Courthouse, where the case of Panzer, et al v. Antioch Chemical was being heard. His mother had sent him a text a few hours before, telling him she would be giving her closing argument that afternoon. He had immediately Left class, driving up the tollway to downtown Chicago.

He nodded a hello to a young man a few years older than himself, who he vaguely remembered from a work function his mother had dragged him to in the mistaken belief that it would encourage him to try harder in college.

“Hey," he said softly. "I'm Alex, Rachel's son." He nodded towards the front of the courtroom.

“Are the closing arguments going to start soon?"

“Just as soon as the judge gets back from her Lunch break," the other man grinned. He extended a hand.

“I'm Jeremy Edwards. I worked for your mom as an intern last semester. I heard she was going to give the closing argument today, so I asked my dad for the day off. I can't wait to see this."

“Me either," he replied. He was about to ask another question about the procedure when the bailiff walked in and called the court to order.

After the judge had taken her seat, she Looked at Rachel.

“Ms. Wainwright, are you ready to give your closing argument?"

“I am, your honor.”

Alex's mother stood and walked around her table, facing the jury. Eight women and four men Looked back at her. From their conversations over the past several weeks, Alex knew Rachel had tried to get as many young women as she could on the jury. Women who would be sympathetic to her message of care for the environment and criminal neglect by Antioch

Chemical.

“I had a closing statement already written," she started, her voice so soft he had to strain forward to catch her words. "A closely-argued, logical chain, which proved the way in which a simple industrial accident cascaded into an environmental catastrophe. How the defendants did not have the proper monitoring equipment, and then, when the scope of the problem became apparent, chose to ignore it.

“It was a clear, lucid statement of the facts. But it was missing a vital element.

"So instead, let me tell you a story.

“In the old days, before the clever mind of mankind blessed us with the modern world; before indoor plumbing and central air and electricity; before internal combustion engines and printing presses and the internet, Life was much simpler.

“In those days, hundreds of years ago, one of the central points of the community was the town well. It was dug with back-breaking Labor, often fifteen or twenty feet deep. Women of the town would gather there every morning to haul away water for cooking and drinking, for washing and cleaning. It was one of the focuses of their lives.

“And it was crucial." His mother's voice, which had been calm and clear until that point, now sank low, vibrating with repressed passion. "Any attack on the well was an attack on the community as a whole, because the community could not survive without it. In times of war, invaders would foul the wells of their enemies, knowing an army could not Live without water. In the fourteenth century, when the Black Death ravaged

Europe, rumors spread that Jews were causing the disease by poisoning the wells of gentiles. In the mob violence which followed, thousands of

Jews died.