Chapter 7: Unsigned

The doctor took the stand at ten past ten, in a gray suit and a kind face.

He held the same folder Marshall had left on my kitchen table.

Marshall's lawyer, a smooth man from a firm in the capital, asked him four gentle questions.

By the fourth, the courtroom had heard that I heard my daughter's voice at night, and that I wanted to die.

Marshall sat in the front row with his head bowed.

Melanie sat behind him in a navy dress, and my mother's pearls were back at her throat.

"Mrs. Kershaw," the judge said. "Your witness."

I stood up and walked to the front, and the monitor on my ankle clicked against the table leg.

Frances sat behind me and did not say a word.

"Doctor, good morning," I said. "When did you first meet me?"

"This morning, in the hallway."

"How long did we speak?"

"We didn't speak. I saw you from across the corridor."

"So you've never examined me."

"I reviewed your records."

"Whose records?"

"Your therapy notes from two years ago."

"Who handed them to you?"

He hesitated. "Your husband provided them."

"In what form?"

"A summary. Typed."

"Is it signed by the therapist who treated me?"

He turned the page. He turned it again.

"There's no signature," he said.

"Who typed it?"

"I understood it was prepared by the family."

"By my husband," I said.

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