But ithadto be. She couldn’t very well back down now and give up on the idea of being a lawyer. Not after taking such a hard stand against her family and telling everyone she knew she was going to law school. She had to go, or she could forget the idea of ever having the respect of anyone in her life again. The stakes were too high. She was going to become a lawyer, even if she hated every minute of it.
“Exciting stuff, hey?” Aaron asked.
Jessica started, having not realized he was standing in front of her desk with a fresh cup of coffee. “Yes, riveting.”
He offered her a lopsided grin. “So riveting you looked like you were about to drift off to sleep just now.”
Nodding, Jess said, “Okay, well, it might be a tad bit dry, but who’s expecting thrilling plot twists in a contract?”
Aaron made a clicking sound, his expression slightly pained. “This is actually on the juicy side compared to most of the stuff I do.”
“Eww, really?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
Aaron burst out laughing. When he was done, he nodded. “Really.”
“When does the exciting, get-your-heart-racing stuff happen?”
“When I open my bank account statement,” Aaron said matter-of-factly. “Practicing law isn’t what they make it look like on TV.”
“Not even a little?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek.
“Not even a little. I mean, if you wanted high drama, you could move into family law. Handle divorces, custody cases, that kind of thing.”
“Too sad. That would wreck me,” Jessica told him, sitting back in her chair. “What about criminal?”
Blowing out a puff of air, Aaron shook his head. “None of my friends who went in that direction are happy. They’re either extremely frustrated because their clients are all too stupid to live and repeatedly get themselves in a pile of trouble, or extremely disturbed because they’re representing some psychopath who doesn’t give a shit about who he hurts.”
“Wow.”
Nodding, he added, “Yeah, almost all of the criminal attorneys I know are either divorced, addicted to something, or sociopaths themselves. I can’t see you fitting into any of those categories happily.”
Maybe divorced. “Right.”
“I say we take an early lunch. I haven’t introduced you to Ben’s Burger Bar yet, and considering you’ve been working with me for over two months, someone should really charge me with a crime.”
Chuckling, Jessica got up from her desk and grabbed her handbag out of her drawer.
A few minutes later, they were sitting at a table for two in a small-but-noisy restaurant. The aromas of grilling burgers and fresh-cut fries filled the air, and Jessica realized she was starving. But more than that, the impending end of her marriage was gnawing at her. Without thinking about it, she blurted out, “Why did you and your wife get divorced?”
Aaron’s smile faded, and for a moment, Jessica wished she hadn’t asked. But then he shrugged and answered, “I think it was the same thing that kills most modern marriages. Incompatible expectations.”
Jessica nodded, understanding in her heart what he meant. It was a feeling she was coming to know all too well.
“What makes you ask?” Aaron said, picking up his iced tea.
Jessica’s cheeks heated up and she stared at the smooth wood of the table rather than meet Aaron’s eye. “Things have been a little rough at home since I decided to plot a new course for myself.”
“Right, that can be tough,” he said, nodding.
“It’s exactly what you said, incompatible expectations.” Sighing, she added, “I think women and men of our generation grew up getting such different messages. For us girls, it was, you can be what you want, you can do anything, you can have it all. When you get married, your husband should be a true partner. Everything split right down the middle. But the more I think about it, I think that nobody told the boys.”
Aaron stared at her for a second before answering. “You’re not wrong. I don’t think we got the message that everything being equal meant we had to step up and do half.” He shook his head. “We all thought we could live like our fathers, only we should do a better job listening and be more involved with the kids. Stupid, really.”
Jessica stared around the crowded room. “Things started out pretty equal for us. Before we had kids, but then after...”
“It got pretty lopsided?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” She picked up a fry and dipped it into the dollop of ketchup on her plate. “We agreed I would stay home, and I was glad to be there. Grateful, really, that we could afford for one of us to be home to raise the kids and be there to witness all the little milestones and the big ones—first words, first steps. All of it. But over time, you settle into this routine that feels wildly unfair. Everyone else gets to have their own life, and yours just revolves around them. The kids’ activities, volunteering at the school, fundraisers, Mike’s business dinners and conferences, hell, even the dog’s needs come first. And you keep saying yes because you feel like you have to prove your worth somehow. You think you have to be everything for them, do it all, take on more because, of course, you should. Because you get to stay home. You don’t have to go out and grind, earning a wage to bring back to the family.”
