“I’m kind of busy.”
“We’re all busy, Michael. But you’ve really been keeping to yourself lately. Are you sure you’re okay? Not cracking under the strain?” She smiled to show she was kidding. But Michael did look like he was cracking.
“I’m fine, really. I’ll bring the book tomorrow.”
“It’s not that big a deal.”
“I’ll bring it tomorrow,” he said a little angrily, his face flushing, but he calmed down quickly. “I’ve really got a lot of work to do.” He looked at the door.
Sara went over and put her hand on the knob, then looked back. “Michael, if you need to talk about anything, I’m here for you.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks.” He ushered her out and closed and locked the door. He went over to his desk and pulled out the briefcase. He looked at the contents and then over at the door.
* * *
Later that night, Sara pulled her car down the gravel drive and stopped in front of the small cottage located off the George Washington Parkway, a truly beautiful stretch of road. The cottage was the first thing she had ever owned and she had put a lot of work into fixing up the place. A stairway led down to the Potomac, where her small sailboat was docked. She and Michael had spent their rare free time sailing across the river to the Maryland side and then north under Memorial Bridge and then on to Georgetown. It was a haven of calm for them both, surrounded as they were by a sea of crisis at work. Michael had turned down her last offer to go sailing. In fact, he had turned down all of her get-together ideas the past week. At first she thought it was due to her rejecting his marriage offer, but after the encounter at his office, she knew that was not it. She struggled to remember precisely what she had seen in the briefcase. It was a filing, she was sure of that. And she had seen a name on the typewritten letter. It was Harms. She hadn’t remembered the first name. From the little she had been able to read before Michael walked in, apparently Harms was filing some sort of appeal with the Court. She didn’t know what about. There had been no signature at the bottom of the typewritten letter.
She had gone directly to the clerks’ office to see if any case with the name Harms had been logged in. It hadn’t. She couldn’t believe she was thinking this, but had Michael taken an appeal before it had been processed and put into the system? If he had, that was a very serious crime. He could be fired from the Court — sent to jail, even.
She went inside, changed into jeans and a T-shirt and walked back outside. It was already dark. Supreme Court clerks rarely made it home while it was still light, unless it was daybreak and they were coming home to shower and change clothes before going back to work. She walked down the stairs to the dock and sat on her boat. If only Michael would confide in her, she could help. Despite his words to the contrary, Michael had pulled back from her. He had not taken rejection well. Who would? she told herself.
She abruptly jumped up and raced to the house, picked up the phone and started to dial his number, but then stopped. Michael Fiske was a stubborn man. If she confronted him on what she had seen, that could very well make matters worse. She put the phone back down. She would have to let him come to her. She went back outside and looked at the water. A jet flew by and she automatically waved to it, a ritual of hers. Indeed, the planes were so low at this point that, had it been light, a passenger on the plane could have seen her waving. When her hand dropped back down, she felt more depressed than she had since her father had passed away, leaving her all alone.
After that loss, she had started life anew. Gone to the West Coast for law school, where she had excelled, clerked at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then taken a job with the Supreme Court. That’s when she had sold the farm in North Carolina and bought this place. She wasn’t running from her old life, or from the sadness that gripped her whenever she dwelled on her parents not being around either to see her accomplishments, or to simply hold her. At least she didn’t think she was. When the day came for her to leave the Court, she had no idea what she wanted to do. In the legal arena, she could go anywhere. The trouble was, she didn’t even know if she wanted the law to be part of her life. Three years of law school, a year at the court of appeals, starting on her second year up here, she was creeping close to burnout.