600 Hours of Edward

hasn’t gotten any better at the job since you left. But, hey, there’s an election in a few days. There’s always hope.”
    “Well, good luck, then.”
    “Take care, Edward.”
    – • –
    When Donna emerges from the restroom, I can see that she has made a brave attempt at pulling herself together. She no longer looks disheveled, and her hair is brushed. But the makeup stains and her still-trembling bottom lip betray what she has been through.
    “Are you OK?” I ask.
    “Can you just hold my arm and get me out of here?” Donna says, limply offering up her right forearm, which I gently take inmy left hand. I then guide her toward the door that will lead us out onto North Twenty-Seventh Street.
    A few minutes later, as we’re riding the elevator to the floor I parked on, Donna says, so faintly that I can barely hear her, “This is going to be harder than I thought.”
    From the parking garage, I can see that it’s raining. The forecast didn’t say anything about this. I never know what’s coming anymore, it seems. That’s a bad thing when you prefer facts.
    – • –
    We arrive back at the house at 11:53 a.m. It has been a silent drive. Donna stared straight ahead, and so did I. My job was easy: see the road and drive the car home. Hers is much harder. I don’t know if she knows where the road is or where it leads.
    “Edward,” she says, as I set the parking brake, “would it be OK if I stayed here until Kyle comes home?”
    “Yes. I could make some lunch.”
    “I don’t think I can eat. I just don’t want to be alone.”
    “OK.”
    “Edward, if I’d had any idea that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have asked you to come.”
    “It’s OK.”
    “But I’m so glad you did.”
    She’s crying again, but not too much. Donna Middleton is tough. Tougher than Mike Simpson, that’s for sure.
    – • –
    Inside, Donna urges me to go ahead and make lunch, which I do. Today is a spaghetti day.
    As I’m stirring the meat sauce and waiting for the noodles to soften, Donna leaves the couch and comes into the kitchen.
    “What did you mean when you said
if
Mike’s case goes to trial?”
    In my time in the clerk of court’s office, I saw it again and again. Even in criminal cases like the one Mike is involved in, prosecutors and defense attorneys will meet and come up with a plea agreement. Sometimes, it’s because the prosecutors have a sure case and can get what they want without going to trial. Sometimes, it’s the opposite way, and the defense uses its leverage to force a deal out of the prosecutor.
    “The goal, for prosecutors and defense attorneys, is often to not have a trial.”
    “Why?”
    “A jury trial is not a sure thing, for either side. Lawyers like sure things. I would not be surprised, given the facts in this case, if the prosecutors press for a plea agreement that ensures that Mike is punished without having to go to the time and expense of a jury trial. They have a real good case against him, especially after what happened today. They might not need a trial.”
    “But what if I want a jury trial?”
    “You can tell the prosecutor that. They do listen and take those things into account.”
    “I want a jury to make him suffer.”
    “But what if a jury doesn’t make him suffer? What if it lets him go free? The prosecutor will probably ask you to consider that.”
    Donna is silent. I go back to stirring the meat sauce.
    “Are you wondering why I would have been with a guy like that?”
    “No.”
    “You’re not?”
    “I figured you would tell me if you wanted.” I have learned this from Dr. Buckley, who never pushes me to talk about something before I am ready.
    “I’d like to. Do you have the time?”
    “Yes.”
    Donna says she met Mike Simpson a little more than a year ago. He had been in the emergency room with a friend of his. They had been out riding motorcycles, and the friend crashed. It was pretty bad, from what Donna said—broken ribs and pelvis, bad scars from where his skin scraped along the road. Donna had attended to him, and Mike came around a few days later with some roses as a thank-you, and from there, it went.
    “He was a really great guy, in the beginning,” Donna says. “And he was good to Kyle. I waited a long time to let them meet. I’d made that mistake with other guys, and I wasn’t going to this time.”
    “What changed?”
    “Little things, at first. He would call me, a lot. At first, I thought he was being attentive. Later, I