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“DuBose and Lee?” she said, her eyes widening.
“Still has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“You want us to practice law together?” she said incredulously.
“I thought we could do some good.”
DuBose eyed him and said, “Donny told me that Shirl thought we were a couple.”
Jack sat back. “I didn’t know that.”
“I told Donny that was not true. We were just professional colleagues.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s the way I feel. Is it the same for you, Jack?”
“I care for you, Desiree. I’m not ashamed of that. We’re friends.”
“That’s fine, but it can’t ever be more than that.”
“You can predict the future now?”
“I understand myself, Jack.”
“So you’ll be the same person you are forty years from now as you are right this minute?”
“That’s not what I said,” countered DuBose.
“I believe it’s exactly what you said.”
They sat in silence for a few moments until Jack spoke up. “You never told me what happened to Paul, the man you were going to marry.”
Her expression became distant and fixed. “The same thing that happened to your sister. It was a case I was working on. People didn’t like it. They didn’t like me. So they took out that hatred on an innocent person. You can understand why I can never... be with anyone else ever again. I can’t be the cause of that... pain... that loss again.” She looked directly at him. “You almost died, Jack.”
“But that was not your fault. And it didn’t stop me from climbing on a plane and sailing through the sky for the first time in my life.”
“What about your family?”
“I came with their blessing. Especially my momma’s.”
She shook her head. “I went down that road once and it cost a man I loved more than anything else his life.”
“Your love didn’t kill Paul, Desiree. And my love for Lucy had nothing to do with her dying. Other people’s hate did. Same thing that made that boy shoot Jerome. You know that. You’ve had more hate directed at you for no good reason than any human being should have to bear.” He let out a long breath and said, “You gave me every chance to walk away from the case. You asked me time and again if I understood the risks.”
“And your sister died. You must regret that you ever met me.”
He gazed at her, his brilliant blue eyes watery but intense. “Working with you was the greatest professional honor of my life, Desiree DuBose. And getting to know you as a person... was even a greater honor.”
She slowly shook her head and her eyes also teared up. “I just wish we lived in a different world.”
“Well, the good news is, we can. It’s what you’ve been fighting for all these years. Real change is built on one person at a time doing something different. Something they might have been scared to do before. Like a white lawyer who’d never thought of defending a Black man in court. Then another person and another person comes along and does something different, too. Hell, before you know it, Desiree, you’ve got yourself that ‘United States of America’ you talk about.”
Her eyes flashing with emotion she said, “You sound like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I practiced my lines the whole flight here. We made a good team before. I thought we could continue that. But I can’t make you do anything, Desiree. Nor would I ever try.” He rose to leave.
“Sit down, Jack Lee,” she said firmly.
