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A few beats passed, and then her mother spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears stung Rose’s eyes for the second time that day, and this time, she wasn’t able to hold them back. She’d been waiting for the words longer than she’d realized. She clenched her jaw, not sure how to respond and not wanting to make her mother think that one apology was good enough to make up for everything that had passed between them.
“This time will be better.”
At these words, Rose had to laugh. “How do you imagine that’ll work?”
“We want to be part of your life, Rose. And Luke’s, if he’s the one you’ve chosen. I don’t want to miss out on this grandchild’s life, too.”
Rose scanned the street, taking in the sight of the children clinging to their parents’ hands and shuffling along through the puddles forming on the sidewalk.
“Tell Morgan everything you’ve told me,” she said softly, “and then we’ll find a way to make that happen.”
“I will. I—I love you, Rosie.”
“I love you, too.”
***
Rose stood in line at the deli, behind a middle-aged man and woman deep in conversation. A glance at her phone told her she had forty minutes left, and with at least seven people in front of her just in her field of vision, she knew she would be here for a while. She flipped through the photos from the trip to St. Croix—Luke’s arms around her with the sunset behind them as they sat on the beach, a shot she’d taken of him standing in the water with the sun glinting off his skin, one he’d taken of her with her hands covered in flour when she’d tried to bake bread by herself on the third day—
“She’s lost my vote.”
Rose continued looking at the picture of herself attempting to bake, wishing she could meld with her photographed self and return to the island, but she tuned in to the conversation taking place in front of her.
“Mine too. Her son’s always getting himself into some kind of scandal. If she can’t keep a handle on her own family, how’s she supposed to make sure the state’s in the shape it’s supposed to be?”
Rose frowned. She followed the pair in front of her as the line moved forward a few steps, and she returned her phone to her pocket and folded her arms across her chest.
“I mean, really? Punching a reporter? How low can you get?”
Shaking her head, Rose turned away and deserted her place in line. She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and shouldered open the door, and as she left the deli, she heard the woman who’d been standing in front of her say “That’s her.” The woman’s tone was scathing. It was enough to make Rose want to scream, but as the street was still packed with people, she knew she couldn’t. She passed a newspaper box, and at the sight of Luke and herself on the front page beside a picture of Calvin, she froze. She pulled her wallet from her back pocket and deposited a few quarters, and she took out the first paper and scanned the headline.
“LeBlanc’s Assault Accuser Arrested Again.”
In the picture on the left, Luke’s fist was on its way toward the paparazzo whose hand was on Rose’s arm. In the picture on the right was Calvin, his nose bloodied and bruised, as he’d been after the fight with Luke years earlier.
“Evidence continues to surface that Luke LeBlanc, 26, assaulted a reporter after a political fundraiser for his mother, Illinois Senator Kennedy LeBlanc. Calvin Campbell, 27, who accused the younger LeBlanc of assaulting him while the two attended college, has recently been arrested for the fourth time. It remains unclear whether the two incidents are connected, but when interviewed from jail on Wednesday, Campbell stated that LeBlanc’s ‘tendency to overreact’ left him with broken bones that never healed properly. Campbell accused the LeBlanc family of having him arrested to silence him, and he stated that Luke LeBlanc never faced charges for the damage he sustained.”
By the time Rose finished reading the first paragraph, her hands were shaking. She dropped the paper, and it fell into a puddle at her feet. She returned her hands to her pockets and kept walking.
***
Mercifully, the state’s attorney agreed that Luke had no business handling Calvin’s case. When his boss showed him the headline of the day’s paper and Luke understood the light in which whoever had written the article was trying to paint him, it was all he could do to keep himself together. He’d had nothing to do with Calvin’s latest arrest—he hadn’t even known about it until the file had come across his desk. Whoever was trying to link Calvin’s case to the incident with the paparazzi was grasping at straws. They had nothing to connect the two incidents because Luke had had nothing to do with Calvin for the past four years. He hadn’t even seen the man in person since that night at the bar when everything had gone wrong.
When Luke returned to his office, he paced the tan carpet, his mind far from his work. He scanned the law textbooks and leather-bound classics on his shelves, and he ran his fingertips over the little wooden globe painted in greens and browns that his mother had bought him. He traced a line down to St. Croix, and for a moment, he could feel the cool waves and the sun’s warmth beating down on him at once, and if he reached out, he was certain he could catch Rose’s hand. He could hold onto her, and they could stay on the island, in the sunshine, away from all of this.
He returned to his desk. He then picked up his phone, dialed her number, and lifted the phone to his ear. It rang on a loop. When the sound was broken by Rose’s voice, he let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold.
“Hi—”
“Hey, how’s your first day—?”
“—it’s Rose. Sorry I missed you. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you soon.”
Luke’s face fell. He heard a beep and then hung up. It wasn’t like he had anything pressing to tell her, but he wanted to hear her voice, and not just in a recorded message. He set his phone on the desk in front of him.
