mystery with me, a routine I've cared for less and less as I've gotten older. I know him, naturally, in the unsparing way kids know their parents, which is sort of the same way somebody knows a hurricane when they're standing at the eye. I know all his aggravating habits--the way he can just drift off in the middle of a conversation, as if what's crossed his mind is far more important than anybody in the room; or how he sits silent when people talk about anything a little bit personal, even if it's like how much their feet itch in wool socks; or the self-important air he's always assumed with me, as if being my father is a responsibility equal to carrying the signals for all of America's nukes. But the trial, the charges, the affair, have all gone to emphasize the fact that I don't really know my father on his own terms.
While I try to piece through that, I teeter between extremes. Sometimes I'm terrified the endless anxiety, which has left my father a kind of burned-out zombie, is going to kill him and that I will lose my second parent within a year. At other instants I'm so righteously honked off, I feel he's getting everything he deserves. But mostly, of course, I'm just angry about the many moments when I'm not sure one foot will go in front of the other, or that the cars going down the street will remain glued to the earth, because so much has changed so suddenly that I don't know what to believe in.
"Just a couple more subjects, Judge," says Molto when they resume.
"Whatever you like, Mr. Molto." My dad does a little better job of sounding like he's okay with that.
"All right, Judge. Now tell me this. Were you happy in your marriage to Mrs. Sabich?"
"It was like many marriages, Mr. Molto. We had our ups and downs."
"And at the time your wife died, Judge, were you up or were you down?"
"We were getting along, Mr. Molto, but I was not especially happy."
"And by getting along, you mean you weren't having marital spats?"
"I wouldn't say none, Mr. Molto, but there certainly hadn't been any big blowups that week."
"But you told us you were unhappy. Any particular reason for that, Judge?"
My dad takes quite a bit of time. I know he is weighing the fact that I am seated thirty feet away.
"It was an accumulation of things, Mr. Molto."
"Such as?"
"Well, one thing, Mr. Molto, was that my wife really hated my campaigning. She felt exposed by it in a way I thought was not entirely realistic."
"She was acting crazy?"
"In a colloquial sense."
"And you were sick of it?"
"I was."
"And was that one of the things that drove you to consult Dana Mann three weeks before your wife died?"
"I suppose."
"Is it true, Judge, you were thinking of ending your marriage?"
"Yes."
"Not for the first time, was it?"
"No."
"You'd seen Mr. Mann in July 2007?"
There is a delicate dance here on both sides. My father's conversations with Mann are shielded under the attorney-client privilege. As long as my dad steers clear of any discussion of what he told Dana, Molto can't ask, since forcing my dad or Stern to assert the privilege in front of the jury would risk a mistrial. But my dad, too, needs to be careful. If he were to lie about what he said to Mann, or even deliberately create a misleading impression on that score, the law might oblige Dana to come to court to correct him. It was pretty clear when Dana testified during the prosecution case that he is basically terrified of Molto and Jim Brand and the whole situation, even though he wasn't up there more than five minutes. He acknowledged a couple meetings with my dad and identified the bills he sent last September and in July the year before, and the cashier's checks my father returned in payment.
"And in fact, Judge, your conversation with Mr. Mann in the summer of 2007--that occurred not too long after you'd asked Mr. Harnason what it was like to poison someone, right?"
"Within a couple of months, give or take."
"And what happened then, Judge? Why did you not carry through on ending your marriage?"
"I was pondering my options, Mr. Molto. I got Mr. Mann's advice and decided not to seek a divorce."
The implication of all the evidence the jury won't hear, the stuff that Sandy and Marta have shown me--the STD tests and the witnesses' statements about my dad