‘I thought you might give her the benefit of the doubt, Mother.’
‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me. Lisa is a brilliant girl. She’ll land on her feet when this trial is over. You’ll see.’
Hannah took a deep breath. ‘Well, yes, but until she does she’s going to need a bit more help. We are trying to work it out but this attorney is very expensive.’
Pamela tilted her head back. ‘Ah, so now we come to the heart of the matter. I was wondering to what I owed the pleasure of this visit.’
‘Mother, that’s not fair,’ said Hannah. ‘You act as if I only come when I want something. That is just not true.’
‘Splitting hairs,’ Pamela declared.
Hannah knew better than to argue. She had often withered under her mother’s contemptuous gaze. In fact, she wished she could just get up and walk out right now, but the memory of Adam’s worried eyes as he went over their finances cemented her to her seat.
‘How much this time?’ Pamela demanded wearily, as if she had been constantly besieged by Hannah in search of money. There was no use in reminding her that they had only asked her twice before for any money in the course of their marriage, and both times, they had paid her back.
Hannah did not want to discuss it. She got up, pulled the bill for Marjorie Fox’s retainer from her purse and put it on her mother’s white French-style writing desk. Pamela set her chair in motion and whirred over to the desk.
‘You don’t have to give it to me now,’ said Hannah.
‘Let’s get it over with,’ said Pamela grimly.
‘We’ll pay you back as soon as we possibly can.’
Pamela sniffed, and proceeded to write the check. She waved it at Hannah, who was forced to reach for it and lift it from her fingers.
Hannah looked at the tidy sum which her mother proffered. ‘Thank you, Mother,’ she said. She folded up the check and slipped it into her wallet.
Just then, there was a wail from the patio, and Hannah looked out. Sydney had toddled after a squirrel on her pudgy legs and tumbled down, scraping her knees. Hannah ran out and scooped her up, holding her close.
‘Don’t cry. Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s all right. Mom-mom will fix it.’ She carried the child into the doors and through the apartment toward her mother’s pristine bathroom.
‘What’s the matter?’ Pamela asked, whirring up to the wide bathroom entrance.
‘She fell and skinned her knee,’ said Hannah. ‘Do you have Band-Aids?’
‘On the shelf beside the sink.’
Hannah propped the toddler up on the edge of the sink, and began to dab at Sydney’s bleeding knee with a wet, snow-white washcloth.
‘You’ll ruin that washrag,’ Pamela predicted.
‘I’ll bring you some new ones,’ Hannah said evenly.
‘You’re babying her too much,’ Pamela observed.
For a moment Hannah closed her eyes, and counted to ten. Then she gently applied the Band-Aid to Sydney’s skinned knee. ‘That’s what you do with babies, Mother. You baby them.’
SIX
On Thursdays, Hannah always worked late. Hannah didn’t mind it on those evenings when Adam was away on business, as he was tonight. Someone had to be in the office for the working mothers who couldn’t make it during business hours.
Dr Fleischer, the psychologist who did assessments on the families whose cases Hannah handled, leaned into her office. ‘Hey, Hannah? How are you holding up?’
Hannah sighed. There was no use in pretending that she didn’t know what the psychologist was referring to. ‘Just putting one foot in front of the other,’ she said. ‘The trial starts in two weeks.’
Jackie Fleischer, a thin, attractive woman in her late fifties, was new to the office. Lately arrived in Nashville after years in New Jersey, she was somewhat of an exotic creature to the other staff members. She often dressed in mandarin jackets and trousers with an Asian flair, and Hannah looked forward to getting to know her better. Maybe they would even be friends, given the opportunity.
‘And your daughter? How’s she doing?’
‘It’s pretty difficult for her,’ Hannah admitted. ‘She hears the snide remarks. The whispers. She ignores them, and goes about her business. Medical school takes all your concentration. She’s in her second year,’ she pointed out with a defensive hint of pride.
Dr Fleischer shuddered. ‘Oh, I know it. Even though it was a hundred years ago, I remember the pressure when I was doing my clinical work for my doctorate.’
‘She doesn’t want to be derailed by this trial. Especially since she isn’t guilty.’
‘Of course not,’ said Dr Fleischer. ‘How’s her little girl?’
Hannah hesitated, glancing at the photo of her granddaughter on her desk. ‘She’s doing all right. It’s tough. She doesn’t know what’s going on but she’s aware of the tension.’
‘She a lot like her mother?’ Dr Fleischer asked off-handedly.
Hannah was about to say ‘yes’ when she stopped herself. Was Sydney like her mother? Hannah knew that she felt differently around Sydney than she had around Lisa at the same age. Sydney was a calm, quiet child, cherubic in a way that Lisa never was. Sydney seemed to be unfurling like a flower bud, where Lisa had been fiery, easily frustrated, forever in motion. At least Hannah had been young in those days, and could keep up with her daughter. If her granddaughter had been like Lisa, Hannah did not know if she could have managed. ‘My granddaughter is a lot more . . . serene than her mother was at that age.’
‘Funny, isn’t it,’ said Dr Fleischer, ‘how kids can be so different than their parents.’
‘I guess you would know,’ Hannah observed.
‘Keeps me in business,’ said Dr Fleischer wryly.
The phone on Hannah’s desk rang and she picked it up, as Jackie waggled her fingers in a goodbye wave.
‘Your client is here,’ drawled the receptionist.
