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pronouncing it with a soft
ch
, like
shhhhh
. And they’re dealing with people’s lives. Their
lives
, she said.
    Yet the calmness of the court was a comfort to Patsy. The routine, the barely audible proceedings. She drifted until she became aware of two women on the other side of the aisle. They searched her out before sitting down, agreed with each other that she was their object. The accusation and loathing in their faces seemed like the first unadjusted expressions Patsy had encountered since the accident, and part of her was relieved, finally, to see such naked dislike, and part of her rose up against it too, some tiny, undefeated shred of self. The judge, glancing at some papers, said her name. Benny looked back at the courtroom door, and his eyes flickered.
    Entering was Ricky Barrett, her former student, and with him a man she would have recognized anywhere, he looked so stunned by sorrow. Like her, he’d been led to this impersonal shuffle of ritual and governance. He slid into the bench behind the two women. They reached back for his hands.
    Patsy faced the front of the court again and let him look at her.
    Her name was called again. She went forward and took an oath. I do, she said, holding up her hand.
    The district attorney was a young and pretty woman. Pale, freckled, possibly Irish, her face was framed in frizzy red curls, and she was solemn to the point of coldness. Do you understand these charges against you? she asked Patsy. Have you had an opportunity to discuss these charges and any defense you would have to them with your attorney?
    The words were certainly rote. Patsy needed only to ignore the surges of confusion that rose in response to them. Yes, she said, nodding. Yes.
    It is my understanding, the D.A. went on, that you wish to plead guilty to two counts of criminal negligence resulting in loss of life. The maximum sentence on those counts would be twenty-five years. But today your attorney and myself have agreed that upon entering your plea, you will receive the following sentence: four years in the state prison. Is that what you want to do?
    Again, a rising intimation of complexity, of weeds tangled underwater, a sensation too vague to address when a simple answer was expedient, and expedience was her goal. Yes, Patsy said.
    And then came the waivers—Benny had rehearsed her—when she relinquished rights, one after another. The right to a preliminary hearing, to a trial by jury or by court. The right to confront and examine the witnesses against her, the right to present her own defense . . . the right not to testify against herself. They flew off like crows flapping off a tree limb, black rags in a wind. Do you understand and give up these rights? The young woman’s seriousness seemed at once stagy and dire.
    After the waivers came the consequences: Patsy would go to prison and afterward be released on parole; any and each violation of parole would result in another year of prison. And she would pay a restitution fine—two hundred dollars. She stifled a yelp at the paltriness, the
joke
, of the amount.
    Have you been advised of all these consequences of your plea? the D.A. asked Patsy.
    Patsy saw that the bailiff was looking at her, attentive, interested, like the best of students. Yes, she said.
    Are you pleading freely and voluntarily because you did in fact commit the crime and violate the state penal code by driving negligently and causing the fatal injuries of Jane Robin Parnham and Jessica Parnham?
    Yes, Patsy said, looking back at the bailiff.
    Are you pleading guilty because you are indeed guilty?
    She stood before the court and touched the dark tumult, the awful thumps and booms, bodies on the ground, a wheeling of stars; with such images came the inevitable, engulfing nausea of knowing it could never be undone.
    Yes, Patsy said, the word spanning a sea of uneasy feeling and linking death to blame like a stitch closing the lips of a wound so that healing could begin. Thus could the