Her friend stripped off her latex gloves and nodded at the child with her, indicating they were all done with the dreaded shot. The little boy scampered to join his parents. Cindy’s eyes followed him, and she felt the same old yearning that dogged her whenever she saw a mother and child together. As if she’d missed something in her life. Janine didn’t seem similarly affected. When her time with a patient was over, that person disappeared from her consciousness. Cindy didn’t understand it, but she’d seen it in doctors over and over.

‘You want some lemonade?’ she asked her friend.

‘Sure.’

Cindy filled two Dixie Cups from a large plastic pitcher near the check-in desk. She drank one and then refilled it, and she ate a stale butter cookie. They’d already been on their feet for hours, and she was exhausted.

‘Here you go,’ she said, handing a cup to Janine.

‘Thanks.’ Janine sipped pink lemonade and eyed the gawkers in the mall. ‘It’s odd. I’ve been saving lives for years, and no one had a clue who I was. Now people think I shot my husband, and I’m recognized everywhere.’

‘Duluth is still a small town,’ Cindy said.

‘Yes, that’s what Archie says. He told me to come here today. He said it would humanize me if people saw me giving shots to little kids. I guess my compassion is just a legal strategy. She lowered her voice further and added: ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’

Cindy looked at her, confused. ‘No.’

‘Archie is already thinking about the jury pool.’

Cindy was shocked, but she realized that Janine was right. Archie knew that trials were shaped months in advance by the public perception of a defendant. Initial prejudices, good or bad, were hard to overcome. Janine’s lawyer wanted the people of Duluth to see her as a doctor. A healer. Not a rich, cold adulterer who could point a gun at her husband and pull the trigger.

‘I’ll be back in a minute, okay?’ Cindy said. ‘I need to splash some water on my face.’

She retreated to a bathroom at the back of the empty store. It was handicapped-accessible and smelled of pine disinfectant. She left the door open and didn’t bother turning on the light. She washed her hands, then her face, and she dried her skin with paper towels from the dispenser.

As she stared at her dark reflection in the mirror, it happened again.

Pain, like a lightning bolt between her legs.