“Today. I saw him this afternoon. He’s an English mastiff and he’s huge.”
“But good-natured?”
“Very. He’s just been neutered, but he seems pretty happy.”
Zack winced. “I wouldn’t be happy.”
“Well, Pantera’s braver than you – he was still in there smiling and twitching.”
Zack stopped painting. “Pantera, huh? That’s a nice tribute to a great metal band.”
“You know who Pantera is?”
“Everybody knows who Pantera is. The day Dimebag died was the 9/11 of rock.”
“Who was Dimebag?”
“Pantera’s one-time guitarist. He was shot by a deranged fan.”
I shook my head. “How do you know these things?”
Zack finished his eyeball and held it up for my approval.
“Perfect,” I said.
“Not bad,” he agreed. “Anyway, when I have lunch with my clients during a trial, we talk about what they want to talk about. One of my guys was a serious Pantera fan. After the trial was over, he sent me some CDS.”
“To thank you for getting him off.”
“No, to console me for not getting him off.”
“There’s a lot about you that I don’t know,” I said.
“There’s a lot about you that I don’t know,” he said. “I thought that’s why we were getting married – to find out.”
“What happens if you don’t like what you find?”
Zack shrugged. “I’ll live with it,” he said. “Speaking of our marriage. When are we going tell your family?”
“Taylor’s birthday’s on a Friday. I was thinking we could invite Mieka and Greg and Angus and Leah down on the weekend to celebrate her birthday and make the big announcement.”
“Let’s invite the Falconers and the Wainbergs too. They’re as close to family as I have.”
“Sounds like a major shindig,” I said.
Zack looked at me hard. “You don’t look very happy about it – cold feet?”
“Just a twinge. Everything’s happened so fast with us.”
He reached for my hand. “Too fast?”
“No,” I said. “Every time I look at you, I know I don’t want a miss a moment of our life together.”
It was a nice moment, short-circuited as many nice moments in my home were by the arrival of one of my kids or their friends. This time the friend was Ethan, and he was positioned at what appeared to be his favourite post: the kitchen door.
I walked over and invited him in. He was wearing a black knit watch cap that made him appear older than thirteen. As always, he was jumpy and abrupt. “Is Taylor here?” he asked.
“She and Isobel and Gracie went out to buy more pumpkins for the party.”
“I didn’t think I’d be invited,” Ethan said. “But Taylor asked me today at school.” For a beat, the three of us stared at one another, waiting for deliverance. “I should get out of here,” Ethan said. “If Taylor sees me, she’ll think I’m stalking her.”
It was an exit line, but Ethan didn’t exit. Finally, accepting the inevitable, Zack threw Ethan a lifeline. “Why don’t you stay for a while? I’ve wanted to talk to you since I noticed you in the courtroom.”
“You
“You were always somewhere around the doors at the back, right? So what’s the deal? Are you interested in becoming a lawyer?”
“No,” Ethan said. “I’m interested in justice.”
Zack’s mouth twitched to suppress a smile. “They’re not supposed to be mutually exclusive.”
Ethan flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a dork.”
“Neither did I,” Zack said. “So, do you think justice will be done in this trial?”
“I don’t even know what justice is in this trial. At first I thought I did; now I’m not so sure. That’s why I keep coming back.”
“That’s why I keep coming back too,” Zack said.
“To make sure that the right people are punished.”
“And to make sure that the right people go free,” Zack said.
“That’s a noble aim.” Ethan’s fingers crept towards the pentangle around his neck. “The poet says that Gawain possessed five virtues that made him a noble knight – love and friendship for other men, freedom from sin, courtesy that never failed, and pity. His five senses were free of sin, his five fingers never failed him.” Ethan’s eyes were glazed as he quoted the ancient lines. “ ‘And all these fives met in one man / Joined to each other, each without
