There are so many things Shelley wishes she could say, things that fight to get on the tongue, only to be swallowed back down in the name of composure or decency or respect. As a child, it’s why she loved that book Go, Dog. Go! and why she has enjoyed reading it to her boys. “Do you like my hat?” one dog asks, and the other repeatedly says, “I do not!” instead of that polite girl thing so many were raised to do: Well, it’s a hat like I have never seen before, and What a hat that is! Oh my, that’s a hat, all right, and Aren’t you sweet to even think to ask my opinion. I am so flattered and honored that you thought of me. Nice girls = enablers. Now there are whole libraries of books about this.

Do you like my hat? Hell, no, it looks like shit!

Doesn’t she look just like a little doll?

Oh God, yes! A little voodoo doll, with rusty pins stuck all about the mouth.

These cases get to her this way, and she has to vent somewhere so she won’t screw up and accidentally shout out in the courtroom. She likes to take shorthand the old-fashioned way, with a piece of paper and a pencil, a method that requires her alert attention and doesn’t leave room for mistakes or for other thoughts to enter her mind, a problem she has had her whole life—sometimes several thoughts coming to her at one time, so that she consciously has to slow down, slow down, and she tells herself, Slow down, only she can’t afford to do that while at work, because just that little soothing repetition could cost her a very important sentence or admission or piece of evidence. It’s easy in a town without all the modern equipment to fall back on good old shorthand—stenotype or paper and pencil—and there is no one around here who comes close to her speed and accuracy on keyboard or longhand.

Her job is very stressful this way—demanding a level of vigilance almost as bad as having a newborn you’re worried about, and both of her sons’ births had filled her with anxiety. Jason, because she was all alone in the world, and Harvey, because of the defect. That’s what they said—“the defect”—like an airbag or floor mat, or something misshapen or dented on an assembly line, only she was Harvey’s assembly line, her birth canal his only way out, and so of course she feels responsible. Harvey’s birth had caused so much worry she thought she would never sleep again. It was a shock to see him and a shock to see the look on the young nurse’s face. It felt like blame, an accusation. What did you do?