Josi turned to look at me. I looked at her, smiled. Her face lit up. “He’o, Ca’ Cu’is.”

“Good luck today,” said Tvist.

“See you there,” I said, watching after him.

Scanners at the courthouse. Shoes off. Keys and belt in a plastic tray. Standard precautions—the familiar routines of the modern world.

We walked across the slate floor toward the wooden staircase. Vee hung back.

“Want us to save you a seat, honey?”

“I’m good.”

On the floor outside the courtroom a chaos of tape marks and cables and tripods. Men and women in sober suits standing in pools of light, speaking test-words into microphones, joking quietly with the crews behind the cameras.

Elsa held my face in her hands. Around us people flowed toward the court.

“Handsome fuck,” she said.

My phone vibrated. I took a step away, pulled the phone from my pocket.

Dan.

I held my phone up to Elsa.

“I’ll find you a seat with translation,” she said, serious suddenly. “Say hi.”

We looked at each other. “Courage,” she said, very quietly. I nodded. Courage, love.

I raised the phone to my ear. “Sorry, Dan.”

“Three things. One: I’m calling to wish you guys luck.”

“Thank you.”

“Two: I want to let you know I have options.”

“Options?”

“If you need to back out.”

“I do not need to back out.”

“I want you to promise—”

“What’s the third thing?”

“The third thing is a piece of advice. Do not engage with these people.”

“Sure, Dan, whatever you say.”

“I’m serious, Cal. These are not people you want anywhere near the inside of your head. Do not look them in the eye.”

A wall had been built for the trial, a three-sided glass box ten feet high. They stood there behind their wall, these men who had murdered so many people’s children, so many people’s brothers and sisters, in their nondescript black suits, their hair unbleached now. Mousy.

I saw Tvist take his place in the front row.

You do all this for these men, Tvist: your airport scanners, your glass walls, your special officers with their submachine guns. Yet you couldn’t protect our children.

Tvist turned, as if he sensed my eyes on him. He caught my gaze and smiled. I turned away, surprised at my own anger.

In the back row of the courtroom Vee sat with some girls I didn’t know, holding hands. All adult dresses, minimal makeup. I tried to meet Vee’s eye, to ask her if she was okay, but she was lost in conversation.

Elsa curled her fingers into mine.

The men stared out at us from behind their bulletproof glass. Two officers approached them.

The Andersen brothers held out their hands. The officers removed the cuffs.

There they stood, massaging their wrists, surveying the room. They turned to each other. Why were they not separated?