“Oh, he’s fine. The nurse’s aide couldn’t come but he’s just fine by himself.” The plot thickened. She’d left her fatally ill, demented husband at home all alone during a blizzard and managed to drive through two feet of snow, just to come to work to yell at her employees. Dana wasn’t amused.

“You know what, Aunt Judgie, I think you’ve really lost it. You’ve never left Bob home alone, without a nurse. Why are you at work? I just heard on the news the courthouses are all closed!”

“I don’t have time for this. You wouldn’t understand. How could you? You don’t do anything all day.” Click.

Inexplicably, the sight of me was beginning to agitate her. I started to remove my coat again, hoping that might help.

“Hey, Sheila.” I turned around to find Matthew standing behind me, left leg exposed, his pants ripped from ankle to thigh. Above the waist, he resembled an overaged rib eye with frostbite marbling. Matthew dropped his duffel bag to the ground, cracking a miniglacier from the zipper, and hobbled into the torture chamber.

“Hello, Judge,” he managed, “I’m here. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He turned to leave.

“Matthew, how nice of you to join us”—she glanced at her watch—“and it’s only three-thirty in the afternoon. If we could all hold such hours.”

Exhibiting superhuman self-control (or a frozen tongue), Matthew said nothing, left the torture chamber, and settled in for an afternoon of sitting up dead at his cubicle.

Shortly thereafter, Kate sauntered through the clerks’ cave. Unfortunately, she’d timed her visit at the exact moment as the judge.

“All you ever do is walk around. And you’re fat!” the judge said, jumping on the word fat, which caused her to resemble a strange, elderly rap artist.

“Um. Judge. I’m pregnant.” Kate looked like her water was about to break.

“I cannot believe you’re pregnant. I do NOT approve of my law clerks getting pregnant or married while they are here. It is only one year. And you have been bestowed the honor of working for a federal appeals judge. To think!” The irony was that Kate, the pregnant one, was the only person who’d risked her life—on her own volition—to get to work that morning.

“Judge. I apologize if you think me to be disrespectful.” Kate suddenly stood up straight and lost the stutter. “I’m more than happy to return—immediately—to my job at the staff attorney’s office if you see fit.” Two clerks down in less than a year. That, combined with the manhole incident, Bob’s illness, and Adams’s nomination, was enough to send the judge to an early grave, a place where, I was convinced, she’d still manage to wreak havoc.