One is gone and has been a long time, and the other is forbidden.
My mind tiptoes toward him, and I make myself stop.
No. He can’t fix this for me. Fixing this is something only I can do. My body, my life, my mess.
But also… he is the father. The word rolls through my head. Not “the defendant.” Not “the man across the table.” Not “Don of the Conti crime family.” The father of the baby growing inside me.
I try it saying it again, out loud this time, and my mouth goes dry.
How would I even tell him? We’ve spoken on the phone before, but things are different now. Since his ankle monitor “failed,” they’ve locked him down even tighter.
If I call him, there’s a record somewhere with my number, talking to a man under federal supervision. I could use payphones if we still lived in a world with payphones. I could write a letter, which is insane and leaves a paper trail.
I could run away and raise a child who might have his eyes or his hands.
I rub my thumb over the edge of the phone and realize I’m shaking.
Five weeks. My body already knows what my mind is still trying to deny. My breasts hurt. Smells hit harder. I’m tired and wired at the same time. My stomach wants bland food and then wants salt and then wants nothing at all. Is this normal? Normal is such a ridiculous word for the most abnormal feeling I have ever had.
I think about my mother again because I cannotnotthink about her. Fifteen. Fast. The way grief leaves a shadow, and you walk through it every day without meaning to.
I didn’t learn her recipes when she wanted me to. I didn’t sit with her and let her hands show mine how to turn and press. I thought we had time.
My time with her ended, and I have not stopped trying to buy pieces of it back ever since.
Would she be proud of me? Not the prosecutor, me. The person, me. Would she tell me to make a list and stop catastrophizing? Would she hug me and make me tea and say, “Elena, piccola, you are strong enough for this,” in a voice that made me believe it was true?
But I don’t have her. I have myself and a phone, and a recipe tin.
I have the memory of a night that reminded me I am not just a suit with a law degree.
The phone rings and I jump hard enough that the recipe tin scratches my thigh.
I flip it over. I know the number before my brain registers the name—New York. My old office.
I don’t want to answer. I answer anyway. “Pennino,” I answer in a clipped tone.
“Hey.” A familiar voice comes on the line. “We’re firming up the calendar. The Leone trial got a date. You coming back for it?”
For a beat, all I hear is my own breathing. The nurse’s voice echoes in my head. My career is over. My life is over.
“I—” I press two fingers to my temple and make my lungs behave. Leone. I can picture the file, the outlines we built before I left, the witnesses whose names I could recite in my sleep.
“Thought you’d want to come back and witness the result of all your hard work,” the voice says again.
I blow out a breath and force myself back to myself. “Yeah, of course I’m coming,” I say. “You didn’t think I’d miss the culmination of two years of work, did you? Come on, Wright.”
“Never know,” he teases. Owen Wright has always been a perpetual flirt, and apparently, distance and the phone can’t stop it. “Thought you might be too busy over there in Atlantic City, living the high life.”
I snort and look out my window. “The high life. Right. I haven’t even seen the damn city yet. My apartment, the office, and a bunch of take-out menus are all I see these days.”
“You should get out there,” he says, deadpan. “I hear the boardwalk churros are legendary.”
I laugh, wanting desperately to get off the phone.
“Please. I’d kill for a coffee from Alto’s,” I say instead.
“Come home for a week and you can have all you want,” he says. “Judge slotted us in Part 17. Same juror box, same busted HDMI. You’ll fit right back into your old bad habits.”
