One of the women who testified was someone Shelley had met several times, someone right there in their own neighborhood; she lived in that beautiful old house beside the cemetery and was the mother of a kid Jason knew, a sweet girl named Abby, who was Harvey’s favorite babysitter and who Shelley hopes will have the good sense to move far, far away, where all this mess won’t ruin her life. Sometimes the very best thing you can do is run, get away, shake the shit out of that snow globe you live in and never let it settle. Shelley herself had done that—of course she had—because she was like the canary in the mine, the thermometer in her childhood home. Why don’t you go in first, Shelley? What is the temperature, Shelley? She was always so afraid she might fly in and never get back out. She might fly in and die that way, her soul nothing but a little sacrifice so the others could claim that her sad loss was the root of all the other problems and failures. But she did not want to sacrifice herself. The smart canary would learn to aim a little higher each time until finally one day, she just flaps and flies up above it all; she gets the fuck out of there.

It was hard to imagine how all the families affected by the orange-suit asshole wouldn’t be ruined. And yet you would have to have no heart at all to see someone sit there and hear themselves and their sex lives critiqued and judged in front of a courtroom by a man who says he never gave a damn and not be moved, right? He even laughed outright at their stupidity to think he’d wanted anything more than to use them like disposable wipes. He used that word, disposable. Disposable company.

The woman who lives near Shelley had dressed like a grandma at church on her court day, a way that Shelley had never seen her look before. Usually, she was in short, tight dresses made for someone her daughter’s age, and high heels like they all wear on the Real Housewives shows, the kind of woman who might loop her thumbs in the front pockets of that little dress like she’s the cheese. The cheese, the cheese. The cheese stands alone. That woman had a daughter she should have been thinking about; children need to feel like someone is there. If Shelley’s mother had ever been there to say nice things—the kinds of things Shelley says to Jason and Harvey—Shelley’s life might have been different. She might have stood a little taller, taken more chances. Flown away sooner.