Mom pursed her lips a little. “You know, a common complaint about lawyers is that they have big egos. Your dad has heard those words a few times himself, I’m sure.”
“So why did he throw it back on me?”
Mom nodded thoughtfully, flipping on her blinker as we waited at a red light. “I can’t tell you why he does things, but I can tell you that this field isn’t glamorous. And I know you know that, but think of all the cases your father has presided over these past few years. All the things he’s seen.”
A part of me resisted. “You want me to cut him some slack.”
Mom looked over at me. “He regrets it, Nell.”
“Regrets what? Being a judge?”
She nodded. “The last case he had. It… broke something inside him. I’ve never seen him so shaken.”
“What happened?” Neither of them had ever gone into any detail.
“He was put on the criminal court for a case that involved a teen from a case he’d presided over years ago.” Mom’s lips pressed into a line. “The young man now was on the stand for driving while intoxicated, and he ended up killing the driver of the other car. He’d been a teenager your father thought he’d helped, only to see his life run into the ground a few years later.”
I frowned. “But that wasn’t Dad’s fault. He did everything he could.”
“Juvenile court, especially, is hard. It’s easy to wonder if you’re doing the right thing, wonder if you’ve somehow messed up… And it’s a slippery slope.” Mom pulled up to the gate to our community, looking over at me. “Your father fell down it.”
But now, I couldn’t stop thinking about the weight of it. The kind of guilt he must’ve been carrying these past few weeks, if he believed he’d failed someone. I wondered if it felt anything like what I’d carried over Beck. Worse, probably.
And that guilt would’ve pushed him to try to change my mind. “Why didn’t he say that earlier?” I muttered.
Mom gave me a knowing look. “He’s stubborn. Just like you.”
“I’mnotstubborn?—”
“But if you think there’s anything you need to apologizeto him for, you need to. Just because you disagree with your father on something doesn’t mean you get to be disrespectful.”
I deflated even further, glaring out the window like a child. “He treats Destelle differently from me.”He likes Destelle more than me.
“I’m sorry it feels that way.” Mom pulled into our driveway and put the car into park, immediately turning toward me. She reached over and laid her hand on my knee. “I’ll have a talk with him. But I meant it about the apology, Eleanor. Right your wrong, and let me help do the rest.”
I stared at her for a moment without responding, and not because I didn’t trust her, but because I wasn’t sure I wanted to promise to apologize. The thought of going up to Dad and uttering the wordsI’m sorrymade my stomach turn, mostly because I was afraid of what his expression would be. I was afraid he’d turn away before I had a chance to get the first word out, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it if he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Maybe I hadn’t really gotten past the fear of his disappointment. “Okay.”
Despite the fact that we were here, though, Mom didn’t reach for her seatbelt. “About the Alderton-Du Ponte serenity garden.” She paused, gauging. “That’s another big wrong you need to right.”
So Dad had told her about that, too. “I know,” I said immediately, my stomach cramping, but there was no disappointment in her gaze. She still had on her lawyerexpression, full of a calm seriousness. “I’m… working on it.”
She gave my knee another squeeze, and then let go.
Mom wasn’t staying, though, because she had to finish up a few things at her office, so after dropping me off, she left. The house was quiet, with only the hum of the AC lulling in the background.Right your wrong, Mom had said.And let me help do the rest.
So, begrudgingly, I headed for the stairs.
The door to Dad’s study was closed, and I stared it down with the same sort of trepidation one might have as they stared down the ledge of a cliff. In reality, it was nothing extreme. Dad would be in there, doing… whatever it was Dad did when he locked himself inside. He’d open the door, I’d throw out an apology, and I’d be on my merry way. All I had to do was knock.
But deep down, I didn’twantto throw out an apology and run. I wanted to sit with him, to talk to him, to watch him work like I used to. I wanted to go back to a time when we’d been on the same page. If I jumped—knocked—now, I knew what I would be faced with. Dad would not smile, he would not laugh, and he would not ask me to stay with him.
I knew what waited for me on the other side of the door.D-I-S-A-P-P-O-I-N-T-M-E-N-T.
Knowing that, accepting that, I knocked.
Silence greeted me. I couldn’t hear anything on the other side, like Dad shuffling across the floor. I knocked again, and there was still nothing.Holding my breath, I tried the doorknob, fully expecting it to be locked, fully surprised when it turned.
