A Good Marriage(102)

“He knows about the fraud, and my mom’s heart attack,” I offered weakly. “But Sam … he thinks that my dad is dead, too. That’s, um, what everyone thinks.”

“You’ve been telling everybody your dad is dead?” Millie asked, her expression a mixture of disappointed and dumbfounded. “All this time?”

“I needed distance from the whole situation,” I said, and God, did I sound defensive. “You saw me. I was a mess.”

And I was, for a long time. Of course I did eventually pull out of my depression. Enough so that I made my way to college and law school, made friends, got married. All of that a long time ago. And yet I’d let Millie keep on running interference for me like I was still a seventeen-year-old girl so grief-stricken I couldn’t get out of bed. But that was eighteen years ago. I hadn’t spoken to my dad for eighteen years. And I could live with that, but what about my mother? How sad she would be that I’d never gone to Greece myself in all these years, that I’d never set foot again in a Greek church.

He’d sent a few letters over the years. Not the desperate pleas you might expect, though, no begging for forgiveness, no proclamations of love. Because that wasn’t my dad. He didn’t feel any of those things. His few letters had been matter-of-fact updates—mechanical, obligatory. Like he was trying to keep me in play in case he needed me later. Millie had also told me over the years when he’d asked about me. Was I doing well in school? What kind of money was I making? Never really about me. And he never once asked Millie why I hadn’t visited myself. She’d made that very clear to me, always. She’d never wanted me to feel guilty.

“But distance is different than complete amnesia, Lizzie,” Millie went on. “And you’re married to Sam.”

“I know.” My heart was hammering.

Millie stared at me then, for such a terribly long time. My whole body felt hot, shame blazing through me. I was ashamed of what my father had done, yes. But even more of my inability to face it. Instead I’d shoved it deep down, where it was now buried beneath all those other things I’d tried to will out of existence—Sam’s persistent drinking, our debt, my derailed career, my nonexistent baby.

“Well,” Millie continued. “You can keep on pretending he’s gone, I guess. That’s your choice. But it might feel different without a go-between.”

“Have you seen him recently?” I asked.

“Few months ago. I still try to go once a year. And he still calls occasionally, once every six months. In between, I can get enough information from my contacts at Elmira. Your dad’s the same old, three-quarters asshole, one-quarter charming son of a bitch,” she said. “Listen, I’m not defending him or what he did. Hell, he wasn’t the best guy to begin with. But eventually he is going to get out, could be as soon as three or four years from now. Then what? It’s a free country. He could come see you.”

“It’s been better for me this way.”

“Has it, though?” Millie asked, and the concern in her eyes made my own eyes burn.

I looked away when the tears finally came, trying to will my voice strong. “You and I both know what he did that night wasn’t some accident. He stabbed that guy, Millie. My dad killed someone, and yeah, he was upset about my mother, but you know what I think? I think my dad was more angry that guy took his money. He wanted revenge.”

Millie held up her hands as if in surrender. “Maybe so. Listen, I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not trying to talk you into forgiveness. I’m here because I loved your mother and she loved you. All she ever cared about was you feeling safe and happy. I want you to be happy.” She handed me a pack of tissues from her bag; I was crying hard now. “And for what it’s worth, you don’t seem so great. I do not think pretending your dad is dead has been helping you. Not one fucking bit.”





Lizzie





JULY 11, SATURDAY


I stopped back at work on my way home, intent on starting to set things right. One by one, that’s how I’d deal with all the problems I’d been trying to ignore. First up: my financial disclosure form. Without that, Zach had nothing on me and I could be done with him and his case. Two birds, one stone. I was hoping to find Paul at the office on a Saturday. He often was, along with many other, more junior Young & Crane lawyers. Confessing to Paul my misrepresentations on the financial disclosure was a risk. I’d need to test the waters first, talk vaguely and in hypotheticals and bring up the financial disclosure tangentially somehow. Maybe I could be allowed the one misstep, especially after Paul had exposed to me his Wendy Wallace Achilles’ heel.

Young & Crane was quieter than I’d expected. Paul’s office was dark, but Gloria was there outside his office, typing away, looking disgruntled about something—though surely not the overtime. Gloria loved overtime. I checked my watch: 7:27 p.m.

“Is Paul coming back?” I asked.

She shook her head and pursed her lips judgmentally, but kept typing. “Unlikely, don’t you think?” She shot me a loaded look.

Why couldn’t Paul’s secretary just come back? Everything with Gloria was so exhausting.

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to keep the impatience from my voice.

Gloria stopped typing. This time when she looked up, a sly smile spread across her face.