Shelley’s job has always kept her feeling better about herself. Sometimes the worse the case, the happier her life can feel, because, yes, it may be difficult to not know where someone is, but at least no one has put a cigarette out in your eye while you slept or a broomstick up your vagina, no one has shaken your baby to death or drugged you and then shot heroin into your arm to make it look like you killed yourself in a sad little apartment above a hot-dog drive-in, while your sweet little baby was staying with a friend just so you could have a date. That’s the story of the trial, and she can’t get it out of her head. It all feels so close to her life—Brent could have killed her when she showed up at his house and told him about Harvey—and so she actively seeks ways to distract herself so she won’t feel afraid, something she learned to do a long time ago when the sounds of all those televisions and voices in her childhood home joined together in one loud vacuum-like hum.

Since childhood, Shelley’s mind has wandered, and so she is especially sympathetic to Harvey and the way the teacher described his staring out the window. This is why her job is so good for her—taking notes, word after word, stroke after stroke—such a healthy way to stay focused and productive, to contribute to the good of society while also taking care of herself and her children. She practices begging while walking the aisles of Food Lion. Please let me keep my job. She shakes her head against the thought of the judge’s eyes, that piercing stare that demands truth from all the lowlifes. “I will need to speak to you,” the judge had said, and Shelley practices begging one more time while she spins the rack of L’eggs and No Nonsense. Gentlemen might prefer Hanes, but she hates pantyhose and always has. How can it even be healthy to be all bound up that way like a Jimmy Dean sausage; a pair of pantyhose was the weapon of choice in a trial just six months ago: mask and strangulation tool, all for under five dollars.

I tend to wear nice pants instead of skirts, she imagines telling the judge. I take my work very seriously. Every aspect of it.

Harvey