In childbirth class, she’d heard a woman say how beautiful it is to imagine all that the baby hears, that she had been giving her baby a steady diet of Mozart and traditional African folk music. Shelley just smiled at her and did not say what she was thinking, how she couldn’t stop thinking about all those babies who have to hear things like screams and threats and slams and shots before they ever even enter the world. She didn’t want to tell her that with Jason, she had listened to all of her old favorites like Nirvana and Mariah and Janet Jackson, even though what would have been wrong with that? The night that Harvey was conceived, Brent was playing Miles Davis. They hadn’t known each other long; they had met in a bar. “A nice bar,” she always added when Brent told that. He once said, “Who knew a one-night stand would stretch into years,” and then, when she didn’t say anything back, added that he was glad it had, shook her shoulder as if to say, A joke! That’s a joke! It took so long for him to say the second part that it didn’t feel good to hear, but by then there were good things to hear, things like Harvey in his little bouncy chair, his breath against her cheek, and the sounds of Jason’s Game Boy, something Brent took him to buy, an outing that had made her feel hopeful, even though it didn’t last.

Still that kind of memory is such a good distraction, and these days, she is actively seeking distraction. The other day, Harvey’s camp teacher, Mr. Stone—“Call me Ned”—told her how Harvey has such a vivid imagination, and that he will do his best to help the little guy get through this difficult time. That’s what he said: “this difficult time.” And she said, yes, she knows that Harvey has a vivid imagination. The ghost stories, the Ninja Turtles, how the one named Michelangelo lived in his closet for years and they had to put a glass of milk in there for him every night. Oh, and that mini horse, Einstein. Harvey has built little trails and stables all over the yard for his toy horse.

But Ned said that a lot of what Harvey was talking about was darker than that. “He’s been talking about that murder trial,” he said. “And he knows all the details. You work at the courthouse, right?”