My One and Only(12)
“So what do you think I should do, Harper? I mean, I can’t help still loving her, and I wonder if I drove her to this…”
“Tom. Stop. You can’t blame yourself. She slept with the FedEx man. This doesn’t bode well for a long and happy marriage. I’m really sorry you’re hurting, I truly am. And you’re welcome to stay with Meggie, just as you are welcome to slam your testicles in the car door for days on end.” He closed his eyes. “In both cases,” I said in a gentler tone, “you’re just going to get more hurt. I wish I could say something more hopeful, but I’m your friend, I’m a divorce attorney, so I’m not gonna blow smoke.”
He sighed, deflating before me. “Right. Thanks, Harper.” With that, he slumped out of my office, listlessly muttering hello to Theo Bainbrook, the senior partner at Bainbrook, Bainbrook and Howe.
“There she is. My star.” Theo, dressed in pink pants printed with blue whales and a pink-and-white-striped polo shirt, leaned in my office doorway. “Harper, if only I had ten lawyers like you.”
“And for what would you like to praise me this time, Theo?” I smiled.
“You were right about Betsy Errol’s account in the Caymans.” Theo did a little shuffling dance, humming “We’re in the Money.” I smiled…not because we were in fact now going to be paid more (which of course we were), but because Kevin Errol was one of those I just want it to be over, I don’t care about the money types. As his attorney, it was my job to make sure he got a fair shake. He deserved his half, especially having been married to a shrew like Betsy. Betsy had hidden funds…I’d found them. Well, I had found them with the help of Dirk Kilpatrick, our firm’s private investigator, bless his heart.
“That’s great, Theo. Unfortunately, though, I have to get going. Sister’s wedding, ferry to Beantown, remember?”
“Ah. The wedding. If you’re going to Boston, you’re welcome to stop in the office there and do a little work before you…”
“Not gonna happen, Theo.” Bainbrook did have offices in Boston, and sadly, Theo was absolutely serious. He himself hadn’t actually practiced law for some time, having found that his minions could do the real work and thus enabling Theo to put in more time on the golf course.
“Would you like to hear who I’m playing golf with, Harper?” he asked, eyes twinkling. “Tiger Woods?”
“No. Sadly, no.”
“Um…gosh. A politician?”
“Yes. Think big, Harper. Backroom deals, war, clogged arteries.”
“Is this person a former vice president with a propensity for friend-shooting?” I asked.
Theo beamed and twinkled. “Bingo.”
“Oooh,” I said. “Very impressive.”
I liked Theo, despite the fact that he was lazy, had four ex-wives and dropped names more often than a seagull poops. He was an amiable boss, especially to me, since I put in oodles more hours than the other three lawyers here in the Martha’s Vineyard office. My divorce was one of the last cases Theo had handled himself. As I’d sat in his office, shaking like a leaf, gnawing on my cuticles, Theo’s gentle voice had given me a lifeline—Sometimes our hearts just need time to accept what our heads already know. He was the one who showed me that divorce attorneys were shepherds, helping the dazed and heartbroken across the jagged landscape of their shattered hope. He hired me the instant I graduated law school—I’d never worked anywhere but here.
“Well, enjoy yourself in Montana, Harper,” Theo sighed. “Great fly-fishing up there. Would you like to borrow my gear?”
“That’s okay. I’ll be back Monday. In and out.”
“Watch out for grizzly bears.” Theo winked and went off to schmooze Carol, the firm’s ill-tempered and all-powerful secretary.
I answered a few emails, checked my calendar for next week, tidied my desk. Then I stared out at the garden my office windows overlooked. Edgartown was the poshest town on the island. Graced with large and tasteful homes, brick sidewalks and our stout white lighthouse, the area was imposing but charming, much like Theo in some ways. In the winter, it was deserted, as most of the homeowners had their primary residences elsewhere. In the summer, it was so crowded that it could take half an hour to drive a mile. Most days above sixty degrees, I rode my bike to and from work; it took me about forty-five minutes of mostly flat pedaling and was a lovely way to get some exercise.
I sighed, unable to distract myself any longer. So. Soon I’d be thirty-four, an age that boiled with significance for me. I had no kids, no husband, no fiancé. Tomorrow I’d be seeing my ex-husband and, no doubt, ripping a few scabs off memories I’d buried long ago and watching my sister marry a man she barely knew. Super fun.
But speaking of scabs and memories…
Very slowly, I opened the top drawer of my desk, took out a little key from where it was taped to the back and unlocked the bottom drawer of the file cabinet to my left.
Last year, on my thirty-third birthday, I’d hired our firm’s private investigator for personal reasons. Half a day later, Dirk had given me this envelope.
Just looking at it made me feel a little sick. But I wasn’t a weenie, either, so I opened it, just a little, and glanced inside. Town, state, place of employment, place of residence. As if I needed to see the words. As if they weren’t already branded on my temporal lobe.