He decided that he deserved a little meth. After all, he’d had “a most unpleasant day.” He’d immediately spotted a pack of “shady people—drug dealers for sure.” Once he started he couldn’t stop. He was relieved that the judge wouldn’t address him, as that meant no more pressure to perform. He got through the day just so he could go home and do more drugs. The other clerks had altogether ditched him. In fact, he’d spotted Brian and the cute blonde together heavily petting each other on several occasions.

Outside, church bells rang.

“God, Sheila, all this talking has made me hungry. Maybe you can make me something to eat?” Evan propped up his feet, making himself at home on my yellow couch.

As if serving as a therapist and halfway house weren’t enough, now I was spending Christmas night microwaving frozen pizzas for a drug-addicted squatter who up until a few hours earlier had merely been an irritating colleague.

Indeed, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Chapter Fifteen

We were still a couple of days away from the New Year, but the party had already started in Judge Friedman’s chambers.

“It’s here! It’s here! Front page!” Unable to adequately express her excitement through traditional dance, the judge’s bun broke into a bastardized jumping jack. “Sheba! Markhew! Did you see? Did you see?” The judge flew into the clerks’ cave, waving a Philadelphia Inquirer. On the cover, above the fold, was the Dell Nelson case, with excerpts from the majority opinion as well as our dissent. With Judge Adams’s nomination hearings scheduled for February, the media was watching her every move through a microscope. A death penalty case ordinarily would never have received such press.

“You both did a rilly rilly good job.” The judge smiled at me and Matthew. While we were thrilled with the compliment, it was still perplexing. We’d spent a day earlier in the week, going over the opinion, line by line, word by word, with the judge in the torture chamber. When she wasn’t dozing off, sitting up, clutching her mechanical pencil, she was busy criticizing every inch of the dissent, down to comma placement. I was sure she’d rewrite the whole thing behind our backs. She hadn’t and now it was in the newspaper!