Locust Lane(81)

“Can I ask you a question?”

Cantor nodded unhappily. He knew what was coming.

“Do you think my son is guilty?”

“I really don’t think it’s helpful to speculate about that.”

“Please. Off the record.”

Cantor stared at him evenly. There was something on his mind he couldn’t bring himself to say. Michel recalled Christopher’s hesitation when he asked him at the jail if he’d done anything wrong, that fraction of a second that seemed to stretch for an eternity.

“My job is to provide the best possible defense for your son given the totality of the evidence.”

“So you won’t answer my question.”

“I think I just did, Michel. You just didn’t hear it.”

Sofia arrived an hour after Cantor left. He almost didn’t answer the bell, but then he saw the unmistakable cloud of black hair floating in the front door’s small windows. Her embrace was perfunctory. She wore her fierce face. She’d seen the article.

“Are we alone?” she asked as she looked around suspiciously.

“Don’t worry. She’s gone.”

“We need to talk.”

“Did David send you?”

“He told me you were a mess, so I came.”

He looked at her and she said yes, she and David were seeing each other again.

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“No. It’d be good if somebody found some happiness in all of this. So—does he think Christopher’s guilty?”

“He’d never say that,” she said. “But he has his doubts. Big doubts. He says there’s something tearing Christopher up inside.”

“The girl he loves just got killed and he’s been falsely accused of it.”

“It’s more than that, Michel.”

“Cantor said that?”

“Not in as many words.”

“Don’t tell me you think Christopher did this,” Michel said.

“Do I think my little cousin deliberately set out to hurt someone? To kill a girl? Of course not. That’s crazy talk. But he was in love and people in love lose their minds sometimes. Believe me. I don’t carry pepper spray for the strangers.”

“I cannot tell my son to plead guilty.”

“So you have no doubts? You don’t think it’s possible that for a moment he flipped out?”

“I don’t know,” Michel said eventually.

“I knew about her,” she said. “What was happening between you.”

“You did?”

“Michel. My love. She was out for you from the first.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Please. I saw. The way she watched you? Eating lunch on her own? What woman eats out alone? You stay home, you have yogurt, you weep.”

“So I was a fool.”

“Because you were lonely. After Maryam, you cut yourself off. You became vulnerable. You were a sitting duck for a woman like that. Always with the hair.”

“You’ve got her wrong.”

“Who do I have wrong? The part where she betrayed her husband? Where she called her stepdaughter an accomplice to murder? Am I wrong about the criminal in the newspaper article? Was that fake news?” She took a calming breath. “You lost sight of things, Michel. Especially your son. You were so busy with your little dolly that you let Christopher run wild. Maybe he knew—you think about that?”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the back of the sofa.

“I sinned. I know that.”

“Sinned? Please. Don’t be so self-important. This is America. There’s no sin here. You fucked up.” She took a breath, the first, it seemed, since she started speaking. “Listen to me. Your son’s in jail. You have a big decision to make. Stop thinking about what you’ve done and start thinking about what you’re going to do.”

Her phone buzzed. She angrily checked it.

“Okay. I have to be at work. I’m subbing at Antonelli’s this week.” She met his surprised expression with a bitter laugh. “What? It’s not like you’re going to look after me.”

She left without another word, without a hug or a kiss, taking her pity, leaving her rage behind.





DANIELLE


It was as if the hot water would never run out. At her own house, you had five minutes until it became a drenching slush puddle. Patrick’s shower, however, appeared to have an infinite supply. The man seemed to have an infinite supply of lots of things. Money. Patience. Words. Sadness. His capacity for alcohol seemed bottomless as well. His time, however, was definitely finite. No way could he keep on like this much longer.

She’d spent the weekend with him. Well, most of it. But now it was Monday morning and it was time to leave the neverland they’d been inhabiting. On Friday, she’d permitted herself to get drunk. It wasn’t something she normally did. She’d been around too much boozed-up shit in her life. But suddenly it felt right. Maybe it was a mistake, but she could make mistakes now. So she sat back on his deep couch and listened as he filled the air with words. He talked about his hometown. The Parrish family and Mahoun’s restaurant. His daughter. Why they called the high school Waldo. As she listened to him she kept thinking, This man was given all the good luck in the world and then he got hit with the worst shit possible. He’d never seen it coming. His guard was down. He was soft when he needed to be hard and it gutted him. He told her that he was supposed to go to rehab on Monday but she doubted he would. And even if they lassoed him into that, he wouldn’t last a week. Where he was going wasn’t Vermont and it wasn’t good. She had to make sure to remember that in case he asked her along for the ride.