Chapter 4 Lucy
LUCY
My father’s private law office once felt regal and awe-inspiring. From the dark green walls to the wooden shelves filled with leather-bound books, it felt like a room made for serious thinking and reading.
Even as a child, I felt as though important decisions were made in there. Like it was a room not to be taken lightly or underestimated.
It’s late. I should go home. Most of the staff here have left. But I’m scheduled to have dinner with one of my father’s clients and his wife tonight, and I really don’t want to go.
It was supposed to be my parents going, but somehow, I’ve agreed to go with Mom to put on a united front.
Dad’s desk is a huge wooden affair with a dark green leather inlay, and I run my finger over its cool surface. A jar of dark green fountain pen ink sits on the table untouched. After all, the law has moved on from filings hand-written with flourished penmanship.
With fresh eyes, long since removed from the veneer of polish my father always had, I can see the edges of the leather on the desk look worn, dust motes hover in the air, and the files that were scattered in haphazard piles this morning are now neatly arranged.
I stare at them and think of the time I spent with Nancy Yao, one of my father’s clerks, and Jasmine Hughes, his assistant. Both spectacularly talented women who could do so much better than my father’s firm that exists with non-equity partners who are all male.
“Should we stop for today so you can go visit your father?” Nancy asks.
A quick glance at my watch tells me I have time, but I don’t want to.
I haven’t seen my father for two days. The anger I’ve held on to all these years rises beneath the surface.
Seeing him might make it bubble over. I’ve finally gotten in touch with all his clients, drafted a full disclosure crisis management statement, in case we need it, and gotten through the worst of his emails.
“Let’s call it a day. Jasmine, could you send the restaurant details for tonight please?”
Jasmine nods. “Will do. Some of the more senior staff have been asking when your father will be accepting visitors.”
Of course, they are. Because that’s what friends do. But neither of my parents want my father to be seen yet. “I’ll ask him, but he feels a little vulnerable, right now. Hopefully, they can bear with him.”
She nods again. I wonder if that’s her default mode when it comes to my father’s wishes. “Of course. See you in the morning.”
There’s a phone charger on the desk, and it’s not one that matches my father’s phone. It’s been bothering me all day. But I unplug it, wrap it up, and place it in the top drawer of his desk.
My father’s bookshelves mainly contain legal books. Big, fat things bound in black leather. Most of the contents are available and searchable online, now, but my father clings to his preferred way of doing things.
I wander to the bookshelf nearest the window, where there are books I call mental masturbation. Wordy tomes written by men for men on topics of focus and leadership.
Amongst them is a copy of The Art of War.
Sun Tzu’s famous military treatise.
I’m unsurprised my father has it on his shelf.
I slide it off to open it.
Inside is a key, and my heart quickens. Of course, my father, who often admired the James Bond books by Ian Fleming, would have a secret…drawer or room or something.
It’s a guess. But Occam’s razor says the simplest explanation is likely the most obvious.
I slide open the desk drawer and start to push around the contents. On a mission, I open the second drawer and again come up empty. Something makes me persevere, and I open the third drawer and find nothing.
I’m just about to close it when I notice the depth of the drawer on the inside is not as deep as the drawer on the outside. And there’s a very small gap in the corner. I drop to my knees and feel around the edges.
“Yes!” There’s a brass keyhole on the wall of the drawer. And when I slot the key in, it fits perfectly. It takes me a moment, but I pull everything out, and I’m able to lift the false bottom.
There are notebooks. Document folders. Keys. And a phone.
Mom may have been right. What other reason would a man go to so much trouble to protect something if he was completely above board?
I lift the phone and grab the charger, and they snap together. Perhaps my father had better covert and technical skills than I give him credit for.
“Bingo,” I mutter. But as I grab for the folders to see what is in there, Adam, one of my father’s junior associates, comes back into the office.
My heart jumps. Maybe Adam knows about the drawer, maybe he doesn’t. I stand, as if leaving, hoping he can’t see the drawer and the mess on the floor from where he’s positioned.
“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“Oh, no. I’ll be leaving in a minute or two. Did you need something?”
He looks around the office for a moment, before his eyes settle on old copies of the Harvard Law Review. “Just needed volume seventy-nine.”
I gesture to the shelf. “Help yourself.”
Adam grabs the book. “Thanks. Do you want me to walk you out? It’s dark already.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m good. I got a space right outside.”
When he leaves, I let out a whoosh of air and then stuff everything back into the drawer and lock it. Charging the phone fully will have to wait until tomorrow, but I have a feeling I’ve just stumbled on something I shouldn’t, what Mom was concerned about.
I know the old adage curiosity killed the cat exists for a reason, but I can’t help but want to know what my father is involved in. And I take the key with me, just in case anyone else comes looking for it.
The drive home is uneventful, and it’s cold when I hurry from the car to my parents’ home.
“Your father would have appreciated a visit today,” Mom says when I walk in the door and drop my briefcase.
I glance down at my watch. It’s already seven p.m. Dinner is at eight and it’s a ten-minute ride. “Well, I would have appreciated not having to fly all the way out to get up to speed on Dad’s cases, and wrangle a trial handover, and handle questions from my own clients.”
I lack sympathy.
I lack empathy.
I fully admit that when it comes to my father, I have neither.
“We’re trying to keep your father’s condition…quiet.” The words come out on a frustrated whisper for reasons I don’t understand, as no one else is around.
“Mom, I’ve had to let people know that Dad is unavailable due to a minor medical problem. But it won’t take a rocket scientist to realize it must be serious when the work-addicted lawyer doesn’t show up for his clients within the week.”
Mom puts her hand to her chest, which is the closest she gets to expressing any kind of anger. “You’re the only person who can update your father on what is happening at the firm.”
“I told him two days ago what I was going to do. And today, I spent all day doing it. I’ll email him in the morning.” Because I really don’t want to face him. I don’t want to stand in a hospital with air that chokes me between us.
Dad has pending cases. Clients with trial dates in the future.
But as I sat there, listening to one corporate lawyer after the other, I realized that most of my father’s cases are deeply rooted in greed. And it left me feeling like there was a sticky substance all over my skin.
By the end of the day, I felt grimy.
My mother sighs, the breath wheezing through her nose.
“Well, don’t forget, we have dinner with Douglas and Helena tonight.
Douglas is a very important client to your father, as well as a long-term family friend.
Your father doesn’t want them worried. We need to reassure them that nothing is significantly wrong until your father is back on his feet. ”
The last part is whispered in hushed tones again.
Officially, I have a month of leave. I told my boss what happened with Henry and that I needed some time to deal with it and move out. Thankfully, I was between major cases because my mother was quite insistent that I didn’t tell anyone the truth about my father, including my employer.
“It’s bizarre, this whole cloak and dagger thing, when it’s crystal clear something must be very wrong after I asked for a continuance.
You can tell everyone Dad is fine as much as you want, but this is impossible to keep hidden.
The story you tell, that Dad is having a minor medical issue treated, does not line up with the optics of him in the hospital and clients moving to other law firms because he can’t help them. ”
She puts her palm to her forehead, and her eyes sparkle with tears. “Please, just come.”
I glance at the time on my phone. It’s still forty-five minutes until we have to leave for dinner. “Fine.”
She grabs my wrists. “Thank you. They do an amazing crème br?lée.”
“Great,” I say, letting it pass that she didn’t remember I can’t stand the caramelized sugar.
She turns to walk away as I remember the hidden stash I found in Dad’s office drawer. “Mom. Do you really not have any idea what Dad was involved in?”
She pauses and turns to face me before shaking her head. “He’d get calls…all times of the night. And more recently, he’s aged before my eyes. Stressed. Short of patience.”
“That doesn’t sound hugely different from when I was younger.”
Mom shrugs. “I don’t know what else to tell you, beyond this being different. I got the impression he was…I don’t know…losing his grip on something.”
I have more questions, but she heads for the staircase, and I let her go.
There’s a large claw-foot tub in my bathroom here, and my apartment in New York is so tiny that I only have a walk-in shower. So, I decide to treat myself and run the hot water. I raid the family bathroom on the second floor and find some bubble bath. Lord knows when it was placed there.