Chapter 12: I Can

For a second nobody in Courtroom 3 moved.

Then everybody did.

Stewart's lawyer was on his feet. The day nurse grabbed for my elbow. Somebody in the back row said, "Oh my God," out loud.

Alicia's pen rolled off the table and hit the floor.

"Order," the judge said, not loudly.

The room went quiet.

"Your Honor," Stewart's lawyer said, "this is clearly an episode. The doctor has testified that..."

"Sit down, counsel."

He sat.

The judge looked at me over her folded hands.

"Go on, Mrs. Kearns."

My legs were shaking under the gown.

I let them shake. I stayed standing.

"My name is Adele," I said. "I haven't swallowed a pill in seventeen days."

"I've been holding them under my tongue and pushing them into a slit in my mattress with a plastic fork."

"They're still there. You can send someone to count them."

The psychiatrist had gone very still in the front row.

"The doctor told you my blood was in range yesterday. Draw it again now. Today. In this building. I'll roll up my sleeve."

The judge glanced at her clerk.

The clerk picked up a phone.

"The video," I said. "Could you play it again? Any of it."

Stewart's lawyer started to rise.

The judge looked at him, and he didn't.

The clerk pressed a button.

Me in the kitchen, crying at the counter.

"There," I said. "Next to my hand. The blue mug with the lighthouse."

The clip changed. Me on the stairs.

"There. On the step."

Me on the floor.

"There. By my knee."

The judge leaned forward.

"My husband made me a cup of tea every evening for three months," I said.

"He was very sweet about it. He'd never made me tea in nine years of marriage."

I made myself look at Stewart.

His face was smooth and polite.

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