Soon I’m crying, sobbing hard, and I can’t seem to make it stop. I feel overwhelmed by grief; it brings me to my knees in front of the closed door. I can’t believe that Mike is gone, that Brent is gone. That I’ll never see either of them again.
I wish I could stop crying, but I can’t, and soon I hear a loudboom boom boom against the door. Only it’s not someone else pounding on the door.
It’s my own skull.
34
FEDERAL ATTRACTION! screams the three-inch headline in the morning edition ofThe Philadelphia Daily News.
FEDERAL JUDGE ATTACKS WOMAN LAWYER: D.A. FINDS SELF-DEFENSE, reads the smaller headline inThe Philadelphia Inquirer, its calmer sister publication.
I don’t read the newspaper accounts, don’t even want to see them. I just want to know if Berkowitz kept my name out of the papers, so I can practice law again in this city. Someday.
“I don’t see it anywhere,” Ned says, skimming the articles at my kitchen table. His tie is tucked carefully into a white oxford shirt. He stopped by on the way to work to see how I was, bearing blueberry muffins. He didn’t try to hug or kiss me. He seemed to sense that I needed the distance.
“Good.”
“You should take your time going back to work, Mary.” The muffins lie crumbled on the plate between us.
“I will, this time.”
“I’ll take care of your desk. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“Thanks. I’ll return the favor.”
Ned smiles mysteriously.
“What?”
“I’m not telling you now. You’ve had enough surprises.” He folds up the newspaper and sets it down on the table.
“Tell me, Ned.”
“Actually, it’s a good surprise. You really want to hear it?” His green eyes shine.
“Sure.”
“I’m leaving the firm. As soon as you come back.”
“What?” It’s so unexpected, it draws me out of myself for a minute.
“There’s no future for me there. I’m not going to make partner.”
“How do you know that?”
“Berkowitz told me.”
Now I’m totally confounded. I sit up in the chair.
“He told me one day in his office, when I went in to ask him how many partners they were making.”
I remember, the conversation he materially omitted at dinner that night.
“Berkowitz told me I wasn’t going to be one of them, no matter how many they made.”
“Why?” I feel hurt for him.
“He said I didn’t have what it takes. The fire in the belly. Thecipollines, I think he meant.” He smiles crookedly.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. He’s right, Mary. I didn’t realize it until he said it, but he’s right. I don’t have the heart for it. I don’t even like being a lawyer. I was only doing it to prove something to my father.”
I don’t know what to say. Silence comes between us.
“I did talk to him, you know,” he says.
“Your father?”
“Yes. I told you I would. I called you about it, but you weren’t returning my calls.” He winces slightly.
“Ned-”
“That’s okay, you explained it. With the last note, even I would have suspected me. Anyway, my father never had you followed, but he did do a lot of research on you. He searched your name in Lexis and pulled all the cases you worked on.”
“Why?”
“To see what the competition was like. To size up my chances of making partner. That’s why he watched you at your dep.”
“Jesus.”
“He researched Judy, too, and me. He said he wanted to know what I was working on. I guess it never occurred to him to pick up the phone.” He picks idly at a blueberry crumb.
“Did he say anything about tampering with files?”
“No. I don’t think he’d do that, he’d think it was unethical. Wife-beating is okay, but tampering with case files, no.”
“How was it, seeing him again?”
“He looks older. His hair is all silver.”
“Are you two going to-”
“No, we’re not going to be pals, if that’s your question. We’ll talk from time to time, but that’s it. Nothing’s changed but his hair, I can see that. I asked him if he wanted to go into therapy with me. That went over real big.” He smiles, but it’s sour.
“So what are you going to do now? For a job?”
Ned pops a blueberry into his mouth. “I don’t know yet. Teach law, teach sailing. Get married, stay home with the kids. All ten of them. What do you say?”
“Am I supposed to answer that?”
“I drive a Miata, what more do you want?”
“A continuance.”
“Just like a lawyer, DiNunzio. Just like a lawyer.” He laughs loudly, throwing his head back. He looks happy and free.
“So do I get it?”
“Motion granted,” he says.
And Alice, who has been sitting under the kitchen table, rubs up against his leg.
35
It’s June 28, the first anniversary of Mike’s death.
I cruise up the smooth asphalt road that leads to the pink magnolia tree. I think of it as Mike’s tree, even though it shelters at least sixty other graves. They fan out from the trunk of the magnolia in concentric circles, ring upon ring of headstones.
I pull over at the side of the road, where I always park. I cut the ignition, and the air-conditioning shuts down with a wheeze. Outside the car, the air is damp and sweet. The radio called for thundershowers this afternoon, and I believe it. The air is so wet you know the bottom’s got to tear open, like a tissue holding water.
The cemetery is silent. The only sounds are the cars rushing by on the distant expressway and the intermittent quarreling of the squirrels. I make my way to Mike’s grave. Only a year ago, it was on the outermost ring, but now it’s somewhere toward the middle. More graves are being added, more people are passing on. Like the rings of the magnolia tree itself, it’s just time moving on, life moving on.
Death moving on, too.
I walk past the monuments with names I don’t recognize until I reach the ones I do. I feel as if I know these
