During the long days when the evidence was being presented to the grand jury, Jamie wondered what would happen next. Would a police officer show up at the door with a warrant? Would a process server hand them an official piece of paper?She kept the kids busy with crafts and videos and trips to the playground and community pool. She drank too much coffee in the morning and too much wine at night. She cleaned toilets and folded laundry and filled the refrigerator, sometimes forgetting bread but buying three cartons of juice when the shelves already contained two full ones. One evening, when the kids were asleep, she raced out to get a flea collar for Sadie, whose itching had kept her awake the previous night, and found herself pulling into a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes. She sat in the darkness, smoking three Marlboro Lights in a row—something she hadn’t done since a brief flirtation with cigarettes in college—then she crumpled up the box and hurled it into a trash can. That was all her kids needed, for her to get lung cancer.The news cameras were gone for now.
