Chapter 15: One Question

The judge cleared me for one evening.

My monitor was allowed to leave the house between six and nine, with a deputy at my elbow, for a public forum at the Marlow Civic Hall.

Marshall's lawyer had objected.

The judge had said that a registered voter has a right to hear the candidates.

I sat in the fourth row in a gray dress with the deputy on my left and Frances on my right.

Melanie had spent two nights on Frances's sofa. She was not in the room.

Duncan stood against the back wall with his arms folded, and I did not turn around to look at him.

On the stage, Marshall stood at the lectern in his charcoal suit with the campaign pin on his lapel.

He was good. He paused in exactly the right places.

He spoke about safe streets and about a county that took care of its own.

His challenger, a thin man with a bad microphone, spoke about the budget.

Then the moderator said that citizens could line up at the aisle microphone with one question each.

I stood up.

The deputy stood with me, and a murmur went down the rows.

People knew my face by now. It had been on the news for a month.

When it was my turn, the microphone was a little too low for me, and I did not adjust it.

On the stage, Marshall smiled at me, warmly.

"My wife has been through a great deal," he told the room. "Let's let her speak."

"Thank you, Marshall," I said.

I looked straight at him, and I kept my voice level.

"Two years ago, on the morning after our daughter died, you knelt in our driveway for an hour and scrubbed the front bumper of your car."

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