Ethan glanced across the courtroom from his modest perch on the witness stand. He’d expected a larger venue for a federal trial: wooden floors and wrought iron railings, like in the movies. But the San Diego federal courthouse was a low-rise office building, and the courtroom had a conference-room feel—the faded carpeting and low ceilings, the knee-high glass barrier separating the actors from the gallery. There were few seats in the gallery, as if to discourage spectators, and Ethan scanned each one in hopes of seeing Annie. He touched the envelope in his pocket, the one from the travel agency, and felt foolish for bringing it. She was not there.
It had been six months since Annie moved out, soon after he was called to give a deposition. She’d blamed him for Adam Cosgrove’s arrest, he knew, but at least she’d stood by him, though not as closely as she stood by Adam. She spent most of her days working in Adam’s defense—but at night, it was Ethan she came home to, and because of this he allowed himself to hope they might still have a future together.
Until the deposition. Just lie your ass off, she’d instructed him, and he intended to do just that. But when the prosecutor stared him down and threatened him with perjury, Ethan ended up telling the truth. Because of Annie, it had still felt like a lie.
Not long afterward, Adam was charged was one count of distributing information on explosives with the intent of inciting others to commit acts of violence. And not long after that, Annie packed her things. Ethan knew what he’d done wrong, but he didn’t know how to fix it.
He hoped to see her here today, at the trial, thinking that maybe he would do now what he had failed to do before. He wanted to start over. And although he did not see Annie in the gallery, perhaps it was that urge to begin anew that compelled him to respond the way he did—to say, when the prosecutor asked him to repeat what Adam had done that evening in Hillcrest, that he could not remember. Even when the prosecutor repeated himself, asked him the same question in three different ways, each time Ethan told him that he could not remember.
The prosecutor’s voice grew louder, the judge chimed in, the gallery began to applaud—then came the pounding of a gavel, and, mercifully, a recess.
Ethan stood alone at the far end of the hallway, looking out the tinted windows. He didn’t want to be near the activists who clotted together at the other end of the hall talking in whispers, or near the government agents, the men with close-cropped hair, checking email on their cellular phones.
“Ethan.”
He turned to see Annie standing behind him. He leaned toward her, but she backed up a step.
“Hi.”
“That was a brave thing you did,” she said. “There’s hope for you yet.”
“You were in there?”
“I heard.”
“It was nothing,” he said, and decided to take a chance. “Come home with me tonight.”
She smiled. “I think it’s time I leave San Diego. I’ve been holding out for a spot on the CDA ship. I should know next week.”
Ethan reached into his pocket and held out the envelope. “There are other ways to get to Antarctica.”
“What’s this?”
“It’s a cruise ticket.”
“A cruise?” She wouldn’t take the envelope. “Ethan, I’m trying to protect the environment, not pollute it.”
“You always wanted to go to Antarctica, right? We could go together. I know going on a cruise isn’t the way you wanted, but at least it’s a ride down there.”
She looked at him sadly. “If CDA doesn’t work out—” She stopped. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“That’s a start.” He pressed the envelope into her hand. “The ship leaves in three weeks. The trial will be over, we’ll both be free. Just think about it.”
“Ethan—”
“Don’t decide now,” he said. “I’ll be on the boat, waiting for you. Just two people sharing a cabin. Roommates with benefits.”
She gave him a quick smile, and in the end, she accepted the envelope. As she walked away, she looked back at him—briefly, but it was enough to give him hope.
* * *
Memories fade with time. Unless, of course, they are captured on tape, digitized, transcribed. Like an audio recording of the lecture, submitted anonymously to the judge, and entered into evidence. When Ethan returned to the witness stand, ready to forget everything that happened that night, or any night, the prosecutor handed him a transcript. He then pressed a button on a laptop connected to a speaker.
Ethan’s heroic act was nullified by a tape recorder. Ethan could fault his brain for forgetting, but how could he argue with his voice on an MP3 file? And how could Adam Cosgrove argue with Ethan’s testimony?
After the guilty verdict was delivered, Ethan tried to reach Annie. He left voice mails, sent emails. He told her of the guilt he was feeling—the one thing they now had in common. Eventually, she sent him an email. She said she needed time to sort things out, that she would get in touch when she was ready. He sent her one last reminder about the cruise.
The best he could do would be to leave her be and meet her onboard the ship. There was nothing more left to do but wait. And he now knew that, faced with a life without her, he would wait as long as necessary.