Nineteen Minutes

Alex is a woman who puts her job first, meaning she is a judge before she is a mother. The narrative describes her feeling of authority when wearing her judge’s robes, and the robes themselves indicate the power invested in Alex to judge fairly and impartially. When people see her in her robes, they treat her like royalty. When Alex is most confused and unsure of herself, she isn’t wearing her robes. Alex, as a mother, and without her robes, finds herself questioning her decisions and her relationship with her daughter. When Alex finally recuses herself from the case and takes a leave of absence from work, thus leaving the robes behind, she forces herself to deal with life without the authority she’s built around herself with the robes. Though Alex finds motherhood daunting, she chooses her daughter, Josie, over her work and her robes.

As a judge, Alex is known to be calm and collected. Alex, however, also wants people to treat her like a human being. Smoking is a way for Alex to relieve tension. She goes outside at work and smokes, often conversing with the cleaning woman. Peter Ducharme, the police detective, catches Alex smoking and jokes that it is a vice.