Susan’s smile remained confused. “Where were you?”
Mallory stuttered. “I don’t know. Just thinking about how weird this summer has been.” She allowed a beat to pass before she added, “I just dropped off my son with his father. We have a pretty good rotation these days. Three days on, three days off. But it hurts me to see them go, you know? I had this image of us as a family. It was an imperfect image, but it was always there. Now that we’ve decided— I mean, now that I’ve decided that we should go our separate ways, I feel a sense of loss. I can’t describe it.”
Susan sat on the cushioned yellow chair on the far wall of Mallory’s small office, her face contemplative. “I can’t imagine what that would have been like. No matter where my career went or how I had to strategize my time, I always returned home to a house with my children in it. I suppose I’m grateful to my ex-husband for not having the affair with his secretary till after my children left the nest.” Susan gave a wry laugh, then added, “But I’m sure there are a million little ways that Richard and I messed up our children, just due to the fact that we weren’t exactly right for each other.”
Mallory’s throat tightened as “we weren’t exactly right for each other” rang through her ears.
“Lucas and I aren’t right for each other,” Mallory breathed. “I’ve known for a long time now.”
“Then you did the right thing,” Susan told her, her jaw set. “Even on your worst days of single motherhood, you have to remember that. It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be the most beautiful thing you’ll ever do.”
Mallory couldn’t speak. She stared down at the point of her pencil as fear swirled in her stomach.
“Anyway,” Susan interjected through the silence. “I wanted to update you on the Thomkins case.”
Mallory’s heartbeat quickened.
“Just as they said they would, the police interrogated the adult members of the Thomkins family. That included the mother, two uncles, and three aunts. Fortunately for them, the six of them have rock-solid alibis for the night of the robbery, including photographic evidence,” Susan continued. “But after hours of interrogation, the mother finally confessed that Brodie’s father skipped town about a week before Brodie was arrested. The police had a field day with this information and are now on the hunt for the father. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Brodie’s father must have given him the ring and then fled the island with as many of the antiques as he could.”
Mallory’s lips twisted. The cops had discovered what Brodie wanted to hide from them.
“How is the search for the father going?” Mallory asked, her voice wavering.
“No news yet,” Susan affirmed. “The mother says she hasn’t heard from him, and cell phone records indicate that she’s telling the truth. It’s difficult to hide from the authorities these days, given advancements in technology.”
Mallory realized she’d sketched a strange sketchy figure on the notepad. She scribbled it out, annoyed at her lack of professionalism.
“What about Brodie?” Mallory caught herself asking.Shut up, Mallory.
“I heard he started his community service,” Susan said. “And has returned to his job at the restaurant. They welcomed him with open arms. Seems that most everyone who’s crossed paths with Brodie Thomkins in any real way never believed he would do something like this.”
“I feel so much shame that I was the one who turned him in,” Mallory muttered, mostly to the notepad.
“You can’t beat yourself up for standing up for your family,” Susan offered, her nostrils flared.
Mallory dug her nails into her hand as Susan continued, explaining what else she needed from Mallory that afternoon before a series of meetings with potential clients. Now that the Thomkins case was cleared, Susan cleared herself for more criminals, more stories. Mallory accepted a thumb drive, upon which Susan had placed four recordings of recent interviews. “I need these transcribed by the end of the workday tomorrow, please,” she recited easily. “Thanks a bunch, Mall. We don’t know what we’d do without you.”
Mallory was grateful to allow her psyche to fall into this world of work. Minutes passed, stacking themselves into hours. And before long, it was already five-fifteen. Bruce appeared above her desk with his suit jacket slung over his forearm.
“How’s it going?” he asked, his shoulders slacking forward after the strain of a day at the desk.
“Not bad.” Just a bit of existential dread and fear of the future. “You headed home?”
“Going to pick up your mother, actually,” Bruce said, unable to hide his generous smile. “They just broke ground on the new house, and I told her we’d better celebrate.”
“The way you two are, you’ll celebrate with every nail they put in the wall of that place,” Mallory teased.
Bruce laughed. “You’re right. But I’d rather go too hard than hold back. I’m too old to hold back.”
Twenty minutes later, Mallory sat in the front seat of her vehicle, a red slushy melting slowly in the cupholder. Everything within her told her to go on home. Rest for the night. Zach had kept her up till two-thirty that morning, a fact she felt in the foggy space between her eyes.
But another voice within her told her to celebrate. She was twenty-five years old, on the brink of the rest of her life, and newly a part-time parent.
As though the universe heard her cry, a text dinged in from her brother a split-second later.
COLE: Yo! Me and Alyssa are hanging at the sailing bar. Come by if you have time after your weird law job.
Mallory’s grin remained unflinching as she drove from Oak Bluffs back to the Edgartown coast. It was August 1st, and the thermometer in her vehicle read eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. It was a blissful summer evening, one you couldn’t possibly waste. She didn’t plan to. Not tonight.