She picks it up and films herself from different angles, then directs the tiny lens inside the dark pink cavern of her mouth. She wags her tongue and it moves hugely, fatly in different tempos like an obscene metronome. Slowly up and down. Side to side very fast. She rapidly touches her pink lips together and they make musical popping sounds. Then she holds up the pencil sharpener like the skull in Hamlet and talks directly to it.

“To be or not to be God? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the abstinence of putting off pleasure or should I give in to instant gratification? The answer is no. I must not give in. I must be patient, as patient as required no matter how difficult or demanding. God plans events millions of years in advance. And so can I, Chief,” she says and I hear it again, a sentence that has been edited.

Who is she talking to when she says Chief?

“Howdy. Welcome back.” Carrie walks over to the computer on the desk, sets down the pencil sharpener, pulls out the chair and sits.

Reaching for the mouse, she clicks on it and a paused image of Lucy and me fills the screen. In it I’m gesturing midsentence while Lucy sits on top of a wooden picnic table, listening, smiling. I recognize the pearl gray silk suit I had on, long since given away. Carrie must have had a zoom lens. She must have been out of sight, and I instantly recognize the perspective, the weather, the foliage.

The ERF’s parking lot. Hot and sunny. Late in the day.

The canopies of the hardwood trees are densely green and mature. There is no sign of the leaves turning, not the slightest hint of gold or red. It’s summertime. July or August. It could be the second half of June, but not the first half. No earlier than mid-to late June. Carrie might have been inside a car filming Lucy and me at the picnic tables in the wooded area flanking the employee parking lot, and I see it, feel it, smell it as if I’m there.

I have on the elegant silk suit that Benton gave me for my birthday, June 12, almost exactly one month before Marino’s. In 1995 I’m pretty sure, and I know for a fact I wore the suit only once to court because it wrinkled terribly. By the time I was called to the stand the skirt looked like it had been balled up in a drawer before I put it on, the wrinkles radiating from under the arms of the jacket are huge crow’s-feet. I see the suit clearly. I remember making a joke about it to Lucy.