The Endless Knot

you can make paving stones point in pretty much any direction you choose. With all due respect, I think my learned friend is pointing the stones in the wrong direction. So I’m going to put the facts into context – anchor them down. I’m trusting that you, as ‘judges of the facts,’ will make certain that we come out in the right place.

“You have a serious responsibility ahead of you. Serious responsibility is something that Sam Parker understands. Sam is a father who loves his child. That’s why he’s in this courtroom today. When Glenda Parker confided a matter of the utmost privacy to a journalist, and she betrayed him, Glenda’s father acted. That’s what parents do for their children. That’s what a father does for his son.”

Before that moment, Zack had always been careful to refer to Glenda in the feminine. The reference to Sam and Glenda as “father and son” had been a slip, but the jury, which to this point had been dutifully attentive, was now alert. Zack picked up on the change in the emotional temperature immediately. He shook his head and a little half-smile played on his lips. “There’s a primal bond between a man and his son,” he said, and his emphasis on the word son was unmistakable.

Beside me, Brette breathed the words “son of a bitch.”

As he continued, Zack’s voice was sonorous, pitch perfect for the tale he was telling about a decent man thrust into unthinkable circumstances who was guilty of a grievous error in judgment but not of attempted murder.

I glanced across at Glenda Parker. Her outfit for court was smart and androgynous: grey slacks, a black turtleneck, and an unstructured black jacket. Her only jewellery was the heavy gold band she wore on her ring finger. When Zack first used the phrase father and son, Glenda flinched, but from that moment on, she was stoic. All of the horror – the pictures of her competing as a male swimmer, the unpacking of her private life – everything she feared most was coming to pass, but it was in aid of a good cause. Her father’s trusted barrister had found a note that resonated, and so Glenda swallowed hard.

Zack wheeled close to the jury. “Sam Parker loved his son,” he said. “That was his crime. That was his ‘sin.’ Four hundred years ago, a poet lost his first-born son. He wrote about a father’s anguish. ‘Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; / My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.’ ”

The meaty man rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

Zack went to him. “The poem makes me weep too. But those lines didn’t make Kathryn Morrissey weep. For her, they were just material. She needed a title for her book, so she took what she wanted from a father’s heartbreak. She needed a best-seller, so she took what she wanted from the broken lives of young people who trusted her. All Sam Parker did was love his son. He did not attempt to murder Kathryn Morrissey.”

The courtroom was silent. Linda Fritz stared studiously at her files.

“Bull’s eye,” Brette said admiringly. “Also bullshit.”

When Zack wheeled back to his place behind the counsel table, he touched his client’s arm and said a few words. Glenda Parker was sitting directly behind them. She stood, squeezed Zack’s shoulder, then bent to kiss her father’s head. The gesture delivered a message more powerful than words. “Whatever it takes,” the kiss said. “Whatever it takes.”

Later, as I stood on the courthouse steps with Rapti Lustig running through the points I was going to cover in my report of the trial for Canada Tonight, I didn’t mention the kiss. But as the snow swirled around me, and Rapti dabbed at my imperfections with Max Factor, the memory of Glenda’s pain was sharp. So was the memory of the gusto with which Zack had played his trump card. But when he came through the glass doors of the courthouse, his focus had shifted from the trial to me, and I remembered why I loved him.

He glowered at my bare neck. “Where’s your scarf?”

“I couldn’t find it this morning.”

“How long do you have to stand out here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably another ten minutes.”

He reached up, flicked off his own scarf, and handed it to me. “Take this.”

I knotted his scarf around my neck.

“Better?” he said.

“Much,” I said. “It’s still warm from you.”

“Anytime you need a little body heat.”

Rapti scowled. “Hey, you two – get a room.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “Don’t I wish?” At that moment, Linda Fritz came through the courthouse doors, and Zack called her over. Without her barrister’s robes, Linda looked surprisingly vulnerable. It was clear from the hectic glitter in her eyes and the rasp in her voice that the volley of sneezes in court had just been a prelude: Linda was well on her way to the miseries of a cold.

She took in the scene. “What’s up?” she said.

“I wanted Joanne to meet you. Although since she’s already seen you in action, I guess we can skip the formalities.”

“You were terrific in there,” I said.

“Not terrific enough,” Linda said glumly. “But tomorrow is another day – speaking of which, I have a ton of reading to do.”

Zack’s tone was matey. “If you’d accept our invitation to join Falconer Shreve, eager associates would simplify your life.”

Linda blew her nose loudly and turned to me. “This man can’t get it through his head that I actually like my work. He believes that when Falconer Shreve calls, I should just put on my lipstick and hightail it over to the dark side.” She coughed. “Zack, for the record, I don’t get my thrills from pulling the hair out of other people’s drains. I’m happy where I am. Je ne regrette rien.”

“The offer’s always open,” Zack said. He took my hand. “Gotta go. I’m going to meet my guy back at the office. I’ll call you tonight.” He pulled me towards him and kissed me. “I love you,” he said.