"Just the standard suburban deer. They're vicious but slow."
She laughed, making me feel lighter. Amanda was good. Sharp, driven, genuinely kind in a profession that didn't always reward kindness. I'd mentored her for two years before my leave, and she'd become something close to a friend, or as close as I let anyone get, which admittedly wasn't very close.
"How's the Henderson case?" I asked, redirecting before she could ask how I was doing.
"Settled yesterday. Both parties are happy, which means I did my job." I could hear her smile through the phone. "The mother got primary custody, father got generous visitation, and the family trust stays intact with oversight provisions. Textbook outcome."
"That's excellent work."
"I learned from the best." A pause. "Speaking of which, how are you, Miles? And before you say 'fine,' remember I'm a lawyer. I can tell when people are lying."
I looked at my right hand, still pressed against my thigh, still trembling faintly. "I'm... adjusting."
"To small-town life or to your parents' house?"
"Both. Neither." I exhaled. "It's quieter than I expected."
"Quiet can be good."
"Quiet can also be suffocating. Depends on the day."
Amanda was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler. "The partners are asking about you. Not in a bad way, they're just concerned. Roberts mentioned that your office is still exactly how you left it. Nobody's touched anything."
"That's... surprisingly sentimental for Roberts."
"I think he's hoping you'll come back. We all are." She paused. "You don't have to tell me what's going on, Miles. But whatever it is, you don't have to handle it alone. You know that, right?"
I knew nothing of the sort. In my experience, handling things alone was the only reliable option. People say they want to help, say they'll be there, and when they see the reality of what "being there" actually requires, they make their quiet exits.
But I didn't say that.
"I know," I said instead. "Thanks, Amanda. I'll check in soon."
"You'd better. And Miles? Don't be a stranger. Even strangers call more than once a month."
"Noted."
I hung up before she could push further, setting the phone face down on the desk. The boxes stared at me from their positions around the room. They really did bother me sitting around the house.
The diagnosis had come five years ago. I'd been thirty-one, on the cusp of making partner, my entire identity built on precision, control, and relentless competence. The neurologist, Dr. Reeves, a soft-spoken woman with gray-streaked hair and steady hands I'd envied even then, had delivered the news in that careful, practiced tone doctors use when they're about to rearrange your entire understanding of your future.
"Early-onset Parkinson's disease," she'd said, and then a lot of other words I'd stopped processing.
I'd asked the question everyone asks: "How long do I have?"
"That's not how this works," she'd explained gently. "Parkinson's is progressive, but the progression varies enormously. Some people live full lives for decades with proper management. Others decline more rapidly. We'll monitor your symptoms, adjust your medications, and take it one step at a time."
One step at a time. As if my entire life was some dance I could perform.
My father had raised me to believe that weakness was a choice, that discipline could conquer anything, that needing help was the first step toward failure. "Camerons don't make excuses," he'd told me once, when I was twelve and struggling with a math competition. "We find solutions. If you can't solve the problem, you're not thinking hard enough."
I'd internalized that lesson so thoroughly that it had become my operating system. And now my own body was presenting a problem I couldn't think my way out of.
The tremor had started small, a flicker in my right hand during a deposition, easily dismissed as too much coffee. Then it spread. My handwriting deteriorated. My gait stiffened. Simple tasks: buttoning a shirt, tying a tie, and holding a coffee cup steady, became small daily battles I won less and less often.
I'd dated in those years after the diagnosis. A few women, each relationship more superficial than the last. They'd been attractive, intelligent, perfectly suitable on paper. And I'd felt nothing. No spark, no connection, no desire to let them see past the polished surface I presented to the world.
"You're very hard to know," one of them had said—Elena, a corporate attorney with excellent taste in wine and a habit of analyzing everything like a contract negotiation. "It's like there's stained glass between you and everyone else."
