By the time I returned to chambers, Ruth had reduced my afternoon list to a short session of scheduling matters and cases requiring decisions another judge could take if I felt unable to continue.
She handed me the revised calendar without congratulating me for coming back.
“You can stop,” she said. “You don't need permission.”
I had been giving instructions to other people for so many years that receiving that one felt unfamiliar.
My cheek had begun to darken. The ringing had softened, although it returned whenever the corridor grew quiet. I took the chair behind my desk and read the first file twice before deciding whether I could follow it properly.
I could.
That was the only reason to proceed.
Before entering court, I asked Ruth to keep a second judge available rather than assuming determination would carry me through the afternoon. She wrote the arrangement on the scheduling sheet. Putting a limit into the plan felt more responsible than promising I would recognize every symptom in time. It also meant no waiting person would have to depend on my reluctance to stop.
In Courtroom 5B, Sam asked everyone to rise.
For the first time, I heard the request as a sound that reached people before they knew anything about the person it served.
They stood for the robe, the seal, the place at the front of the room.
In the corridor, none of those things had stood beside me.
I sat and asked everyone to be seated.
The first matter involved a probation notice sent to an old address. The state described the defendant's failure to report. The defense lawyer said her client had updated his address and had no idea the appointment existed.
I asked for the notice and the update receipt.
The documents took seven minutes to find.
Seven minutes was a long time on a crowded list. It was not a long time beside the days someone might spend in custody because no one waited for a printer.
The receipt predated the notice. The office had used an older field in the system.
We resolved the immediate issue on that record.
The next defendant claimed he had missed a hearing because the courthouse signs sent him to the wrong room. His lawyer produced the appointment letter and a photograph of the sign he described.
The photograph showed a temporary arrow left from an earlier renovation.
A prosecutor checked the date and agreed the confusion was plausible. We arranged a new appearance without treating being lost as an admission of bad faith.
Then came a matter where the explanation did not fit the evidence.
A witness said he had never received repeated contact from a defendant. The records showed several messages, including one he had acknowledged in writing. His lawyer requested time to review the material rather than continuing with a claim the file contradicted.
I gave the appropriate directions and moved on.
Later, a colleague would ask whether the morning had made me more sympathetic to defendants.
The question was too small for what I was trying to understand.
I had always known that officers could be truthful, witnesses could be mistaken, and frightened people could omit details. I had spent years insisting that the sequence mattered.
What changed was how sharply I heard the language that tried to replace a sequence with a label.
Noncompliant.
Evasive.
Aggressive.
Words that might describe conduct, or might conceal the absence of a description.
When a report called someone uncooperative that afternoon, I asked what the person had actually done. The answer was that she had asked to telephone her attorney before answering questions.
The distinction belonged in the record.
At three ten, the pain behind my eye returned strongly enough that I stopped the list.
There were only two matters left. Another judge took them. Nothing collapsed.
In chambers, Ruth placed the cold pack beside a cup of tea.
“Finished?”
“For today.”
She nodded as though that were an ordinary professional decision, which it was.
Sam waited until the room was empty before telling me Internal Affairs wanted to arrange a formal interview.
“Did you give your statement?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Without anyone else helping you remember?”
He looked at me steadily.
“Yes.”
I thanked him.
After he left, I examined the day's orders. None mentioned the injury. None needed to.
What had happened to me was real.
So were the obligations I still had to people who had not caused it.
Keeping those facts separate would become one of the hardest parts of the months ahead.