresa said.

“You never saw anything, any signs, any flares to alert you?”

“Never.”

“Your daughter was always happy to go to the Goodwins?”

“Yes. Thrilled.”

“Would you allow your daughter to stay unchaperoned with the Goodwin family at this time?”

She was crying now, in her good old way, her professional mantle at her knees, revealing the woman, the mother. She was weeping so affectingly some of the juror’s were dabbing their eyes. “I can’t impress upon you enough,” she said through her sniffles, “that Alice never would inflict—that she never did any of those things.”

I’d like to say that I was not afraid when I took the stand. I wished for the convictions and confidence of Mrs. Sheridan, and the dignity of Theresa. I could not remember anything about our rehearsals except Paul’s flatulent praise. I took a moment to pray while he gathered his papers. I prayed that I could stand up to the assistant D.A. as well as Theresa had, even though Dirks trashed her credentials. I sat with my shaking hands in my lap, feeling as if my mouth had been stuffed with sawdust. I looked at Paul, who had job happiness, who would go on to save someone else after he was through with me. We had gone through the questions several times. We had agreed on certain wording. It would all flow he said, like a piece of cake.

He began by asking me what I had been charged with that had been the occasion for my spending nearly three months in the county jail.

I remembered my line. “Sexual abuse, reckless endangerment, child abuse,” I said.

“And how did you plead?”

“Not guilty.”

“And how did you find the jail?”

Dirks objected.

“Your honor,” Rafferty said, “I think my client deserves to say a few sentences about her time in jail as a result of this charge. She was beaten and had a serious injury, so serious she was hospitalized.”

Peterson nodded his head. “And how did you find the county jail?” Rafferty asked again.

I knew what he wanted me to say, that it had been the most difficult period of my life, that it had been sorely trying being in an overcrowded facility with seasoned prisoners, that as a result of my beating I had to have major surgery at St. Luke’s hospital. The words failed me. But I could see the girls plainly—Lynelle, Dyshett, Sherry, Debbie—sitting in the back, watching with hope, scorn, affection, disinterest. “I was in awe,” I said, under my breath.

“You were what?”

“I was in awe.”

“Not something you’d like to repeat, I take it?” he said quickly.

“No.”

He carried my log around in his hands, opening it, reading from it, as he asked me at length about specific visits Robbie had made in the previous year. Finally he asked, “In all of the, what—twenty-five visits—we have recorded here, Mrs. Goodwin, did you ever touch Robbie in an inappropriate way?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What did you do to Robbie that you shouldn’t have?”

“I hit him.”

“How many times