I looked at Sammy. “Get your homework done yet?”
She stuck another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth and said something at the same time.
“What was that?”
“I said, not yet.”
I nodded, looking at the Judge and my mother and then back at Sammy. “Well that needs to be done before you go to bed tonight.” I pointed at her bowl of ice cream. “Finish that up, and then it’ll be time to go back to our little abode. You can finish your homework, and then I’ll be checking. Don’t be rushing through it.”
Sammy feigned a pout, but there was a twinkle in her eyes.
She was happy I cared.
The Judge, in his younger and harsher days—before he had fully embraced the role of great-grandfather extraordinaire—used to tell my mother, “Rules equal love. If you let your children run the show, then you really don’t love them.”
Perhaps the Judge was right.
My mother led me toward the sunroom as Sammy went back to the carriage house to work on her homework. Just as the library was an oasis for the Judge, the sunroom was where my mother spent her time, knitting and simultaneously reading three or four books. She opened the nine-panel French doors and then flipped a switch. The dimmed lights grew brighter, and I followed her to the couch.
“I’m worried about you and your brother.” She sat down and patted a spot next to her. “Heard from him?”
I hesitated, thinking about the threat he’d delivered to me and Annie. “Not really,” I said. “I know he’s mad. I know he wants me to step aside, and Buster is helping him out.”
“Buster.” Mother’s eyes narrowed. “Always willing to do the dirty work. Have you told your father what you’re intending to do?”
I shook my head. “Should, but I haven’t.” I leaned back. “Never asked for the job. Never really wanted it, but when Dad asked me to do it . . .” I got quiet, and I remembered standing next to him as a boy. My father speaking in front of an adoring crowd chanting his name, and me soaking it in. “It felt good to be acknowledged by him, especially since Monica passed and everything sort of fell apart for me.”
My mother put her hand on my shoulder and I continued.
“Initially, I thought it’s kinda like that old saying, ‘Don’t want to go, but always nice to be asked to the dance.’ Thought it was an honor to be asked by Pop, and it made me feel proud. But, after a few days of being polite, I’d planned to tell him that Lincoln was the guy he really wanted. Then I kept thinking. Never made the call. And then . . . I don’t know . . . a couple weeks . . . maybe I should.”
“I talked to your father this morning.” She was looking at me with concern. “He’s officially announcing the retirement in two weeks. Doesn’t want to rush you, but he’s done, Justin. He’s tired. I’m not even sure he’s going to do that lobbying nonsense. He wants to come home. He knows the city is hurting.”
I nodded, but I didn’t have anything to say.
My mother rubbed my back, like she used to do when I was a boy. “Maybe I should get Lincoln over here,” she said, “and you two can talk about it, you know, as brothers.”
I looked up at the dark oak beadboard, studying the hundreds of lines running parallel across the ceiling. Then I stood up. “Maybe,” I said softly. Then I leaned over and kissed my mother on the cheek. “Just give me some more time. Pieces might be starting to fall into place.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It took another week, but I made it through all the Lost Boys interviews. There were no more discussions about running for Congress with my mother or anyone else. Ignoring the topic hadn’t postponed my father’s retirement or made the issue go away, but it was nice to pretend.
My law practice was actually making real money for the first time in its history. I got Sammy to and from school on time every day, and made sure she did her homework every night. The dark fog that had hovered in my head and slowed my brain for so long lifted a little.
I woke up with energy on this morning, and after breakfast, I arrived at my office a little after eight thirty. Emma Tadic was already there. The coffee was made, and she had a list of issues and potential clients that she wanted to discuss with me.
“Need a minute,” she said, “or you want to do this?”
I sat down at my desk and waved her inside. “Now’s as good a time as ever.”
Emma nodded and sat down in the chair across from me. “Prosecutors called about Cecil Bates. They want a continuance for the trial. An officer is on vacation and unavailable to be a witness.”
I shook my head. “Tell them no, unless they release him from jail. Otherwise we’ll go to trial.”
Emma nodded, and then she started talking about other potential clients.
She went through brief backgrounds, as well as the charges. We rejected two and kept one. Then Emma turned to the final potential client on her list. “He told me he was beat up by the bouncer pretty bad. Charged with disorderly conduct, so he wants criminal representation on that, but then he also wants to sue the nightclub. Don’t know about the damages, but he sounded pretty good, kind of a two-for-one. Do the criminal for free and then take a cut on the civil.”
I nodded and then realized something. “When did you talk to him?”
“Last night. This morning.” Emma thought for a moment. “Called at three or four, whenever they released him from the hospital.”
“You were here in the office at three in the morning answering the phone?”
Emma laughed. “No,” she said. “I have the calls forwarded from here to my cell phone in the evening. Otherwise we miss them. They find somebody else.”
The thought of having a twenty-four-hour answering service had never occurred to me, and I knew nothing about how phone calls could technologically get forwarded from one to another.
“I think you’re overqualified for this job,” I said.
“True.” Emma thought for a moment. “My boobs fooled you.” She shrugged. “Not the first man to underestimate me.”
I nodded, admitting that the tight, short skirts and the big hair were, for lack of a better description, distracting. “I think you also deserve a raise.”
“You’re right, again.” Emma smiled. “Twice in one morning. Not bad.”
Schmitty and I had met at the Northside Roastery. I handed the spreadsheets over to him, and he looked at them. After flipping through the first few pages, he looked up. “Been busy.”
“I know.” A little bell rang at the counter, and Hermes waved at me. I nodded back at him, and then to Schmitty I said, “Cream?”
“A little.”
“Keep reading.” I pointed at the spreadsheets, and then I got up and walked to the back of the shop to pick up our drinks. The coffee shop was empty, as usual, but Hermes didn’t seem to mind. He was all smiles.
“How’s Nikolas?”