“You work too hard, Mom.” But they both knew she was still trying to carry her own load and his father’s. “Why don’t you hire another lawyer to help you?”
“I’ve thought about it. But somehow I think your father wouldn’t have liked that.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted you to kill yourself working this hard either.” Jack had always known how to have a good time, and as compulsive as he was about their work, no one liked a vacation better than he did. He would have loved the week they had just spent at Lake Tahoe.
“I’ll see. Maybe in a few months I’ll bring another lawyer into the practice. But so far, I’m doing okay by myself.” As long as she never stopped to read a book or a magazine, or have lunch with a friend or get her hair done. As long as she kept her nose to the grindstone every minute she wasn’t with the kids, it worked fine, but it wasn’t much of a life for her, and she knew it. And apparently, so did her children.
“Don’t wait forever, Mom,” Peter admonished her, and rounded the others up. They were buying candy, and carried bags of it back to the car to take home with them. It was part of the charm of Ikeda’s. It was one of their favorite stops. They usually stopped there too on their way to ski at Tahoe in the winter.
Carole was waiting for them when they got home, and Liz knew that the next few weeks would be busy for her, before the kids went back to school. Peter would still be working at the pet hospital for another week or two, but the others would be spending all their time around the pool, and inviting friends over to hang out with them. Carole would fix lunch for half a dozen kids or more every day, and sometimes twice that many at dinner. But Liz liked knowing where they were, and that their friends were welcome to visit.
Carole had cooked a delicious dinner for them, and when they went to bed that night, they were happy to be home, and full of stories of the lake to tell her. And Liz still looked relaxed when she left for work the next morning. It lasted for all of about ten minutes. The stacks of work and files on her desk had multiplied dramatically while she was gone, and there were more phone messages than she had ever seen waiting for her. She was handling her cases too well. Both clients and other attorneys were constantly referring new cases to her. And she couldn’t help but remember what Peter had said about taking another lawyer into the practice to help her.
She mentioned it to Jean that afternoon as they attacked her desk systematically, and Liz did some dictation.
“Do you have anyone in mind?” Jean asked with interest. She’d been thinking the same thing herself for quite a while, and applauded Peter for the astute suggestion.
“Not yet,” Liz admitted to her. “I don’t even know if I want to do it.”
“You should give it some thought. He’s right. You can’t do it all yourself. It’s too much for one person. It was almost too much for two before Jack died, and the practice has grown in the last six months. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but I have. You’re handling twice as many cases than you were when there were two of you to do them.”
“How did that happen?” Liz looked surprised as she acknowledged what Jean was saying.
“You’re good at what you do, that’s how,” Jean said with a smile.
“So was Jack.” Liz was quick to defend him. “I always thought he was a better lawyer than I was.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Jean said honestly, “but he turned away more cases than you do. You never have the heart to say no to anyone. If he didn’t like a case, he booted it right out the door into the hands of some other lawyer.”
“Maybe I should do more of that,” she said thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure you could bring yourself to do it.” Jean knew her well. Liz was incredibly conscientious.
“Neither am I,” Liz said as she laughed, and they went back to work on the dictation. She had a number of things to send to various judges, and other attorneys, on the cases she was currently working on.
It was late when she got home that night, nearly eight o’clock, but she was paying her dues for her vacation. The kids were still sitting around the pool when she got home, and Carole was dishing out pizza.
“Hi, guys,” Liz said with a smile, and she was pleased to see Peter there, but less so when she saw two of his friends dive into the pool and play a little too roughly with the younger children when they all got into a game of Marco Polo. She told them to tone it down a little bit, and asked Peter to tell his friends not to play quite so roughly. “Someone’s going to get hurt,” she said quietly to Carole, who agreed with her and said she had spent the whole afternoon telling Megan’s friends the same thing. Liz was particularly worried about Jamie, who was only a fair swimmer.
And she warned them about it again that night after their friends left. “I don’t want any accidents here … or any lawsuits!”
“You worry too much, Mom.” Annie dismissed her, and Liz told her that she meant it.
She reminded them of it again the next day when she left for work, and when she came home that night, things seemed a little calmer. But on Thursday, when she came home late again, and found half a dozen of Peter’s friends in the pool with him, she watched them diving too fast, too soon, and not waiting until the other children had cleared the area, and she told him in no uncertain terms that his friends would be banned from the pool if they didn’t observe basic safety rules, and respect the younger children.
“I don’t want to have to remind you again,” she said sternly.
“You look tired, Mom,” he said gently.
“I am tired, but that’s beside the point. I don’t want an accident here. You can’t roughhouse in the pool, Peter, and I mean it.”
“Okay, Mom, I heard you.” He had grown up a lot in the past year, but not completely. He was still young, and some of his friends were daredevils and foolish, and she had always worried about it. Having someone get hurt was a headache she didn’t need. They’d been through enough trauma for one year, and she wasn’t afraid to say so to him, or his friends.
She went up to her room to work again that night, and she had an early appearance in court the next morning. She was tired and edgy, and she wanted to get a good night’s sleep.
She was just leaving the courtroom in fact, at noon the next day, when her cellular rang. It was Carole, and she sounded precise and calm, as Liz stopped to talk to her on the steps of the courthouse.
