The teacher advised her that he needed a lot of attention—even though he gets attention; he does. Shelley pays him a lot of attention, but she is also exhausted, and who wouldn’t be? She blames exhaustion—worry and exhaustion—for her restless sleeping. She is on her own, and her son is obsessed with things as sweet as My Little Pony and Einstein, the tiniest horse in the world, and as dark and gross as Lizzie Borden and the Menendez brothers, and she never knows which of it he will be focused on. She could throttle Jason for introducing Harvey to all those scary, morbid things, but she’s worried about Jason, too, his own sense of self so fragile. Those are the ones who get in trouble. She has typed or spoken that a million times. A million times, she has heard a judge say something like that. Those are the ones who get in trouble. She’s worried about her own life and whatever truth is ahead, and she’s worried about the outcome of the trial that has the whole town tuned in and waiting. Who wouldn’t be worried? Who wouldn’t feel frightened?

And will she lose her job? Her brain is firing odd things at odd times, unable to locate the right information when she needs it. Her brain is about to short out, and of course it is. She really needs this job, so much of life so uncertain. There are so many things to worry about and think about right now, she has to write her to-do lists in shorthand. And it was such a simple mistake when at the end of a very long and disturbing day of testimony, she also submitted her grocery list and her made-up little version of the trial, along with her additional shorthand notes for the day. Oh God. For twenty-four hours now, she has swung between, Oh God, how did you do that? And Oh God, of course you did that. Who wouldn’t be making mistakes and dropping balls all over the place with all that you have on your shoulders? “The real report is all there, too, every word of it,” she said. “I am the fastest in the area. Look it up. I average two hundred fifty words per minute, but I have on several occasions done three hundred. The world record is three sixty. I’m good. I’m very good. I made a mistake. Please.”