had happened at home. Maybe Chloe found out about us. I looked into Norton’s eyes, but they offered up no clues.
After a few minutes, Madeline leaned forward with her hands out, palms up. “Okay, then, moving on to some of the other things we have to do.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a notebook. “I made a list of five questions we should ask during voir dire.” She paused and glanced around the circle, eyebrows raised. “Voir dire,” she said, “is what jury selection is called, okay? In addition to deciding what questions to ask potential jurors, we have to decide who will make the opening and closing statements, too.”
Norton held his face in his hands and moaned, so loud that even Madeline, despite her enthusiastic desire to keep things moving, couldn’t ignore him anymore.
She crossed her arms. “What is it, Norton?”
He sat up rigid, his hands fisted on his lap, his knuckles white. He shook his head but said nothing.
Tony raised his hand like a student in school waiting to be called on. “I’m thinking that maybe.” He paused, then started again, slow and patient. “I wonder if . . . I think each of us could maybe write out our testimony first? Maybe if we saw how they all fit together, it would be easier to make other decisions?”
Norton unclasped his hands, leaned forward and shouted, “No! We have to take more drastic action than any of you are talking about.” His hands slapped the armrests of the chair. “We don’t have a choice.” The lines around his downturned lips were a mournful gray, an indication of pain or fear I couldn’t tell which.
Katyna leaned forward. “I don’t understand. Can you s-s-say more?”
Jim drew his legs in and pulled himself out of his slouch. “What are you suggesting, Norton?”
“We resist. Refuse to cooperate. Shut the system down.”
I massaged my temples. Please don’t do this, I silently begged him.
“Resist how?” Tony asked.
“We turn our faces to, I mean, we turn our backs on the judge.” He shot me a quick look. I told him, with my eyes, that this argument was between him and me and that’s where it should stay. But he ignored me and went on. “We refuse to give our names. We don’t answer any questions.”
Katyna fidgeted with the wedding band on her left hand. Madeline scowled. Mostly, the others gaped, baffled, confused. This wasn’t the Norton they knew. They didn’t understand what he was doing or why. But I did. He was saying we should all act in court like I had in New York. He was resurrecting our argument.
Jane cleared her throat. “What do you think we’d accomplish by doing that, Norton?”
Emboldened by the sincerity of her effort to understand, he leaned toward her. “We’ve been negotiating with the top folks at Nectaral for years, right? And where has that gotten us? The Department of Defense is literally throwing money at Nectaral, and it keeps developing and producing more and more weapons of mass destruction. Think about it. We’ve changed nothing. It’s only gotten worse.”
I had to admit he had a point. Despite all our efforts, all our protests and acts of civil disobedience, the war-making machine was thriving, and with almost no public notice, comment, or objection.
Norton leaned into the circle. “It’s time to resist. Refuse to coalesce . . . I mean . . . cooperate or negotiate. Shut the system down.”
Madeline’s eyes flashed like she’d reached the end of her tether. “We’re already shutting the system down, Norton. It’s going to take three or four months to get through all the trials.”
Tony squinted and raised his hand again. “If we resisted, the judge would have no choice but to throw the book at us.”
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