Heartless

CHAPTER 2:

Elizabeth

It was up to the jury. Again
Its a strange thing putting justice in the hands of twelve strangers. I had spent most of the sentencing phase of the trial watching their faces. There were a few mothers; i would catch their eye and smile at them when i could. A few man who looked like maybe they'd been in the military. And the boy, the one who barely looked old enough to shave, much less make the right decision.
  I wanted to sit down with each and every one of them. I wanted to show them the note Kurt had written me after our first official date. I wanted them to touch the soft cotton cap that Claire had worn home from the hospital as a newborn. I wanted to play them the answering machine message that still had their voices on it, the one i couldn't bear to delete even though it felt like i was being cut to ribbons every time i heard it. i wanted to take them on a field trip to see Claire's bedroom with its Tinker bell night light and dress up clothes; I wanted them to bury their faces inn Kurt's pillow, breathe him in. I wanted them to live my life because that was the only way they'd really know what had been lost.
     That night after the closing arguments, i nursed Emily in the middle of the night and then fell asleep with her in my arms. But i dreamed that she was upstairs, distant and crying. I climbed the stairs to the nursery, the one that still smelled of virgin wood and drying paint and opened the door. "I'm coming," i said and i crossed the threshold only to realise that the room had never been built that i had no baby, that i was falling through the air.