Chapter 9
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A s much as I love my job and the busy schedule that comes with it, days like today are refreshing. Necessary, even. No appointments, no courtroom, no mediations…just quiet.
I should be answering emails and making phone calls, but I’m sitting at my desk instead, with my feet propped up at the corner of it. A mug of tea rests in one hand while I hold a well-loved book with the other.
The intercom on my landline crackles to life, with my receptionist’s voice flowing through the speaker. “Mr. Montgomery, I have a Nia Cavanaugh asking to see you,” she tells me.
I immediately straighten. My glasses are pulled off to clean the lenses on my shirt before being put back into place, my hair is smoothed, and my suit is adjusted before I press the button on the phone’s base that connects me outside.
“Send her in,” I tell her. “Thank you, Linda.”
We don’t have anything scheduled until early next week.
What is she doing here?
The woman who steps into my office is not the same woman who has been sitting across from me every week for the past two months. That woman was collected – maybe a bit anxious, but she held herself together.
Wardrobe malfunctions, be damned.
The woman standing before me is distraught. Strands of hair peek out from a loosely-held elastic. A flush sits on her cheeks. Eyes rimmed with red look at me and her pulse races in her neck.
Bracing my hands on my desk with a sudden worry in my chest, I stand. “Nia—”
“I need to take my parent’s address off of the paperwork,” she tells me, forcing her legs to carry her calmly to my desk.
“Okay, we still have time to do that,” I nod. I move to the large metal cabinet behind me and unlock it to rifle through for her file. “And we’re changing that to what?”
“They try,” she says. She doesn’t hear me. I don’t think she can, right now. “They fix what they can when they can, and I try to help them, I do. They can only manage so much on a fixed income. For him to use that —”
A loud, agitated groan forces its way from her throat and she reaches forward to pull a tissue from the box on my desk as she drops into the chair. Her hands fidget with the paper, tearing small pieces off of it and curling them into impossibly-tiny balls of white.
“It would help us both greatly if you could tell me why you’re so upset,” I tell her, keeping my voice low and gentle as I settle back into my chair.
“He called child protective services,” she tells me. “He told them that he was worried about his daughter’s safety and he wants them to do a welfare check.”
“You were contacted by a caseworker?” I say, reaching for a pad of paper and a pen.
“No,” she grits. “He thought he would be helpful and give me a head’s up that they’re coming.”
“Huh.”
I knew the man was an idiot, but I didn’t think he was completely devoid of any sense. Does he think that he’s the first to pull this move? That he invented scare tactics? I’ve seen it done probably sixty times in the past year alone. A fake phone call, a friend who owes a favor and has a cheap suit on hand. A clipboard with a printed-out questionnaire and just enough authority in their voice to strike terror into the hearts of parents just trying to do right by their kids.
Twisting open my pen, I scribble a few notes onto the paper next to me, keeping Nia in my line of sight as I do so.
“The more I think about it, the more scared I get, and the more scared I get, the more mad I get,” she tells me through gritted teeth. “God, I’m so angry, I feel like my skin is gonna come off! His mom will make my life hell if she catches wind of this. She’ll take over and she will never leave me alone.”
“His mother is a social worker?”
“Yes, and she hates me,” she says, tearing off more of the tissue.
His mother, his counsel…he’s not building a team to contest the divorce and counter sue, Daniel Hart is building a team to break his wife’s spirit.
And it’s working.
“What address would you like to use instead?” I ask her.
“I haven’t found a place yet,” she tells me. “I haven’t even had time to think about thinking about looking, between working and coming here and—”
“I know of a place.” The words fly out before I can even think about stopping them. Before I can consider, for one second, that the offer comes with consequences and great risk. Her eyes flick to mine, and I clear my throat. “I’ll see if it’s still available, if you’re interested. It isn’t fully furnished, but it has four bedrooms, was recently updated, and has passed an inspection in the last six months.”
“Oh my god, thank you, yeah,” she says with a nod. “I’m absolutely interested.”
“I’ll forward you the information,” I tell her. “In the meantime, don’t answer phone calls from phone numbers that you don’t recognize, and don’t accept visits from anyone that you don’t know. It’s important, Nia.”
“Do you think—”
“I think that toxic mother-in-laws with vendettas can be more than just speed bumps,” I tell her. Pressing my finger to a button on my landline, I say, “Linda, will you bring Ms. Cavanaugh a cup of chamomile tea, please?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Montgomery,” she answers.
“You don’t have to do that,” Nia argues, waving her hands in front of her. She’s shaking. “I don’t mean to blow in here and take over. You’re busy, I…”
“Breathe,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry,” she says with a shake of her head, “I just had a really hard shift today; I lost four patients in an hour , and then I get this voicemail from my husband and now I’m in my attorney’s office, unannounced , looking like a crazy person —”
Moving to the small refrigerator tucked into the corner of my office, I reach for a water bottle and bring it back to her, cracking open the top before placing it in her hand and hoping that the cold will help to ground her.
“Nia,” I say calmly as I lower myself to eye level next to her, “I want you to look at me and take a breath.”
Her eyes move to mine, and I find myself nearly swallowed by the soft caramel of them.
I offer her a gentle smile, draping my hand gently over her forearm while she pulls in a deep breath, holding my gaze before slowly letting the air back out. We repeat this process together several times.
I’m not sure when a mug of tea appears on my desk.
It takes a while, but I can almost see the exact moment the shield that Nia wears at work comes down and she allows herself to become vulnerable. Her breathing becomes more ragged and her eyes line with tears as she reaches once more for the box of tissues.
As I sit here, holding space for her while she cries, I can’t help but wonder if this is something that her husband did for her. Did he pour her a glass of wine after a hard day and hold her until her tears stopped?
Did he offer her this simple courtesy, or was he too busy worshiping someone else to comfort his wife when she needed it?
“I’m really sorry,” she says, dabbing at her eyes with her tissue. “This is so embarrassing.”
“No it isn’t,” I tell her. “Enough nurses have sat with me, it’s nice to be able to repay the favor to one of you. Really, you’re doing this for me,” I finish with a playful wink.
“Right,” she chuffs, “I’m crying in front of my divorce attorney because he needs a boost.”
“Exactly.”
Another soft laugh escapes her as I pick up her water bottle before setting it in front of her and taking my seat again.
“Which department?” She asks as she brings the bottle to her mouth.
“Oncology,” I tell her.
“You have—”
“Had,” I say with a wave of my hand.
Her brows stitch together and a part of me worries that she’s questioning my competence in seeing her through this case.
“Recent?”
I shake my head. “No, I was a kid. My younger brother and I thought we both had the flu, but when his went away and mine didn’t…” I shrug. “After that, I got to visit the adult oncology unit when I was seventeen,” I chuckle. “The nurses are the ones who made all the difference. Not just for me.”
“That’s nice of you to say,” she tells me as she balls up her tissue and tosses it into the trash, exchanging it for a new one.
“It’s the truth.” I lean closer to her, though I don’t intend to. “What you do is incredibly difficult and it takes a certain strength that many people just don’t have. Even during a shift like you had today, even when you don’t win, those families know what you’ve done for their people, and that matters.”
She smiles at me, just for a moment, before the tears come back. Her smile is beautiful, even with puffy eyes and a reddened nose.
That thought alone should move me to end her relationship with me as a client. It’s unethical and unacceptable.
Instead of doing what I know I should do, I reach forward and take hold of her wrist, rubbing my thumb against her soft skin.
“I want you to go home and have a bowl of your favorite ice cream with your daughter, and I want you to put this out of your mind until I see you on Tuesday,” I tell her. “I’m still not worried, Nia. You shouldn’t be, either.”
“Okay,” she says with a sniff and a nod of understanding. “Thank you, Brody. I’m sorry for… crying at you .”
“I work with families every day,” I tell her with a soft smile. “I have a weekly subscription for bulk tissues.”
Laughing, she makes an effort to smooth her unruly hair, which doesn’t have the effect I think she’s hoping that it will. As she steps out of my office, she looks lighter than she did when she walked in.
I would love to pick up my phone and call her husband. I would love to tell him that I know what he’s doing, and what a pathetic piece of shit I think he is for it. I want to; but I don’t.
Instead, I wait a few minutes behind my desk before making my way out to the lobby and to the reception desk, where Linda is waiting, typing away at the keyboard in front of her.
“I was just writing up the—”
“We’re not billing her for this,” I tell her, cutting her off. At the furrow in her brow, I add, “She didn’t have an appointment. We’re not billing her for one.”
I don’t know what the hell it is that I’m doing.
I’m not entirely sure that I want the answer.
The deep chocolate-colored door of my sister’s colonial stares at me, threatening me with the lecture that no doubt waits behind it.
Ignoring its warning, I wrap my fingers around the small silver knocker at its center and tap it against the base a handful of times. I step back, whether bracing myself or being polite, I’m not sure.
As it opens, Edie stands behind it, her dark hair thrown over to one side, a denim button-up covering her top half, and her lower half covered by a pair of white jeans.
Forcing the surprise from her face, she tucks her hair behind her ear and offers me a nod in greeting. Her late husband’s wedding band shines from its perch on her thumb.
“Well hello, little brother,” she smiles. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I asked for direction, and I got it,” I tell her as I step past her and into the foyer of the house. “I need your help with something.”
“And you couldn’t have called?”
“No,” I answer with a shake of my head, “because this conversation will have never happened.”
I ignore the look of concern on Edie’s face as I lead her into her own kitchen, where she fills a kettle with water and puts it on the stove to boil. I pull up a seat at the pine pedestal table near the kitchen window and drop my attaché case on top of it.
“This favor,” she says while we wait. “Why do you need my help?”
“Tripp is too far away, and I think Graham’s heart might explode if I even mentioned it to him.”
“So it’s—”
“Illegal,” I nod.
She heaves a sigh as the kettle whistles behind her. After dropping two tea bags into a pair of mugs, she pulls the kettle from the stove and fills them, bringing the mugs to the table a moment later and sitting across from me.
Her fingers tap impatiently against the floral ceramic as I pull a small stack of papers from my case and get them settled onto the table with a pen.
“I need to transfer the deed to my house to you,” I explain, “and I need to have done it four months ago.”
“Brody, that’s—”
“I know.”
“You could be disbarred.”
“I know, Dee.” I flick my eyes to hers and hold her gaze. “As soon as the case I’m working is finished, we’ll transfer it back and your hands will be clean. If I could do it on my own, I would; but I can’t, so I’m asking my big sister for help.”
Pulling her mug to her lips, Edie takes a long drink of tea and studies me for a moment. “This is for a client, I assume?”
“Yes,” I tell her.
“In danger?”
I shake my head. “Not outright, but her husband is vindictive, and I don’t trust him or his team not to try to make her life miserable without this.”
Too much time passes without either of us saying anything. Her green eyes move from me to the papers in front of us and back again more times than I can count.
She’s going to say no .
I don’t know why the thought of that makes my heart race, but it beats so hard against the wall of my chest that I can hear it pounding away in my ears. I shouldn’t be disappointed that my sister isn’t willing to break the law for me.
Not just for me.
“‘Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you,’” she says with a sigh. Picking up the pen in front of her, she goes through each paper and adds her signature as she dates them for four months ago and some change.
Reaching forward, I gratefully take my sister’s face in my hands and pull her close to me to kiss her on the cheek as relief that I wasn’t expecting to feel floods my system. I quickly put away the stack of papers between us before she can change her mind and tear them to shreds.
Closing the lid of my case, I engage the locks at each side and stand, taking a courtesy sip of the tea that I’ve been too nervous to touch.
“Are you sleeping with this woman?”
“No,” I tell her all too quickly. “I don’t sleep with my clients.”
“Brody,” she says with an arch of her brow. She looks just like our mother when she pulls that face.
“I’m not sleeping with her.” As I head for the front door, I tell her, “I would thank you for your help and for the tea, but I wasn’t here, and this never happened.”
“Then I never asked you to stay out of trouble,” she nods.
Smiling, I tell her, “And I never promised that I will.”