Glancing at the prosecuting team, Jeffrey studied the district attorney. He had particular antipathy for this man, who seemed to have seized on the case as a vehicle for advancing his political career. Jeffrey could appreciate the man’s native intelligence though he’d grown to despise him during the course of the fourday trial. But now, watching as the D.A. conversed animatedly with an assistant, Jeffrey realized he felt oddly devoid of emotion toward the man. For him, the whole business had been a job, no more, no less.
Jeffrey’s eyes strayed beyond the district attorney toward the emptyjury box. During the trial the realization that these twelve strangers held his fate in their hands had paralyzed Jeffrey. Never before had he experienced such vulnerability. Up until this episode, Jeffrey had been living under the delusion that his fate was largely in his own hands. This trial showed him just how mistaken he was.
The jury had been deliberating for two anxious days and-for Jeffrey-two sleepless nights. Now they were waiting for the jury to return to the courtroom. Jeffrey again wondered if two days of deliberation was a good sip or a bad. Randolph, in his irritatingly conservative manner, would not speculate. Jeffrey felt the man could have lied just to give him a few hours of relative peace.
Despite his good intentions to refrain from fidgeting, Jeffrey began to stroke his mustache. When he realized what he was doing, he folded his hands and set them on the table in front of him.
He glanced over his left shoulder and caught sight of Carol, his soon io be ex-wife. Her head was down. She was reading. Jeffrey turned his gaze back to the judge’s empty bench. He could have been irritated that she was relaxed enough to be able to read at this moment, but he wasn’t. Instead,
Jeffrey felt thankful that she was there and that she’d shown as much support as she had. After all, even before this legal nightmare had
started, the two of them had come to the mutual conclusion that they had grown apart.
When they had first married eight years ago, it hadn’t seemed important that Carol was extremely social and outgoing while he tended toward the opposite. It also hadn’t bothered Jeffrey that Carol wanted to put off having a family while she advanced her career in banking, at least until
Jeffrey found out that her idea of postponement meant never. And now she wanted to head west, to Los Angeles. Jeffrey could have lived with the idea of moving to California, but he had trouble with the family issue. Over the years he’d come to want a child more and more. To see Carol’s hopes and aspirations move in an entirely different direction saddened him, but he found he didn’t hold it 4ainst her. Jeffrey had fought the idea of divorce at first, but had finally given in. Somehow, they just weren’t meant to be.
But then, when Jeffrey’s legal problems materialized, Carol had graciously offered to hold off on the domestic issue until Jeffrey’s legal diffi- culties were resolved.
Jeffrey sighed again, more loudly than before. Randolph shot him a disapproving glare, but Jeffrey couldn’t see that appearances mattered at this point. Whenever Jeffrey thought about the sequence of events, it had a dizzying effect on him. It had all happened so quickly. After the disastrous death of Patty Owen, the malpractice summons had arrived in short order. Under the current litigious climate, Jeffrey had not been sur- prised by the lawsuit, except perhaps by the speed.
From the start, Randolph had warned Jeffrey that it would be a tough case.
Jeffrey had had no idea how tough. That was right before Boston Memorial suspended him. At the time, such a move had seemed capricious and unreasonably vicious. It certainly wasn’t the kind of support or vote of confidence Jeffrey had hoped for. Neither Jeffrey nor Randolph had had any inkling of the rationale for the suspension. Jeffrey had wanted to take action against Boston Memorial for this unwarranted act, but Randolph had advised him to sit tight. He thought that issue would be better resolved after the conclusion of the malpractice litigation.