A Good Marriage(61)

I was even feeling better about Sam and that stupid earring. I had jumped too fast to the most damning possible conclusion; that was obvious to me now. And yes, years of dealing with Sam’s bad behavior was largely to blame for all my worst-case scenarios. But not entirely. The weight of my own baggage had also been taking its toll. Finding that cache of matches at the deli really had put things in perspective. And then there was Sam, up already before me this morning, proving once again—all hope was not lost.

“What time is it?” I’d asked, worrying I’d somehow overslept for court. Sam was never up before me.

“Almost six,” he’d said. “I’m headed out for a run.”

“A run?”

Sam had been on the cross-country team in college and had finished two marathons before the age of twenty-one, or so I had been told. Sam the runner had predated me, the only remaining relics the marathon laptop stickers he replaced on each new computer.

He’d started running to please his father—a fool’s errand. The only sports that counted as far as Sam’s father was concerned were football, basketball, rugby, lacrosse, and maybe soccer. The colliding of male bodies was a prerequisite. I suspected that it was his father’s disapproving voice in Sam’s head that had sent him out in recent months to his Thursday-night rec basketball game. Despite all the other players supposedly being “old dads,” there was certainly a fair amount of colliding bodies. Sam had the bruises to prove it.

“Yeah, a run,” Sam had said that morning, his eyes bright as he turned back from the bureau to face me. “I’m getting myself sorted out for real this time, Lizzie. And I know I’ve said that like a thousand times before. But I’m going to make sure it sticks. I—” He knew better than to actually promise. “I will.”

All I could do was stare back at him and his luminous face. How I wanted to believe. Like my life depended on it.

“Okay?” he’d asked finally.

I thought then about the earring. But I’d already been wrong about those matches. And so, in that moment, I chose hope once more. I chose love. And silence.

“Okay,” I’d said, and left it at that.

“Good morning.” Paul had appeared at my side in the courtroom. He looked even more distinguished than usual in an exquisitely tailored navy-blue-checked suit. Had he gotten his hair cut, too? I was actually glad he was there. Paul did emanate a certain air of victory.

“Morning,” I said, pulling out my copy of the brief, painfully aware now that my “designer” suit from Century 21 probably wasn’t fooling anybody.

There was a bustle of activity behind us as the courtroom doors opened. A silver-haired woman in an edgy camel-colored pantsuit and toothpick-thin lizard pumps strode in, two younger, dark-suited male lawyers close at her heels. A couple of reporters rushed up to her as she headed down the center aisle, but she waved them away with a demure smile. Her face was unreasonably unlined for a woman her age, features regal, with flawless makeup and a perfectly understated manicure. Her eyes glinted across the room like those of a wartime queen prone to edicts and unexpected attacks.

I tucked my own bitten nails beneath my copy of our brief.

Avoiding pictures of Wendy Wallace had been a good call. Still, there was something else about her imposingly fashionable appearance: she was awfully familiar.

“It’s deliberate,” Paul said flatly.

“What is?”

“All of it. The pointy shoes, the way she walks—clicking them. She likes to intimidate.” He said this with an air of contempt, but also admiration. He and Wendy Wallace had obviously crossed paths. “Act oblivious. It drives her crazy.”

I turned to look at him. Paul sat at the defense table to my right, elbows resting on the arms of his chair, fingertips touching so that they formed a church’s steeple. He was staring straight ahead, his expression expertly neutral.

And then there it was. All at once. The photograph on Paul’s credenza. Wendy Wallace was his fucking first ex-wife. The one he was supposedly pining for all these years later. I closed my eyes and pressed my hands against the table. He must have made an educated guess that Wendy would be the DA assigned. It wasn’t such a leap. The case was in Brooklyn, and it was a homicide. He must also know about her ambitions.

“You could have told me you had a preexisting relationship with the prosecutor,” I hissed.

“I didn’t know for sure she’d be assigned.” He hesitated, and I thought for a moment he might actually apologize. “Besides, you were the one who came to me, remember? You know, she took almost everything I had in the divorce, and yet she’s the one who won’t talk to me.” He looked up at me like I might offer some explanation for this cruelty. His face changed then, grew sullen. “Besides, I have insight into the prosecutor’s character. It could be useful.”

“If she hates you, you’ll do more harm than good.”

“Define hate,” he said, raising a playful eyebrow.

I lowered my head. “Zach’s been attacked at Rikers more than once,” I snapped, unable to conceal my fury. “This isn’t a game, you know? He could end up dead.”

“Well then, let’s hope this hearing goes well,” Paul said, matter-of-factly. He put on his black reading glasses and paged through the brief, which he quite obviously had not looked at before. “We have proof of the warrant discharge, correct?” His voice had regained its military crispness.