Chapter 8: Arraignment

The courtroom smelled like floor wax and old coffee.

I sat in the second row in the one dress I owned that wasn't scrubs.

Hattie sat on my left and Tiernan on my right.

Behind us the caterer sat in a borrowed tie, and behind him sat nine nurses from my unit who had traded shifts to be there.

Nobody had asked them.

Hattie had put it in the group chat at six a.m., and they had all just come.

Across the aisle, the Lowrys filled their bench.

Constance in navy.

Warner in the same gray suit, with a shaving cut along his jaw.

Between them, Camille.

She wore a soft pink cardigan and a small cross at her throat, and she held a tissue in both hands.

She looked like a girl who had never raised her voice.

"Docket four-eighteen," the clerk said. "The People against Camille Dunn."

Camille's lawyer stood.

He was a smooth man in a navy suit that cost more than my car.

"Your Honor, the defense and the District Attorney have discussed a resolution."

"We propose reckless endangerment in the second degree, a misdemeanor, with probation and counseling."

"My client is deeply remorseful."

He turned his head.

The District Attorney, a tired woman with gray in her braid, looked at me over her glasses.

"The victim has been informed," she said. "And she asked to be heard."

I stood.

My knees were not entirely mine.

Tiernan's hand brushed the small of my back, once, and was gone.

I walked to the lectern.

I did not look at the judge, or the press row, or the Lowrys.

I looked at Camille.

"I'm a nurse," I said. "I've told a lot of women what to expect when they lose a pregnancy."

"I've held their hands and I've said it's nobody's fault."

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