Chapter 7
Seven
The day after the verdict, Brian went to his office to do battle with the mess that had accumulated during the two-month trial.
He dropped into his desk chair and contemplated the towering stacks of mail and trade publications.
If he fired up his computer, he’d no doubt find the same pile up in his e-mail in-box.
He reached for the trashcan under his desk and began weeding through the first of three foot-high piles.
Colleagues who had been out of the office the day before poked their heads in to say congratulations.
“Thank you,” he said each time.
When he quickly filled up the trashcan, he ventured out to find some garbage bags and made eye contact with District Attorney Saul Stein across the wide-open space.
“Crap,” Brian muttered, hightailing it back to his office.
Saul made a beeline for him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not officially here.” Brian pointed to his jeans and polo shirt. “No tie.”
Saul’s eyes narrowed. “I believe I was quite explicit yesterday when I told you I didn’t want to see you for at least two weeks.”
“Look at this disaster area. When am I supposed to deal with it?”
“In two weeks.”
“I’m starting to get a complex. Don’t you like me, Saul?”
“Don’t be cheeky with me, Westbury. I told you to take a vacation. You’ve got so much time racked up that if you were to quit, paying you for it would throw the city into receivership.”
“I’m not going to quit, but I’ll take a vacation day to clean my office.” Brian tossed one paper after another into the trash. “Happy?”
With a withering look for Brian, Saul wandered over to the credenza under the window and picked up one of the three photos Brian kept there. “Is this you?”
“Yeah, I framed a picture of myself in case you work me so hard I forget what I look like.” Brian laughed at Saul’s nasty scowl. “That’s my brother.”
“Oh! So you weren’t spawned. You do have a family! Why don’t you go visit him?” Saul put the photo back and turned to Brian.
A surprising stab of pain cut through him. That it still could hurt so much . . . “He’s, ah, not available right now.” In more than eight years at the D.A.’s office, he had never told anyone he worked with about the brother he had lost.
“What about your parents?” Saul persisted. “Don’t they like to see your ugly mug once in a while?”
“They saw me on TV last night. They’re good for now.”
Exasperated, Saul flopped down into the chair in front of Brian’s desk and looped his thumbs under his blue suspenders. “You’re pissing me off, Westbury.”
“What’re you going to do? Fire me?” When most of the first stack had landed in the trash, Brian turned to the next one.
He set aside the cell phone bill with the bright red “OVERDUE” stamp on it and reached for a folded, stapled yellow flyer.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw the Granville return address.
He tore it open. “GHS Class of 1995 Fifteen-Year Reunion. Come home to Granville to reconnect with old friends and remember good times!” The reunion was set for Fourth of July weekend, beginning with a cookout at the lake.
As Brian studied the flyer, he was swamped with longing—for his hometown, for the old friends, and the good times that ended far too abruptly.
“What’s that?” Saul asked.
Consumed by memories, Brian had forgotten his boss was there. “Nothing.” He tossed the flyer into the pile of overdue bills.
“All kidding aside,” Saul said, “I want you to take some time off.” When Brian began to protest, Saul held up a hand to stop him. “You did an outstanding job with the Gooding trial—masterful, in fact. But you’ll be no good to the people of this city—or to me—if you don’t take a break and recharge.”
“I’ve got nothing else I want to do.”
“That’s pathetic on so many levels I’m not even going to list them all. You’re still a young guy, and I imagine the women don’t find you totally repulsive. There’s got to be someone out there dying to spend some time with the celebrated attorney who put away that scumbag Gooding.”
“There isn’t.”
“You remind me a lot of myself when I was your age,” Saul confessed. “I have five kids who went and grew up on me while I was hiding out in this office.”
“I’m not hiding out.”
Saul continued as if Brian hadn’t spoken. “I hardly ever hear from them, and my ex-wife is now married to my ex-best friend.”
The story was well known, but Brian hadn’t seen the pain before.
“You’re a good kid, Brian, and a damned fine prosecutor. I don’t want you to end up old and alone like me.” He stood. “So no new cases until you take a vacation.”
“But—”
“Two weeks. Not one minute in this office—and I have spies who will report to me if you show your face. They may like you better, but I’m the boss.” On his way out the door, he added, “The two weeks start when you leave today.”
After Saul had walked away, Brian sat back and fumed. What the hell am I going to do for two weeks if I can’t work? The idea of filling all that time—and having all that time to think—left him feeling panicked.
Reaching for the reunion flyer, he read it again.
The longings had been striking at odd times lately, like in the middle of a trial that had taken over his life the way nothing else ever had.
Maybe it was the anniversary of the accident causing the melancholy.
Whatever it was, it was starting to get on his nerves.
He crumpled up the flyer and tossed it into the trash.
At the bottom of the second pile, he unearthed a crushed Chinese food carton.
“Ugh,” he muttered, grossed out by the smell as he pushed it into the bag.
Stuck to the desk calendar under the carton was the business card of the psychologist who had worked with the Gooding children to prepare them to testify against their father.
The younger of the two kids, Christian, had been just five years old when he watched his father stab the life out of his mother.
Brian pried the card free of the paper calendar.
Thomas Pellingrino, Ph.D., specialized in children who’d been traumatized by abuse, neglect, and violence.
He had worked miracles with Christian Gooding, who’d been transformed from an uncommunicative child to an articulate witness under Dr. Pellingrino’s care.
As Brian held the card in his hand, he wondered—and not for the first time—if Dr. Pellingrino might be able to help Carly.
Carly.
He didn’t think about her every day anymore.
To function properly in a job that required his complete attention, he simply couldn’t allow thoughts of her to occupy his mind.
While other memories from that time in his life had faded somewhat, he remembered her with a vividness that was almost disturbing.
Her scent, the way her curls had wrapped around his fingers, the smoothness of her skin, her laughter, those soft brown eyes that could hide nothing from him, and the connection he’d spent half a lifetime looking for in others but had never found again. Oh yes, he remembered her.
He went out of his way not to ask his parents about her, so he had no idea what her life was like today.
Even as he told himself he didn’t want to know, he knew he was lying.
He wanted to know everything, and that desire to know had been growing stronger over the last few months.
Why now? After all these years, why has the longing set in now?
Tossing Dr. Pellingrino’s business card into the drawer that served as his Rolodex, Brian stood and went over to the credenza.
He picked up the picture of Sam on the rope swing at the lake.
Taken in by his brother’s laughing face, Brian wondered if anyone ever thought as they smiled for a photograph that someday a particular instant caught on film would be all that was left of them.
Between the picture of Sam and the one of Brian with his parents at his law school graduation was the group photo from the junior prom.
Putting Sam down, he picked up the other one and studied it for a long time, for once giving himself permission to remember, to feel, to wish, and to regret.
For the first time in years, he slid the back off the frame and removed a second picture, the one he had hidden under the group shot.
These two and the picture of Sam were the only photos he had taken with him when he left home.
Brian’s arms were around Carly from behind.
Her hands rested on his, the corsage he had given her decorated her wrist, and her auburn curls fell over shoulders left bare by a peach dress.
Her pleased, contented smile said there was nowhere in the world she’d rather be than in his arms.
He missed her. The feeling came over him like a tidal wave, leaving him stupid and weak with need.
Yesterday, in the courtroom, when the jury foreman had said the word he had waited months to hear—guilty—the first person he’d wanted to tell was Carly.
He had tried hundreds of cases and heard that word many, many times before, but this was the first time he had wanted—no, needed—to share it with her. Why? Why now?
It’s got to be the anniversary of the accident, he reasoned, taking a long last look at the picture before he returned it to its hiding place and put the frame back together.
There’ve been fifteen anniversaries. Why should this one be so different?
He couldn’t answer that question nor could he explain the sudden overwhelming yearning for what used to be.