“Okay,” I said, listening.
“I know why I had an affair.” Lucinda sniffled. “I think I was taking care of Caitlin for so long, then Mom got sick, and I’m not complaining, but you know, I just thought, life is so short. Anything could happen, I could get sick, I could die. I needed to do something for me, and when I met him, it was all about me, and only me. It’s as pathetic as that. Now that I know it wasn’t real, it’s even more pathetic.”
I understood. She had taken Caitlin to every chemo appointment, gotten her through surgery, then taken care of her mother. And all the time, there were the kids, the games, the homework, the PSATs, the permission slips. I knew it had taken a toll, but maybe I hadn’t appreciated how much. Lucinda was so capable she made it look easy, but it hadn’t been.
“I feel different now, and I have to ask myself if this is the marriage I want—”
“Wait, I didn’t do anything wrong,” I blurted out, but I knew it wasn’t completely true. I thought back to my realization that I had been playing it safe. My dropping out of law school had been me opting for the safer route, just like my father.
I’m a scenic-route kind of guy, I remember saying that awful night.
But I was New Jason, and I could acknowledge I had made a mistake or two. And as soon as I had that thought, my heart softened and I began to forgive her. Not all the way, but I could see a path to follow, like a way home.
Lucinda straightened. “I’m saying if we’re going to stay together, it has to be because we want to for us, and not the us from before, but who we are now.”
“Okay.”
Lucinda fell silent.
I asked, “You mean you want to, kind of, renew our vows?”
“Yes. Only if we both want to.”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes, I love you and I want to stay married to you. And I want to rebuild our life and our house, right where it was, and I want us to live there. Is that what you want, too?” Lucinda held out her hand, a pale, open palm in the moonlight, and I reached out my hand and took hers.
“Yes, I love you, and that’s what I want, too. We’ll rebuild everything.” I took her gently into my arms, and I held her against my chest while she began to cry. I rocked her back and forth, feeling the tears in my eyes and the love in my heart and the grief we shared, the two of us standing between the land and the water, clinging to each other under the moon.
Wow, I thought.
She could make me feel that way, even without a kiss.
My wife.
My love.
Chapter Seventy-Five
I sat at the conference table alone, and the packed gallery was restless, waiting for the hearing to begin. The Senate chamber was vast and impressive, its ivory walls adorned with oil portraits in gilded frames and finished with crown molding. Rings of polished walnut desks filled the space, and the blue rug that looked dark on TV was bright. Photographers crouched in front of me, forming a veritable wall of cameras, and I could imagine how I would look in their photos. Grim, grieving, and purposeful.
Today I was going to get a father’s justice.
Six months after Allison’s murder, criminal charges against Senator Ricks had yet to be filed, so I had pushed for a congressional investigation, supported by public outcry, media coverage, and political pressure. The party wanting to tank Ricks’s presidential run backed me, but I didn’t expect purity of motive. They had formed a Select Committee on the Doha Interrogation and decided I would be the first to testify.
They didn’t know I had a litigation strategy of my own.
The senators found their seats, a slew of dark suits and lapel pins scrolling through their phones and finishing conversations. I recognized some of them from my lobbying efforts, but the one senator I wanted to see hadn’t yet arrived.
I glanced at Lucinda, who was sitting in the front row next to Ethan, in the new suit and tie that he had worn at Allison’s funeral, which we had held privately a few months ago. She smiled slightly, but her gaze remained impassive, because we’d kept our plan to ourselves.
Suddenly heads turned to the back of the chamber, and a murmur rippled through the crowd. I felt my jaw clench as Senator Ricks appeared and made his way down the aisle, his silvery hair glinting in the overhead lights. He greeted members of his party, nodding and smiling, and they clapped him on the back as if he had won something rather than masterminded a conspiracy that killed Allison. Most of them supported him, and he led in the polls, but I was hoping to change that today.
I had imagined this moment so many times, thinking I would look away, but something primal took over and I glared at the senator as he took his seat. Ricks avoided my eye, even though I was squarely in his sight line. The cameras clicked away, since the media had hyped the standoff, the-father-versus-the-senator, designating us good or evil depending on which news you consumed. I knew who was good and who evil. Soon the world would, too.
The photographers were shooed away, and the Speaker gaveled the hearing to order and made an introductory statement. I was sworn in, eyeing Senator Ricks, who still looked everywhere but at me. He knew the gist of my testimony and was spoiling for a credibility contest, but we hadn’t revealed our evidence. Our primary exhibit was on a poster, and my backers were keeping it under wraps until later, for dramatic impact. But I had other plans.
The Chair of the Select Committee on the Doha Interrogation leaned in to the microphone to make his introductory statement, and my heart began to pound. It was go-time. I rested my hand on my phone casually, then scrolled to the text function, which was already loaded with the photo I had taken on my birthday, proving Senator Ricks a liar when he’d claimed he was in the infirmary at Gitmo.
I pressed send.
I kept my eyes on Senator Ricks, and in the next moment, one of his female assistants received my text message. I’d been able to get her cell number but not his, and I’d typed under the photo: Show this to Senator Ricks immediately.
I sat back to watch, and Lucinda looked over too, because what unfolded was for our satisfaction alone. The assistant frowned at her phone, leaned forward, and showed the screen to Senator Ricks. He glanced over, then the color drained from his face. He grabbed the phone, his lips parting, and looked up, his shocked gaze finally meeting mine.
I got him.
Epilogue
I stood with Lucinda and Ethan in the dappled sunshine of the backyard. We had just planted a magnolia tree in memory of Allison, next to the two trees that were her goalposts, Scylla and Charybdis. They had survived the fire, though much of the yard had to be re-landscaped. Moonie and Jack were off investigating the new hydrangea in the back.
We had moved back in two days ago, and the first order of business was honoring Allison. We had held a vigil for her at school, inviting her friends, teammates, and the entire community. Nine hundred people had shown up, a touching tribute to her. But they had moved on, and the three of us felt torn up inside, our guts wrenched. We grieved because we loved her and she didn’t get to live the full life she deserved. Our feelings were bittersweet, all the time. I was hoping that someday, there would be more sweetness than bitterness.
I had picked up the pieces of my business, and Lucinda had picked up the pieces of hers. We didn’t host the holiday party last winter, using as an excuse that the house wasn’t finished. We weren’t ready for company on our first Christmas without Allison, and her birthday had broken our hearts. When spring came around, my office resumed its softball team, but we needed a slogan for the T-shirts other than our word is law. I didn’t believe in law the way I used to, so we went with we’re your type. What I believed in was truth, justice, and love. Sometimes I thought those were three different words for the same feeling.