“I don’t think it’s fair to say we’re pro prosecution,” I answered. “It seems that way because if the evidence is pro defendant, the case never sees a courtroom.”
“Kay, I know how it works,” he said in that give-it-a-rest tone of voice I remembered so well. “I know what you see. And if I were you, I’d want all the bastards to fry, too.”
“Yes. You know what I see, Mark,” I started to say. It was the same old argument. I couldn’t believe it. He had been here less than fifteen minutes and we were picking up right where we had left off. Some of our worst fights used to be over this very subject. I was already an M.D. and enrolled in law school at Georgetown when Mark and I met. I had seen the darker side, the cruelty, the random tragedies. I had placed my gloved hands on the bloody spoils of suffering and death.
Mark was the splendid Ivy Leaguer whose idea of a felony was for someone to nick the paint on his Jaguar. He was going to be a lawyer because his father and grandfather were lawyers. I was Catholic, Mark was Protestant. I was Italian, he was as Anglo as Prince Charles. I was brought up poor, he was brought up in one of the wealthiest residential districts of Boston. I had once thought ours would be a marriage made in heaven.
“You haven’t changed, Kay,” he said. “Except maybe you radiate a certain resolve, a hardness. I bet you’re a force to be reckoned with in court.”
“I wouldn’t like to think I’m hard.”
“I don’t mean it as a criticism. I’m saying you look terrific.”
He glanced around the kitchen. “And successful. You happy?”
“I like Virginia,” I answered, looking away from him. “My only complaint is the winters, but I suppose you have a bigger complaint in that department. How do you stand Chicago six months out of the year?”
“Never gotten used to it, you want to know the truth. You’d hate it. A Miami hothouse flower like you wouldn’t last a month.”
He sipped his drink. “You’re not married.”
“I was.”
“Hmmmm.”
He frowned as he thought. ‘Tony somebody … I recall you started seeing Tony … Benedetti, right?
The end of our third year.”
Actually, I was surprised Mark would have noticed, much less remembered. “We’re divorced, have been for a long time,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
I reached for my drink.
“Seeing anybody nice?” he asked.
“No one at the moment, nice or otherwise.”
Mark didn’t laugh as much as he used to. He volunteered matter-of-factly, “I almost got married a couple of years ago but it didn’t work out. Or maybe I should be honest enough to say that at the last minute I panicked.”
It was hard for me to believe he had never been married. He must have read my mind again.
“This was after Janet died.” He hesitated. “I was married.”
“Janet?”
He was swirling the ice in his glass again. “Met her in Pittsburgh, after Georgetown. She was a tax lawyer in the firm.”
I was watching him closely, perplexed by what I saw. Mark had changed. The intensity that had once drawn me to him was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was darker.
“A car accident,” he was explaining. “A Saturday night. She went out for popcorn. We were going to stay up, watch a late movie. A drunk driver crossed over into her lane. Didn’t even have his headlights on.”
“God, Mark. I’m sorry,” I said. “How awful.”
“That was eight years ago.”
“No children?”
I asked quietly.
He shook his head.
We fell silent.
“My firm’s opening an office in D.C.,” he said as our eyes met.
I did not respond.
“It’s possible I may be relocated, move to D.C. We’ve been expanding like crazy, got a hundred-some lawyers and offices in New York, Atlanta, Houston.”
“When would you be moving?”
I asked very calmly.
“It could be by the first of the year, actually.”
“You’re definitely going to do it?”
“I’m sick to death of Chicago, Kay, need a change. I wanted to let you know–that’s why I’m here, at least the major reason. I didn’t want to move to D.C. and have us run into each other at some point.