The gavel dropped, and Anne was ushered through the back of the courtroom, was shown where to report, was given her pass for the Crowley building, and had her parking validated. Down and out of the courthouse, then up again, past the charcoal concrete pillars and ramps of the parking lot. She found her way to the dull silver Zephyr as the bright afternoon sun peered and poked into the umbral garage.

Anne had trouble admitting it to herself, but she was perversely thrilled by her jury selection. The morbid Reverend Raleigh fascinated her. Those hands on his lap, hands that probably strangled his wife. Anne tried to imagine it—The look in his eyes when he does this. Is this the last thing Peggy sees? And what if she wakes up? What if they find him guilty, but she says he didn’t do it? What good is our judgment then?

She turned the radio back on, and the stringer in Midland was reporting about the parallel drilling operation and the dangers of a cave-in. Rescuers had dropped a microphone down the well and had heard the baby cry, but now there was less noise and the baby was sleeping, or at least they thought they heard breathing. No one was sure. There was too much acoustic interference from the drilling.

Anne let out a wounded breath. Three days of this. The poor mother, like Mary when she left Him in the Temple. He was missing three days. Anne now rethought what she took as gospel. How do you lose Him of all people? It was a sorrow of Mary, but it sounded suspiciously like neglect. Nonetheless Anne susurrated a quick Our Father and seven Hail Marys for baby Jessica. As she neared the house, Anne paused her prayers on a strange thought of faith and doubt. What do we really believe when we suffer? The child was hope both lost and found, and three days was a long time to be both alive and dead.

That afternoon, Dan came through the door, wordless and reeking of cigarettes, and tramped down the hallway to his room, slamming the door. A few minutes later, Bob Dylan came jangling through the stereo. That boy, always shutting me out. Anne blinked and sighed and then crushed the head of iceberg lettuce against the cutting board, loosening its heart, which she extracted like a Mohawk. She then gutted a tomato—Dan didn’t like the goo and its seeds—and pared it over the lettuce. She unsealed the box of Pepperidge Farm seasoned croutons and out tumbled the perfect white cubes of mummified bread. She shook the sediment of salad dressing into tornadic suspension and anointed the greens.