Chapter 6 #3
Like he often did whenever he needed reinforcements, Carson listened at the meeting rather than contributing.
His problems were first-world compared to what most of the others were going through, fighting to stay clean with a lack of resources and/or family support, neither of which had ever been an issue for him.
That made him luckier than most, and he stayed focused on the gratitude for his many blessings.
His parents had paid for the best rehab money could buy, which had ultimately saved his life.
He gave back by anonymously paying for rehab for those who couldn’t afford it.
So far, he’d paid for twenty-two people and was on call to help with more as needed.
Carson felt like it was the one thing he could do for those who hadn’t been born into a family like his that solved problems for a living and had the money to show for it.
As he listened to harrowing stories shared by the other attendees, he experienced another wave of guilt for refusing to engage in his parents’ reconciliation.
They’d done a lot for him. He owed them, his siblings and grandfather everything.
But he didn’t owe them his emotional energy or the opportunity to take him back to a time when everything felt so out of control that he’d turned to drugs to escape the madness.
Not that he blamed them. His addiction was one hundred percent his doing and his alone. That said, he often wondered what might’ve been different for him—for all of them—without their parents’ contentious divorce running straight through their childhood and into adulthood for several of them.
Would some of them be married with kids by now? Would they have taken more chances on things that might hurt them? Would they have made that solemn vow to remain single and unencumbered? Probably not. So while he owed his parents a lot, he didn’t owe them an audience for their latest drama.
“Carson,” the group leader, Mary, said toward the end of the hour, “welcome to our merry group. If you wish to share, please feel free.”
“Thanks for the warm welcome,” he said. “I appreciated hearing your stories and just want to say I’m proud of us for one more day clean and sober.”
“Cheers to that,” one of the women said.
After the meeting ended, he checked in with a few more of his people working on various surveillances tied to multiple ongoing cases before he returned to the office to write up reports for the attorneys.
He went out of his way to run by Ty’s school one more time, relieved to see no sign of Marlon Beckett lurking about.
To be safe, he drove over to Mulholland Drive to go by Cresley’s home, which was also clear. Then he headed down the hill to the office on Wilshire Boulevard, steeling himself to deal with the mess in his own family and countless others.
Drama was the backbone of family law, whether it be a divorcing couple going for the jugular or a custody battle turned violent or wars over property and material possessions.
They spent their days building cases for one side or the other and then litigating them at mediation or in court until a settlement was either agreed to or mandated by a judge.
Sometimes, like it did for his parents, that took years, leaving an apocalyptic path of destruction in its wake.
Survivors of those wars were never quite the same afterward.
Their own life experience gave the Remington siblings empathy for their clients that many other lawyers might not bring to the table.
They knew what it was like to be a party to something over which you had no control, and their firm was known for pushing mediation over trial, even though trials were far more lucrative for the attorneys.
Sometimes mediation didn’t work and the trial became inevitable, but they tried to avoid ending up in court whenever possible.
He pulled into the garage under the office building Spence had bought in 1966 and parked in the spot reserved for Carson Remington, Partner.
While he wasn’t a lawyer, he’d been afforded partnership status because of his contributions to almost every case that came through the firm.
He and his team often provided the information that made a case successful for their clients, and he appreciated being given the same status his brothers either currently enjoyed or were actively working toward.
In July, he’d take the California Bar Exam because he’d stupidly made an offhand comment once that he could pass it in his sleep.
The others had pounced on the statement and issued the challenge.
Roman had taken him aside over the holidays and suggested Carson sign up for the same prep class Roman would be taking so they could study together.
While he’d planned to go in cold, Roman had urged him not to do that.
“There’s no way you’ll pass unless you prepare. ”
He wanted very much to pass, so he’d taken Roman’s advice and signed up for the prep class that started in March. Couldn’t wait for that. Not.
The elevator doors opened, and there stood his father.
Fuck.