12. Avery
AVERY
Six days after Declan emptied his pockets into the mud outside my gate, I stand in my bedroom eleven weeks and three days pregnant while June tries to put me into a green blouse.
It isn’t the green blouse. That one is tied inside a grocery bag on the nursery shelf, and I know because I checked before June arrived, even though checking hurt more than I want to admit.
This blouse is darker, cut higher, and bought from a department-store rack by a woman who never wore it into a safehouse carrying socks.
My hands know the difference. The rest of me sees green and remembers Declan’s face when the pregnancy test struck him.
“No,” I say, taking it from June and laying it across the bed rather than dropping it on the floor. It has done nothing wrong beyond being the color of a ruined morning. “The navy one.”
June returns to the closet and lets the question go.
She has brought four blouses, two pairs of trousers, a blazer she claims makes her look like a corrupt school-board member, and a shoe box full of jewelry that could arm a small child.
She holds the navy blouse beside my charcoal trousers, squints at both, then removes a silver necklace before I can object.
“This says you understand leases and have killed nobody at a zoning meeting.”
“A narrow professional target.” I take the blouse into the bathroom and leave the door open while I change. Nausea has made privacy less important than having someone close enough to hold my hair. “What do the shoes say?”
“That you can run if the lawyers become feral.” June sets black flats beside the dresser.
She hasn’t mentioned Declan once. She knows he put men outside my house, knows he canceled them at my gate, and knows I cried after everybody left because I watched him place his gun in the rain the way I asked.
She also knows I have an interview today and that my entire life can’t stay organized around whatever my husband did last.
I button the blouse over breasts that no longer fit the way they did in October, rub cream into my hands, and sit before the nausea can turn my knees unreliable.
June kneels to fasten the shoe I can’t bend toward without the room tilting, then looks up when I try to protest. “If you get this job, I expect expensive lunches and gossip about attorneys who bill a tenth of an hour for opening an email.”
“If I get this job, I expect you to stop fastening my shoes like I’m a decorative aunt.” I flex my foot as soon as she releases it, checking whether the flat pinches, and find that June has chosen better than I did.
“That wasn’t part of the application.” She rises and offers me my folder. “Go find their expensive mistake.”
Bell & Rourke occupies the third floor of a brick building with old brass elevators and a lobby arranged by somebody who believes beige proves honesty.
I arrive early enough to use the bathroom, wash cold water over my wrists, and throw up without Nadia Bell hearing me from the conference room.
My eczema has split beside my index finger again.
I replace the bandage with one from my purse, check the blouse for toothpaste, and go meet the woman who will either hire me or become the first person outside my marriage to reject me this month.
Nadia is in her forties, dressed in black, and too busy reading my resume to perform friendliness. She points to the chair across from her desk and finishes the line beneath her finger before looking up. I like her immediately and wish I did not. Wanting the job will make every question cost more.
“Fourteen years,” she says, tapping the gap with one black-painted nail. “Your application explains what you did. It doesn’t explain why you never returned to paid legal work.”
I place my folder across my knees so she can’t see the bandage edge lifting from my finger.
“My mother got sick. I left to care for her and intended to return after she died. Then I kept finding reasons to wait. I handled household accounts, property records, insurance claims, and documents during the gap, but I didn’t work for a law firm. ”
“You’re married to the Iron Gospel Enforcer.” Nadia turns the resume toward me, keeping one finger beside Declan’s name on the background form rather than pretending she asked by accident.
“He isn’t the Enforcer now, and we’re divorcing.
” I refuse to apologize for either fact.
A background check will find the club connections.
Court records will eventually find the petition.
Hiding Declan at an interview would be one more way my life keeps bending around his choices.
“My husband’s conduct has no place in your clients' files. If you believe the connection makes me a risk, tell me now.”
Nadia closes the resume. “I believe pretending it doesn’t exist would make you a risk. You didn’t pretend.”
“I’m out of practice. I’m not careless.” I shift the folder from my knees to the desk, tired of using it to hide one damaged finger while asking her to trust both hands with client files.
“We’ll test the first statement.” She slides a lease, a one-page summary, and a yellow pad across the desk.
“A small commercial tenant asked when it must give notice to avoid renewal. Tell me what you would send the attorney, what you wouldn’t send the client without review, and where you would look next. ”
The first page is clean enough to invite confidence.
The term ends June thirtieth. The renewal paragraph requires sixty days' written notice.
The summary calls the deadline May thirty-first, which is only thirty days before the term ends.
I mark the conflict but keep reading. An addendum changes notice to ninety days and states that the addendum controls.
The signature page belongs to the correct tenant, but the exhibit list names a storage unit that does not appear in the premises description.
“The summary is wrong, and the body isn’t the final answer,” I say, turning the papers so Nadia can see my marks.
“The addendum requires ninety days and controls the lease. I’d tell the attorney the earliest deadline supported by the signed documents, ask whether any later amendment exists, and pull the complete lease file before anybody advises the client.
The exhibit list also mentions storage space that the premises section leaves out.
I’d flag that separately rather than assume it’s included. ”
“The storage space is a drafting error planted for the exercise. The notice problem came from an actual file.” Nadia takes the lease back. “The last applicant stopped at sixty days.”
“Then the last applicant was in practice and missed it faster.” I take back the lease, pleased enough with the answer to risk the dry edge Nadia may hate.
One side of Nadia’s mouth moves and settles again before it becomes a laugh.
She asks about filing systems, deadlines, client confidentiality, and the software I used fourteen years ago.
I answer what I know, admit what I need to relearn, and make notes when she names the current platform.
Halfway through, nausea climbs again. I take a cracker from my purse, tell her I’m pregnant before she thinks I snack through interviews for pleasure, and continue while chewing.
“I can see the gap,” Nadia says after the last question. “I can also see that you want me to punish you for it before you begin. I don’t have time.”
“I don’t want punishment. I want a chance to prove I can do the job.” I keep both hands on the folder now. If she rejects me, she can reject the whole woman who came into the office, damaged skin and fourteen missing years included.
“One paid trial week. Twenty hours. You review files under supervision, learn the system, and receive no access beyond what each assignment requires. At the end of the week, I either offer you the part-time position or give you an honest reason I didn’t.
” She writes the hourly rate on my copy of the schedule.
It isn’t generous enough to be pity and not insulting enough to make refusal easy. “Can you start next week?”
I look at the number, then at the four days printed beneath it. For fourteen years, every useful thing I did became ours before it became mine. This paycheck will enter an account Declan cannot see. The thought feels petty and so good I have to keep it out of my face. “Yes.”
Nadia gives me the employee packet to read at home and walks me through the trial limits. She doesn’t call me brave, ask about the baby, or tell me the gap doesn’t matter. It matters. I have one week to show that it doesn’t make me useless.
I make it to my car before crying. The tears irritate me more than the interview did.
I call June, tell her about the lease, the trial, and the rate, then hold the phone away while she celebrates loudly enough to disturb the title company one floor down.
Declan’s name stays out of her mouth. She says she wants dumplings and insists I pay after the first check clears.
The following week, by the third afternoon of my trial, Bell & Rourke has given me a temporary login, a desk outside the file room, and a stack of old leases to index.
The nausea waits until I am halfway through the first box.
I take the trash can into the supply closet, throw up, wipe my face, and return before the scanner goes to sleep.
My hands sting beneath fresh bandages, and I keep a jar of cream beside the keyboard, but the renewal dates line up in the spreadsheet and the missing amendments surface on schedule while my body is busy building a person.