It's Nothing Personal (33 page)

Never having considered such a thing, Jenna
was intrigued.
 
“Surveillance?
 
You mean private eye, stakeout kind of
stuff?”

“Exactly,” replied Nancy.
 
“We know Michelle Hollings is not the
incapacitated introvert she claims to have become.
 
That much is evident from her Facebook
page.
 
If we can catch Hollings in
action, we’ll have more powerful evidence to present to the jury.
 
Randy Stevens has authorized us to have
her monitored for two entire weekends.
 
The private investigator will follow her everywhere, taking pictures and
video of any indiscretions.”

A chilling thought gripped Jenna.
 
What
if Allison Anders was watching her?
 
Did she know where Jenna lived?
 
What about Mia and Tom?
 
Could Allison have some stranger stalking her family?
 
The concept of someone tracking her
daughter left Jenna feeling paranoid.

“Could they be following me?” Jenna
whispered.

Nancy was quick to comfort her.
 
“It’s unlikely.
 
Your character is not on trial
here.
 
The same is not true with
respect to Michelle Hollings.”

Jenna did not completely believe Nancy.
 
If Allison Anders did not have a tail on
her, maybe St. Augustine did.
 
This
whole thing had evolved into something much larger than Jenna had ever
anticipated.

CHAPTER 46

November
2011

Saturday night, Mia was spending the night
with a friend, allowing Tom and Jenna to enjoy a rare evening alone.
 
Jenna cuddled up on the couch, sipping herbal
tea, and watching a television documentary.
 
Her eyes were trained on the program,
but her mind was elsewhere.

Tom snuggled up next to Jenna, muted the TV,
and began kissing her neck.
 
Involuntarily, Jenna’s back stiffened.
 
She felt dirty and worthless.
 
The burden of being intimate was more
than she could bear.
 
For her
husband’s sake, she forced herself to reciprocate.
 
Within minutes, they were undressed,
lying on the shaggy carpet with the television flickering in the
background.
 
Tom was aroused.
 
Jenna felt like a corpse.
 
Tom fondled Jenna’s breasts, gently
kissing her nipples.
 
Reflexively,
her nipples hardened, and Jenna moaned on cue.
 
He kissed his way down her stomach.
 
She tried to relax, but could not.
 
More than anything, she just wanted to
finish the act and get it over with.
 
She rolled Tom over on to his back and mounted him.
 
Tom, pent up with desire, rocked his
hips against Jenna’s.
 
Their bodies
collided, hard and forceful, until he exploded inside his wife.
 

In the darkened room, tears slid down
Jenna’s cheeks as she rolled off of her husband.
 
In the shadows of the night, Tom heard
Jenna sniffle.
 
He turned off the
television, switched on the fireplace, and lit a couple of candles.
 
Jenna sat motionless, her knees drawn
toward her chest.
 
Tom sat beside her
and wrapped a blanket around them.

Jenna was unable to face her husband.
 
Instead, she picked at a loose piece of
yarn in the weave of the blanket.
 
Tom reached over and held his wife’s face in his hands.
 

With gentleness and concern, he asked,
“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.
 
Maybe I’m just tired.”
 
She sounded sad, exhausted, and
powerless.

“I’m not talking about tonight.
 
I’m talking about
you
.
 
Every day.
 
All the time.
 
You’re distant, distracted.
 
You’re here, but not really.
 
You have to talk to me.
 
Please, Jenna.
 
Don’t shut me out.”

Jenna’s wall of bravado crumbled, and the
floodgates of defeat and humiliation opened wide.
 
Meeting Tom’s gaze, she felt like a
failure.

“I’m so stressed.
 
The lawsuit follows me every second of
the day.
 
I worry that somebody is
watching us, like our people spy on Michelle Hollings.
 
Every morning, the first thing I do is
check to see if there’s a news story about me.
  
At work, I feel like tainted
goods.
 
I don’t trust myself
anymore, and I certainly don’t trust my patients.
 
I wanted to be strong.
 
I wanted to fight.
 
Part of me still does.
 
But part of me feels like I’m breaking.”

For a minute, Tom did not know what to
say.
 
He knew the lawsuit was taking
a toll on Jenna, but she seemed determined to see it through.
 
Up until now, he never questioned her
commitment.
 
Knowing how strong-willed
Jenna could be, he assumed that surviving this ordeal was no exception.
 
Yet now, he could see, bit by tiny bit,
the lawsuit was crushing her.

“Do you want to settle?” Tom asked hesitantly.

Tom could hear Jenna’s hair whip back and
forth as she shook her head.
 
“No!
 
Absolutely not!
 
I’m not giving in to those bastards!”

Tom knew his wife better than anyone.
 
Regardless of the words spewing from
Jenna’s mouth, she had reached her limit.
 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tom asked.

“I guess,” Jenna replied, shrugging her
shoulders.
 
She reached for a
Kleenex and blew her nose.
 
Her
lower lip trembled as she bit the inside of her check.

“Let’s look at our options,” said Tom, doing
his best to sound objective and methodical.
 
“Our first option is to continue to
trial.
 
That’s in January, which
means two more months that are only going to get more intense as the court date
grows nearer.
 

“The second option is to settle and end
this.
 
Put it behind us and get on
with our lives.
 
Is that a fair
assessment?”

Jenna kept her gaze downward, her voice was
frail.
 
“Yeah.
 
The real sad thing is, either way, I
lose.
 
If I settle, I have a black
mark on my record, not to mention the personal pain of giving up and handing
Michelle Hollings and her wicked attorney a fist full of cash.
 

“If I go to court, the jury will most likely
find that I share at least some of the blame in Hollings’ infection.
 
I don’t think my percentage of liability
will be anywhere near St. Augustine’s or Hillary Martin’s, but it’s still a
judgment against me.
 
A black mark
is a black mark, regardless of whether it happens now or in January.
 
And it’s pretty much guaranteed either
way.

“If this thing goes to trial, it’s going to
be a media circus.
 
It made national
news when the Hillary Martin story first broke.
 
Of course I’m worried about what that
will do to me.
 
More than that, it
makes me sick to think about what it might do to you and, even more so, to Mia.
 
What if some kid comes up to her at
school and says something cruel?
 
What if other moms decide their daughters can’t play with Mia and she
becomes an outcast?
 
What if her
picture somehow ends up in the news and some psychopath tries to hurt her?

“So far, I’ve escaped any media attention,
but I feel it coming.
 
It’s my
biggest fear.”

Tom put his arms around his wife, wishing he
could take this burden away from her.
 
He would support Jenna in whatever decision she made.
 
Secretly, however, Tom longed for the
nightmare to end.

Jenna laid her head on Tom’s shoulder as
they sat nuzzled up on the couch, her warm breath against his cheek.
 

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

Jenna broke down, “What do I really want to
do?
 
I want to go back to being
normal, whatever that is.
 
I want to
take a trip, get away, go to Hawaii.
 
I want all this to be over.
 
I can’t do it anymore.
 
The
vultures are going to get their money one way or the other.
 
I can’t take two more months of this.”

Tom’s words were gentle, as the light from
the fire cast shadows across his face.
 
“Then settle.
 
You could meet
with Jim and Nancy first thing Monday morning and sign the papers.
 
My guess is Michelle Hollings would have
a check in her hot little hands by the end of the week.
 

“Then, maybe
we
should splurge.
 
We’ve
earned it.
 
Let’s go to Maui for two
weeks around Thanksgiving.
 
We’ll
take Mia out of school, relax, forget, reconnect, and get your orgasm back.”

For so long, Jenna had resisted the
temptation of quitting.
 
To her
surprise, now that she and Tom were discussing it, she felt instant
relief.
 

Laughing seductively, Jenna reached over and
kissed her husband.
 
She felt like
she could breathe again.
 
The
oppressive cloud of misery had lifted.
 
Playfully nibbling at Tom’s ear, Jenna’s voice was husky as she
whispered, “Make love to me.”

Tom pushed Jenna to the ground.
 
Tenderly, he did all the things to her
that she loved.
 
Things felt right
again.

CHAPTER 47

Sunday, Jenna spent the entire day, followed
by a sleepless night, contemplating what she was about to do.
 
By Monday morning, Jenna was convinced that
settling the case was the right thing to do, both for her and for her family.

At 4 a.m., Jenna crawled out of bed and sent
off two emails, one to Jim and the other to Nancy.
 
She politely, but firmly, demanded a
face-to-face meeting later that day.
 
She also texted each of their cell phones and left voice messages at
their work numbers.
 
By 9 a.m., both
attorneys replied that they were free all afternoon.

Jenna fought to make it through the
day.
 
At 2 p.m., she signed out her
last patient to the recovery room nurse and headed straight to her attorneys’
offices.
 

After exchanging the obligatory
pleasantries, Jenna and her attorneys took their seats in the conference
room.
 
For the first time, Jenna
noticed that neither Jim nor Nancy arrived with a handful of legal documents or
a laptop computer.
 
The only items
each of them carried were a blank legal pad and a pen.
 
It was a refreshing change.

Jim and Nancy sat with their hands folded
and resting on the table.
 
Jenna’s posture
was straight.
 
She appeared
dignified and confident.
 
Slowly and
clearly, she said four simple words, “I want to settle.”
 

Once the words passed Jenna’s lips, they
became more than a mere thought or a contemplated course of action.
 
They became
real
.
 
She felt the
words mocking her, causing her to feel exposed and weak.
 
Jenna strived to remain stoic, but her
eyes betrayed her as they filled with salty drops of shame.

Nancy placed a tissue box in front of
her.
 
Jenna did not thank her.
 
It was too humiliating.

Jim spoke, “We had a feeling this is what
you wanted to discuss.
 
And you
certainly have every right to demand that we settle.
 
Can I ask you why?
 
Why now?”
 

To Jenna’s relief, there was no hint of
condemnation or reproach in Jim’s voice.

Jenna’s breath caught in her throat.
 
“I-I c-c-can’t sleep.
 
I hardly eat.
 
I’m failing as both a mother and a wife.
 
I’ve thought it through and, either way,
settle or go to trial, I lose.
 
Even
though we have a compelling case with great expert witnesses, the same argument
could be made for the other side.”

She eyed her attorneys with scrutiny.
 
Leaning forward, she raised her finger
at them.
 
“Tell me this.
 
Do you really expect, in your heart of
hearts, that I could go to trial and be found completely innocent?”

Jim answered honestly, “Like we’ve always
told you, juries are unpredictable.
 
Do I think it’s possible?
 
Yes.
 
Do I think it’s
likely?
 
If I had to give you
percentage odds, I’d say maybe a ten to fifteen percent chance of that happening.”