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62 Small Town Jury For three days we’d been held in that small stark room, listening to the prosecuting attorney drone on. Domestic violence. Bail jumper. Drunk and driving six times. all the things I could be doing at home! I thought, until I caught glimpse of something familiar in the crime scene photo passed from hand to hand. I’d recognized a corner of fence and looked and looked more closely, and saw the Mother’s day Lily there, perfectly pregnant and about to bloom. My fence! My lily! My son’s red ball set in the grass like an egg. and in the foreground, in the car’s trunk, what the detective said were all the makings for a drug lab. Meth, the detective explained. Something wrong? he asked, noting my sudden interest. 63 No. I quickly passed the snapshot on. But my neighbor, poor, poor stupid boy we’d thought each time we’d rushed to help when the clumsy thing set his house afire. Three times in the middle of the night I had waited in the door for my husband to return. He’d come back, shaking his head. we both watched the fire trucks pulsing like fair rides at night, and as they pulled away, how we’d shook our heads, feeling sorry for the kid, stupid kid, couldn’t fry baloney for a sandwich without catching the house on fire. Stupid. Stupid. ...

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