Nineteen Minutes

by Jodie Picoult

  That’s why people are still so shell-shocked.

  They ask, How could this happen here?

  Well. How could it not happen here?

  All it takes is a troubled kid with access to guns.

  You don’t have to go to an inner city to find someone who meets those criteria. You only have to open your eyes. The next likely candidate might be upstairs, or sprawled in front of your TV right now. But hey, you just go right on pretending it won’t happen here. Tell yourself that you’re immune because of where you live or who you are.

  It’s easier that way, isn’t it?

  Five Months After

  You can tell a lot about people by their habits. For example, Jordan had come across potential jurors who religiously took their cups of coffee to their computers and read the entire New York Times online. There were others whose welcome screen on AOL didn’t even include news updates, because they found it too depressing. There were rural people who owned televisions but only got a grainy public broadcasting station because they couldn’t afford the money it would take to bring cable lines up their dirt road; and there were others who had bought elaborate satellite systems so that they could catch Japanese soaps or Sister Mary Margaret’s Prayer Hour at three in the morning. There were those who watched CNN, and those who watched FOX News.

  It was the sixth hour of individual voir dire, the process by which the jury for Peter’s trial would be selected. This involved long days in the courtroom with Diana Leven and Judge Wagner, as the pool of jurors dribbled one by one into the witness seat to be asked a variety of questions by the defense and the prosecution. The goal was to find twelve folks, plus an alternate, who weren’t personally affected by the shooting; a jury that could commit to a long trial if necessary, instead of worrying about their home business or who was taking care of their toddlers. A group of people who had not been living and breathing the news about this trial for the past five months-or, as Jordan was affectionately starting to think of them: the blessed few that had been living under a rock.

  It was August, and for the past week the temperatures had climbed to nearly a hundred degrees during the day. To make matters worse, the air-conditioning in the courtroom was on the fritz, and Judge Wagner smelled like mothballs and feet when he sweated.

  Jordan had already taken off his jacket and loosened the top button of his shirt beneath his tie. Even Diana-who he secretly believed had to be some kind of Stepford robot-had twisted her hair up and jammed a pencil into the bun to secure it. “What are we up to?” Judge Wagner asked.

  “Juror number six million seven hundred and thirty thousand,” Jordan murmured.

  “Juror number eighty-eight,” the clerk announced.

  It was a man this time, wearing khaki pants and a short-sleeved shirt. He had thinning hair, boat shoes, and a wedding band. Jordan noted all of this on his pad.

  Diana stood up and introduced herself, then began asking her litany of questions. The answers would determine if a potential juror could be dismissed for cause-if they had a kid, for example, who’d been killed at Sterling High and couldn’t be impartial. If not, Diana could choose to use one of her peremptory strikes. Both she and Jordan had fifteen opportunities to dismiss a potential juror out of gut instinct. So far, Diana had used one of hers against a short, bald, quiet software developer. Jordan had dismissed a former Navy SEAL.

  “What do you do for work, Mr. Alstrop?” Diana asked.

  “I’m an architect.”

  “You’re married?”

  “For twenty years, this October.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Two, a fourteen-year-old boy and a nineteen-year-old girl.”

  “Do they go to public high school?”

  “Well, my son does. My daughter’s in college. Princeton,” he said proudly.

  “Do you know anything about this case?”

  Saying he did, Jordan knew, wouldn’t exclude him. It was what he believed or didn’t believe, in spite of what the media had said.

  “Well, only what I read in the papers,” Alstrop said, and Jordan closed his eyes.

  “Do you read a certain newspaper daily?”

  “I used to get the Union Leader,” he said, “but the editorials drove me crazy. I try to read the main section of The New York Times now, at least.”

  Jordan considered this. The Union Leader was a notoriously conservative paper, The New York Times a liberal one.

  “What about television?” Diana asked. “Any shows you particularly like?”

  You probably didn’t want a juror who watched ten hours of Court TV per day. You also didn’t want the guy who savored Pee-wee Herman marathons.

  “60 Minutes,” Alstrop replied. “And The Simpsons.”

  Now that, Jordan thought, was a normal guy. He got to his feet as Diana turned the questioning over to him. “What do you remember reading about this case?” he asked.

  Alstrop shrugged. “There was a shooting at the high school and one of the students was charged.”

  “Did you know any of the students?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anyone who works at Sterling High?”

  Alstrop shook his head. “No.”

  “Have you talked to anyone involved in this case?”

  “No.”

  Jordan walked up to the witness stand. “There’s a rule in this state that says you can take a right on red, if you stop first at the red light. You familiar with it?”

  “Sure,” Alstrop said.

  “What if the judge told you that you can’t turn right on red-that you must stay stopped until the light goes green again, even if there’s a sign in front of you that specifically says RIGHT TURN ON RED. What would you do?”

  Alstrop looked at Judge Wagner. “I guess I’d do what he said.”

  Jordan smiled to himself. He didn’t give a damn about Alstrop’s driving habits-that setup and question was a way to weed out the people who couldn’t see past convention. There would be information in this trial that wasn’t necessarily intuitive, and he needed people on a jury who were open-minded enough to understand that rules weren’t always what you thought they were, who could listen to the new regulations and follow them accordingly.

  When he finished his questioning, he and Diana walked toward the bench. “Is there any reason to dismiss this juror for cause?” Judge Wagner asked.

  “No, Your Honor,” Diana said, and Jordan shook his head.

  “So?”

  Diana nodded. Jordan glanced at the man, still sitting on the witness stand. “This one works for me,” he said.

  When Alex woke up, she pretended not to. Instead, she kept her eyes nearly closed so that she could stare at the man sprawled on the other side of her bed. This relationship-four months old now-was still a mystery to her, as much as the constellation of freckles on Patrick’s shoulders, the valley of his spine, the startling contrast of his black hair against a white sheet. It seemed that he had invaded her life by osmosis: she’d find his shirt mixed in with her laundry; she’d smell his shampoo on her pillowcase; she would pick up the phone, thinking to call him, and he’d already be on the line. Alex had been single for so long; she was practical, resolute, and set in her ways (oh, who was she kidding…those were all just euphemisms for what she really was: stubborn)-she would have guessed that this sudden attack on her privacy would be unnerving. Instead, though, she found herself feeling disoriented when Patrick wasn’t around, like the sailor who’s just landed after months at sea and who still feels the ocean rolling beneath him even when it isn’t there.

  “I can feel you staring, you know,” Patrick murmured. A lazy smile heated his face, but his eyes were still shut.

  Alex leaned over, slipping her hand under the covers. “What can you feel?”

  “What can’t I?” Striking quick as lightning, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her underneath him. His eyes, still softened by sleep, were a crisp blue that made Alex think of glaciers and northern seas. He ki
ssed her, and she vined around him.

  Then suddenly her eyes snapped open. “Oh, shit,” she said.

  “That wasn’t really what I was going for…”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  They had drawn the shades in her bedroom because of a full moon last night. But by now, the sun was streaming through the thinnest crack at the bottom of the windowsill. Alex could hear Josie banging pots and pans downstairs in the kitchen.

  Patrick reached over Alex for the wristwatch he’d left on her nightstand. “Oh, shit,” he repeated, and he threw back the covers. “I’m an hour late for work already.”

  He grabbed his boxers as Alex jumped out of bed and reached for her robe. “What about Josie?”

  It wasn’t that they had been hiding their relationship from Josie-Patrick often dropped by after work or for dinner or to hang out in the evenings. A few times, Alex had tried to talk to Josie about him, to see what she thought of the whole miracle of her mother dating again, but Josie did whatever it took to avoid having that conversation. Alex wasn’t sure herself where this was all going, but she did know that she and Josie had been a unit for so long that adding Patrick to the mix meant Josie became the loner-and right now, Alex was determined to keep that from happening. She was making up for lost time, really, thinking of Josie before she thought of anything else. To that end, if Patrick spent the night, she made sure he left before Josie could wake up to find him there.

  Except today, when it was a lazy summer Thursday and nearly ten o’clock.

  “Maybe this is a good time to tell her,” Patrick suggested.

  “Tell her what?”

  “That we’re…” He looked at her.

  Alex stared at him. She couldn’t finish his sentence; she didn’t really know the answer herself. She never expected that this was the way she and Patrick would have this conversation. Was she with Patrick because he was good at that-rescuing the underdog who needed it? When this trial was over, would he move on? Would she?

  “We’re together,” Patrick said decisively.

  Alex turned her back to him and yanked shut the tie of her robe. That wasn’t, to paraphrase Patrick earlier, what she had been going for. But then again, how would he know that? If he asked her right now what she wanted out of this relationship…well, she knew: she wanted love. She wanted to have someone to come home to. She wanted to dream about a vacation they’d take when they were sixty and know he’d be there the day she stepped onto the plane. But she’d never admit any of this to him. What if she did, and he just looked at her blankly? What if it was too soon to think about things like this?

  If he asked her right now, she wouldn’t answer, because answering was the surest way to get your heart handed back to you.

  Alex rummaged underneath the bed, searching for her slippers. Instead, she located Patrick’s belt and tossed it to him. Maybe the reason she hadn’t openly told Josie she was sleeping with Patrick had nothing to do with protecting Josie, and everything to do with protecting herself.

  Patrick threaded the belt through his jeans. “It doesn’t have to be a state secret,” he said. “You are allowed to…you know.”

  Alex glanced at him. “Have sex?”

  “I was trying to come up with something a little less blunt,” Patrick admitted.

  “I’m also allowed to keep things private,” Alex pointed out.

  “Guess I ought to get back the deposit on the billboard, then.”

  “That might be a good idea.”

  “I suppose I could just get you jewelry instead.”

  Alex looked down at the carpet so that Patrick couldn’t see her trying to pick apart that sentence, find the commitment strung between the words.

  God, was it always this frustrating when you weren’t the one running the show?

  “Mom,” Josie yelled up the stairs, “I’ve got pancakes ready, if you want some.”

  “Look,” Patrick sighed. “We can still keep Josie from finding out. All you have to do is distract her while I sneak out.”

  She nodded. “I’ll try to keep her in the kitchen. You…” She glanced at Patrick. “Just hurry.” As Alex started out of the room, Patrick grabbed her hand and yanked.

  “Hey,” he said. “Good-bye.” He leaned down and kissed her.

  “Mom, they’re getting cold!”

  “See you later,” Alex said, pushing away.

  She hurried downstairs and found Josie eating a plate of blueberry pancakes. “Those smell so good…I can’t believe I slept this late,” Alex began, and then she realized that there were three place settings at the kitchen table.

  Josie folded her arms. “So how does he take his coffee?”

  Alex sank into a chair across from her. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”

  “A. I am a big girl. B. Then the brilliant detective shouldn’t have left his car in the driveway.”

  Alex picked at a thread on the place mat. “No milk, two sugars.”

  “Well,” Josie said. “Guess I’ll know for next time.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Alex asked quietly.

  “Getting him coffee?”

  “No. The next time part.”

  Josie poked at a fat blueberry on the top of her pancake. “It’s not really something I get to choose, is it?”

  “Yes,” Alex said. “Because if you’re not all right with this, Josie, then I’ll stop seeing him.”

  “You like him?” Josie asked, staring down at her plate.

  “Yeah.”

  “And he likes you?”

  “I think so.”

  Josie lifted her gaze. “Then you shouldn’t worry about what anyone else thinks.”

  “I worry about what you think,” Alex said. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re any less important to me because of him.”

  “Just be responsible,” Josie answered, with a slow smile. “Every time you have sex, you can get pregnant or you can not get pregnant. That’s fifty-fifty.”

  Alex raised her brows. “Wow. I didn’t even think you were listening when I gave that speech.”

  Josie pressed her finger against a spot of maple syrup that had fallen onto the table, her eyes trained on the wood. “So, do you…like…love him?”

  The words seemed bruised, tender. “No,” Alex said quickly, because if she could convince Josie, then she surely could convince herself that what she felt for Patrick had everything to do with passion and nothing to do with…well…that. “It’s only been a few months.”

  “I don’t think there’s a grace period,” Josie said.

  Alex decided that the best road to take through this minefield was the one that would keep both Josie and herself from being hurt: pretend this was nothing, a fling, a fancy. “I wouldn’t know what being in love felt like if it hit me in the face,” she said lightly.

  “It’s not like on TV, like everything’s perfect all of a sudden.” Josie’s voice shrank until it was barely a thought. “It’s more like, once it happens, you spend all your time realizing how much can go wrong.”

  Alex looked up at her, frozen. “Oh, Josie.”

  “Anyway.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you-”

  “Let’s just drop it, okay?” Josie forced a smile. “He’s not bad-looking, you know, for someone that old.”

  “He’s a year younger than I am,” Alex pointed out.

  “My mother, the cradle robber.” Josie picked up the plate of pancakes and passed it. “These are getting cold.”

  Alex took the plate. “Thank you,” she said, but she held Josie’s gaze just long enough for her daughter to realize what Alex was really grateful for.

  Just then Patrick came creeping down the stairs. At the landing, he turned to give Alex a thumbs-up sign. “Patrick,” she called out. “Josie’s made us some pancakes.”

  Selena knew the party line-you were supposed to say that there was no difference between boys and girls-but she also knew if you asked any mom or nursery school teacher, th
ey’d tell you differently, off the record. This morning, she sat on a park bench watching Sam negotiate a sandbox with a group of fellow toddlers. Two little girls were pretending to bake pizzas made out of sand and pebbles. The boy beside Sam was trying to demolish a dump truck by smashing it repeatedly into the sandbox’s wooden frame. No difference, Selena thought. Yeah, right.

  She watched with interest as Sam turned from the boy beside him and started to copy the girls, sifting sand into a bucket to make a cake.

  Selena grinned, hoping that this was some small clue that her son would grow up to act against stereotype and do whatever he was most comfortable doing. But did it work that way? Could you look at a child and see who he’d become? Sometimes when she studied Sam, she could glimpse the adult he’d be one day-it was there in his eyes, the shell of the man he would grow to inhabit. But it was more than physical attributes you could sometimes puzzle out. Would these little girls become stay-at-home Betty Crocker moms, or business entrepreneurs like Mrs. Fields? Would the little boy’s destructive behavior bloom into drug addiction or alcoholism? Had Peter Houghton shoved playmates or stomped on crickets or done something else as a child that might have predicted his future as a killer?

  The boy in the sandbox put down the truck and moved on to digging, seemingly to China. Sam abandoned his baking to reach for the plastic vehicle, and then he lost his balance and fell down, smacking his knee on the wooden frame.

  Selena was out of her seat in a shot, ready to scoop up her son before he started to bawl. But Sam glanced around at the other kids, as if realizing he had an audience. And although his little face furrowed and reddened, a raisin of pain, he didn’t cry.

  It was easier for girls. They could say This hurts, or I don’t like how this feels, and have the complaint be socially acceptable. Boys, though, didn’t speak that language. They didn’t learn it as children and they didn’t manage to pick it up as adults, either. Selena remembered last summer, when Jordan had gone fishing with an old friend whose wife had just filed for divorce. What did you talk about? she asked when Jordan came home.