“Yes, you will. Maybe you won’t want to, but now that it’s happened you are going to pick over every word you say. That’s the last thing I want.”
Was he on the verge of breaking up with her? One stupid mistake and she could lose him forever. It wasn’t right. She searched for a way out of the mess, a way to wipe the worry from his face. “Hey, what if you talk about it? If you get it all out there, maybe it will lose the ability to hurt you. Then I won’t have to agonize over what I say to you. No one will have to watch what they say anymore.”
Skylar threw a few logs into the fireplace and got a fire started to warm up the living room while she settled on the couch under a fuzzy blanket. She lifted one side when he joined her. They snuggled together, and he told her about the worst day of his life.
“Clare and I fought that morning, nothing unusual for us. I was due in court first thing, and I needed to work on my closing argument. She wanted me to drive the boys to school. I accused her of thinking my job wasn’t important because I worked for my father. Sometimes she acted as though I could do whatever I wanted, be late or blow off meetings. She didn’t get it that my father wouldn’t hesitate to fire me if I wasn’t doing my job to his standards.”
He kissed the top of Anna’s head and took a moment before continuing with the story.
“Instead of taking them straight to school, she went to the mall. My birthday was the next day. She knew I didn’t care about celebrating. I didn’t need a present, but the boys were always excited to pick out gifts for us. They were so good and generous, not a selfish bone in their bodies. I imagine they probably begged her to let them find something for me. I was in court defending a man I knew was guilty. I got him off on a technicality and turned him loose on the streets. At the same time I was working the system to let a guilty man go free, another dirtbag was killing my family. He shot them and several other people. Then my client killed someone a week later.”
She tilted her face up and kissed the bottom of his jaw. “It wasn’t your fault, none of it. Taking the boys to the mall was Clare’s idea, but it wasn’t her fault either. No one could have known what would happen.” She rested her head on his chest beneath his chin. “And it wasn’t your fault that your client killed someone. I’ve told you before it’s not up to us to decide who is guilty and who is innocent.”
“Would it make a difference to you if I told you my client had killed someone while driving drunk and that it wasn’t his first time?”
Her entire body stiffened. A reckless drunk driver had wiped out her entire family in a matter of seconds. As far as she was concerned, everybody that drove under the influence should spend time in jail.
She squashed her negative emotions, pushing everything down so she could deal with his demons first. “You didn’t know he would kill someone else.”
“Maybe I didn’t care,” he said in a raspy voice filled with emotion. “While I was growing up, my father taught me a good attorney stopped at nothing to save their clients from prison, even if they deserved it. Like you, he used to say it wasn’t our job to worry about guilt and that every person deserved the best defense they could get.”
“I still believe that.”
Heavy sigh, he let her go and got off the couch. Pacing the length of the room his shoulders seemed to sag under an enormous weight. “I don’t understand how you can still feel that way. I defended a drunk driver just like the one that killed your family. What if I had freed the one that did it to them? Would you still feel the same?”
Pain lanced through her.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to settle her nerves. “It wasn’t your fault the system failed. Sometimes guilty people get off, and sometimes innocent people get locked up. The system isn’t perfect, but it’s all we have.”
“Another lawyer used a dirty trick to get off the guy that killed my family. He should have been in prison. If he’d gone to jail, Clare and the boys would still be with us.”
“You can’t think like that. It will drive you crazy.” She went to him and put her arms around his waist. Whether he liked it or not, she hugged him with the fierce love growing inside of her. “If you don’t want the pressure of freeing the guilty, don’t work on homicide cases. You’re in charge now. Take the cases you want and pass the rest to others.”
He returned her embrace and placed a kiss on top of her head. She felt the tension ease from his body, and hope blossomed in her heart. She had given him something to think about. She felt better. She prayed he did, too.
“I’m sorry you lost your family,” she said. “Believe me, I understand.”
“I know you do.” His arms tightened for a moment before he let her go. “There’s a little more to the story though.”
Anna braced herself. “More?”
“No one knows this part, so keep it to yourself.”
“I swear I won’t say a word.”
He returned to the couch and patted the cushion next to him. He waited for her to be seated before he told her his secret. Hands in her lap, she waited for him to drop what she expected was close to a bomb.
“Clare and I were headed for divorce.”
Anna froze, shocked to hear the news.
He added, “We both worked long hours, and spending time together became less and less important. Divorce seemed inevitable. We talked about it more than once. In the end, we decided to put it off until the boys were grown. It wasn’t their fault we’d gotten married in haste, so we decided to put them first.”
Anna nodded.
He took her hand and played with her fingers instead of looking at her. “We thought we were doing the right thing, staying together for the boys, but if we’d split, they wouldn’t have died. They wouldn’t have gone to the mall. There wouldn’t have been a reason for them to get me a birthday present if we were divorced.”
She tried to put her arms around him, but he leaped to his feet. Words tumbled from his lips. She missed most of it, something about important errands. He grabbed his coat on the way to the door and was gone before she could stop him. She placed a hand on the closed door as tears filled her eyes. Helpless, there wasn’t anything she could do to ease his guilt. She’d make herself available to him whenever he needed her. That’s all she could do at the moment.
It was then she remembered they’d left his car at his place. She opened the door to offer him a ride, but he was already getting into a strange car. At some point, he must have contacted a ride-share company. Either that or he’d called a friend.
She leaned against the door and squeezed her eyes shut, missing him already.