Nineteen Minutes

The narrative flashes back. Lacy Houghton is back at work and is conducting a prenatal class. It’s only been a week since she returned to work as a nurse-midwife from her own maternity leave. She’s a bit sullen about being back and teaching other women, especially as she has her own newborn, Peter, to deal with. She loves her job, though. Lacy could have gone to medical school and been an OB/GYN but realized that she was too emotionally connected to her patients to affect the cold demeanor of a doctor. As she looks at the women in the room, she spots a woman in the back wearing a suit. The woman seems like she doesn’t want to be in the class, and leaves early, citing work as an excuse. Lacy sees that the woman’s name is Alex Cormier. She makes a note to keep tabs on Alex.

In the flashback, Alex is a public defender. She is defending a man she’s had to work with before, and knows he is guilty for assaulting someone. Her job, however, requires her to not place judgment on her clients. Her job is to separate her feelings from the task at hand, which is getting her client acquitted.

Lacy is trying to put Peter to sleep. He is different from her firstborn, Joey. Joey was a beautiful baby who turned heads and had a sunny disposition. Peter is colicky and temperamental. Lacy thinks about Peter’s happiness and segues to her husband’s job as an economist. Her husband researches happiness and places value to it. Her husband, Lewis, created an equation, the mathematical formula for happiness, which ultimately shows that there are two ways to be happy: either by improving your reality or lowering your expectations. Despite her husband’s expertise on happiness, Lacy truly wonders if their family is happy, and if their kids will grow up to be happy. Peter finally falls asleep. As Lacy puts him in his bed, she notices how striking Joey looks and wonders if she will be so lucky for a second time with Peter.

Lacy has a tense conversation with Alex, who is twenty-four years old. Alex reveals that she’d considered getting an abortion but will now have the child and give it up for adoption. She also reveals that she does not have a partner.

The narrative then switches to Alex’s point-of-view, and another flashback reveals that Alex has not always had the cool-headed persona she gives off. Despite her responsibility to understand human nature and read people—as required by her line of work—Alex falls in love with her trial advocacy professor, Logan Rourke. Despite the signs, she believed Logan when he said he would leave his wife and that he loved only her. Once she told him about being pregnant, however, he immediately told Alex to get rid of the baby. Though she scheduled two separate appointments for an abortion, Alex could not go through with it. Logan tried reasoning with her, telling her that she could not be a successful trial attorney and a mother. Though he said that she’d have to choose between a career and a child, what Alex understood was that he was telling her to choose him or the child.

Alex and Lacy run into each other at the courthouse, and Lacy invites Alex for coffee. Alex reluctantly agrees, and the two go to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. They talk about the similarities between nursing and crime, and then Lacy suddenly goes to the bathroom. Giving Alex no choice, she places Peter in Alex’s lap and runs to the restroom. Alex is stunned. She has no experience caring for a child. Though she tries to do her best, when Peter reaches for her coffee mug and she pushes it away, he begins crying in a high-pitched wail. Everyone in the donut shop looks at her, and with the silent rebukes, she talks to Peter as she would talk to someone in her courtroom. He quiets down, and when Lacy returns, Alex immediately hands him back.

Lacy encounters Alex again at the hospital. Alex has had some bleeding and thinks she miscarried, but Lacy reassures her that the baby is fine. She shows her the ultrasound and Alex cries. Lacy comments on Alex’s demeanor: Alex seems like she really cares for and wants her child. She tells Alex to think about keeping the baby. Alex later decides to keep the child, and when Logan tells her that he does not want to be part of her life, she sees him for who he really is and burns everything she has that reminds her of him.

Alex and Lacy become friends, and Lacy also becomes Alex’s midwife. Though the two make their friendship work despite their differences, Lacy finds it taxing to meet Alex’s friends. She doesn’t get along with them or understand their humor. Alex, on the other hand, finds herself softening. In an unusual act, she drives one of her clients to a local store and buys her everything she needs for her child, even though she hears Logan’s voice in her head telling her that she’s a “bleeding heart” (39).

Alex goes into labor. She doesn’t feel prepared and is scared. Lacy notices this, and instantly tries to calm Alex’s nerves. With Lacy helping her, Alex successfully banishes her doubts about motherhood and her own competence and focuses on the present. At the end of the chapter, she delivers a healthy girl.

An italicized paragraph/journal entry ends the chapter. The anonymous writer of the passage says that bad things will continue to happen to people, and that perhaps this is because of original sin. The writer also suggests that bad things continue to happen to remind people what good “is supposed to look like” (43).

Once the shooting is over, the medics and police canvas the crime scene. Patrick realizes that this is the worst scenario he’s encountered in his career. The town’s crises centers are unable to deal with the number of wounded students, and Patrick implements makeshift plans to care for the wounded and the dead. Though Patrick is assertive, he has no clue how to handle such a tragic, immediate scenario. He tells himself to remain calm and collected, especially as everyone is looking to him for answers.

Patrick walks through the eerie school, witnessing the crime scene firsthand. Scenes of banal student life mix with the tragedy, including blood splats on walls and broken glass. Patrick traces where kills took place, such as in the cafeteria. As he’s reconstructing the attack in his mind, he hears a noise in the kitchen. He wonders if it could be another shooter and draws his weapon, only to find that a lunch lady has locked herself inside the freezer for protection. He tells her it’s all over yet realizes that it’s only the beginning of everything for the still-reeling town.Alex is in court and is told that shots have been fired at Sterling High. Thinking immediately of Josie, she adjourns court and heads to the high school.

A student, John Eberhard, makes his way to a window in the high school. He had been sitting in front of Courtney Ignatio in the cafeteria when Peter shot her. He’d managed to flee from the resulting panic but was shot by Peter on the steps. Now in the art supply room, he shatters a window and tries to yell for help but is unable to speak. People on the street below see him and yell for help. His body won’t respond to him, and as he tries to wave for help, he falls out of the window.

Later, Diana Leven walks into the high school and meets with Patrick. She had left her job in Boston to be a prosecutor for a small town and is horrified that something of this magnitude has now happened. She speaks with Patrick and, when he asks, tells him he can question the suspect. She then goes outside to address the cameras. She informs them that she works for the attorney general’s office and that they are dealing with an active crime scene so cannot release any info such as names of the deceased, and that they have one suspect in custody.

Lacy rushes to the crime scene, terrified that she’s lost another child (it’s not explained yet how her older child, Joey, died). She can barely focus with the terror surrounding her. As she searches for Peter, she hears a girl mention his name to her mother. When Lacy confronts her, the girl reveals that Peter was the shooter. Lacy reels from the look of rebuke on the mother’s face and the girl’s trauma. She goes to a policeman and informs him that she is Peter’s mother. Meanwhile, Alex goes to the hockey rink, where a list of the wounded has been posted. She finds that Josie is among the wounded.

Patrick goes to the police station to question Peter before he’s arrested (he’s in holding) and finds Lacy Houghton asking to see her son. He tells her she won’t be able to see him yet. He notes how frail she looks and wonders how someone like Lacy could have birthed a purported monster like Peter. Patrick then takes Peter to a room for questioning but gets nowhere. He also notes how frail and somber Peter is. Before leaving Peter in his cell, Patrick asks Peter to help him understand. Peter hasn’t responded to any of his attempts at clarity or questioning, but finally says that “they started it” (55).

Patrick meets with Dr. Guenther Frankenstein after Diana Leven (the prosecutor) tells him to arrest Peter for the crimes because they have witnesses. Dr. Guenther is working on the sixth victim, a special-needs girl named Kaitlyn Harvey. Patrick thinks back to earlier in the day when he was retracing Peter’s path in the high school. In one room, they came upon a boy who had pretended to be an EMT but was really an Eagle Scout. The boy was traumatized; he’d been trying to save the math teacher, Mr. McCabe, who’d been shot, without realizing that Mr. McCabe was already dead. Seven victims are mentioned: 1. Mr. McCabe; 2. Courtney Ignatio; 3. Kaitlyn Harvey; 4. Maddie Shaw; 5. Whit Obermeyer; 6. Topher McPhee; 7. Grace Murtaugh. The two go into the gym, where another two fatalities took place, and then into the locker room, where Patrick stopped Peter earlier. Another fatality took place in the locker room (the student with the hockey jersey next to Josie). Dr. Guenther points out that what’s so strange about this death is that the victim was shot twice, once in the stomach and once in the head. The headshot killed him. The two are interrupted with news that materials for bombs have been found in Peter’s car.

Alex sits in the hospital, waiting for Josie to awaken. She thinks about a recurring dream she used to have, in which she’s on a falling airplane and unable to reach Josie. Even when waking, she always felt she was too late to reach her daughter and feels this way now as she watches Josie. Alex realizes that she is lucky; there are many parents who now must deal with the loss of a child. Josie had passed out, apparently, during the shooting. Alex learns that one of the victims was Matthew Royston, Josie’s boyfriend. Alex then thinks about the fact that this case will become hers. Though some might think that she should remove herself from the case, Josie was at the scene of the crime but not the victim of the crime. Technically, Alex can still sit as superior court judge if she keeps her personal feelings as a mother separate from her professional duty. When Josie wakes up, she can’t remember anything. She thinks she and Matt got into a car accident, and then asks if Matt is alright.

Lacy deals with the fact that Peter, her son, is the shooter. Her husband, Lewis, is securing Peter a lawyer. Lacy thinks back to all the times that Lewis took Peter hunting, thus showing him how to use a gun. She momentarily blames him as it’s better than blaming herself. When Lacy goes to Peter’s room, she wonders how she could talk to her son and be under the same roof and not know anything was wrong with him. She then sees evidence in his room, such as electrical tape and empty bottles, and tries to gather it all and discard it. She is interrupted by the police, however, who have a search warrant.

Jordan McAfee is watching the news of the shooting with his wife and baby. Though he’s been an attorney for twenty years, he’s stunned by the news. They had moved to this small town to escape violence. He talks to his older son briefly on the phone. When he clicks over to call waiting, Jordan is asked by Lewis Houghton to represent his son, Peter. Jordan is reluctant at first, especially after a similar case took a big toll on his family and career. He realizes, however, that Peter is still a human being. He is someone’s son, and he’s being demonized by the media. He agrees to take the case.

Patrick goes to the hospital to see Josie. He notes that her mother is present, and only realizes after hearing Josie’s last name that she is the daughter of Alex Cormier, superior court judge. Alex is immediately suspicious of Patrick, though she allows him to break the news to Josie. Josie still thinks she was in a car accident and Alex can’t bring herself to tell her daughter the truth. Patrick tells Josie the truth, but when he reveals that Matt has died, Josie freaks out and must be sedated. Alex warns Patrick, but he counters her anger by revealing that Josie is one of the lucky ones, a truth that hurts Alex. Though Patrick wants to ask Josie questions, he admits that he really visited just to see if she was alright.