“Just sitting here,” I replied, “trying to figure out when your wife is due.”
There was the longest silence, and my breath held. There was still a part of me hoping he had an explanation.
“I was going to tell you,” he said.
And it was then that I knew, without a doubt, he would lie. And had been lying all along.
41
Ben leaves the following weekend for a trial in DC. He expects it to go quickly, and I hope he’s right: depositions for Lawson are set to begin in two weeks, and I want him by my side when they occur.
I’ve never felt quite as apathetic about work as I do on Monday. There are no strawberries at the morning meeting. Fields is civil to me, nothing more, still holding a grudge over Webber.
I meet Walter for lunch to go over the mountain of work he needs FMG to handle. I can rope in a few of the junior associates to help while I’m dealing with Lawson, but he shouldn’t be giving us all this work in the first place.
“I’ve said this before,” I tell him with a smile, “but you really ought to just hire someone in-house. You easily have more than enough work to keep a full-time attorney busy.”
He cuts into his steak and spears a bite with his fork. “You trying to get rid of me?” he asks with a grin.
“Of course not. You’re still my favorite client. I just don’t like to see you wasting your money.”
He points his fork at me. “And that’s why I like you, Gemma. Because you tell me the truth even when it does you a disservice. I want to introduce you to my oldest boy, one of these days.”
I blush, remembering Ben above me, growling, “no more dates” in my ear. “I’m, uh, seeing someone,” I reply. “And even he’d tell you I’m no one you’d want to set up with your son.”
Walter smiles to himself. “Bet you keep him on his toes.”
I laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
More like he keeps me on mine.
On the way back to the office, I read the texts Ben sent during lunch. He’s in the middle of jury selection. I write back, encouraging him to select the juror who came in wearing what she claimed was an invisibility cloak.
Ben: You just love to fuck with people who really want out of jury duty, don’t you?
Me: How dare you? But also, yes.
Ben: I wish you were here.
I’m still smiling over that twenty minutes later, when Sophia Waterhouse walks in.
“I’m glad one of us is happy,” she says, setting a manila folder on my desk. “My husband just cut off my credit cards to keep me from going on vacation. You told me he had to pay for reasonable expenses.”
“He’ll be forced to reimburse you,” I tell her. “Do you not have anything you can use?” I know I warned her about this. I tell every client to get a credit card in her own name because this always happens eventually.
“Yes, but it only has an eighteen-thousand-dollar limit,” she replies. “That won’t begin to cover the trip. I need my platinum card back.”
I still. “I said reasonable expenses, Sophia. Your husband isn’t a millionaire, so the court isn’t going to consider a trip that costs more than eighteen grand reasonable.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the lawyer who believes in women,” she says. “Right now, it feels like you’re on his side.”
I sigh. She isn’t the first client who’s accused me of hating women the minute I tell her what she doesn’t want to hear.
I straighten the files in front of me. “I’m not on his side, obviously, but you can’t draw blood from a stone. A trip that costs more than eighteen grand is a big swing for most people, and even if I get you half his income for the next five years, that’s two hundred grand, before taxes. Which means it’s a big swing for you too.”
“If you get me half?” she asks, clutching her Chloe handbag, as if I plan to take it from her next. “I thought that was a certainty. I can’t raise two kids in LA for less than that.”
“You won’t have them all the time,” I remind her. “And he’ll be paying tuition.”
Her eyes narrow, as if I’ve insulted her somehow. “I want full custody,” she says. “I don’t want his little whore around my kids.”
Evan Waterhouse might not have been the greatest husband, but he seems like a very involved father. I just no longer have it in me to exact revenge on an innocent man for my father’s mistakes. “That isn’t what we discussed. And you would have to prove he’d done something very, very wrong to get that.”
She tilts her head to the side, studying me. “What would be considered very, very wrong?”
“If he was abusive, or violent,” I reply, comfortable in the knowledge that Evan is neither of those things. “If he was an addict and refused treatment. It would have to be pretty extreme.”
“Okay,” she says, taking the manila folder back. “Give me a week.”
I watch in dismay as she walks out of the office. I’ve long wished my mother had been more vindictive, more cutthroat on her own behalf. I’ve long been cutthroat on my clients’ behalf. But right now, it feels very much like I’m on the wrong side.
“I think she’s going to fabricate an accusation,” I tell Ben when he calls that evening. “She said, ‘give me a week’. There was no mention of abuse at all when she first saw me, and I asked. I’m just not sure I want to be a part of this anymore.”
I half expect him to encourage me to fire her. He’s given me the sense on more than one occasion that he thinks family law won’t make me happy.
“It’s not the time to be jettisoning clients,” he warns instead, after a moment’s hesitation. “You need all the hours you can get until Fields has made you partner. Especially when he’s still mad at you for threatening Webber.”
It’s the first time he’s admitted that I’ll be the one to make partner rather than Craig. I wish I had time to gloat but the topic at hand matters more.
“I can’t just keep charging her money if I’m not going to continue with her case.”
“I know. But she hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Just leave it for now. We’ll figure it out when I’m home.”
I smile, even though he can’t see it. I love not being alone in everything anymore. But I especially love that he’s the one in my court. There’s no one I’d rather have here.
“You’re still coming back Friday, right?” I ask, a little embarrassed by how needy the question is. He’s only been gone for a day and it’s already too long.
“Why?” he asks. “Do you miss me?”
“I’m very hungry. There’s been no one here to make sure I eat.”
After we hang up, I go to my room and clear out two drawers for him. I guess I sort of want him to feel like he belongs here.
On Tuesday, I place an order for a bigger television since Ben hates mine. On Wednesday, I go to my favorite home store and buy décor: throw pillows, a new duvet cover, matching lamps for my nightstand and Ben’s. I replace the plant I killed off months ago—Ben will water it, even if I forget.