I push it back and type back. “Good. See you Friday.”
A while later, there’s another buzz. Antonio: You still coming to the walkthrough tomorrow?
He means the site where the exterior signage is finally going up after three weeks of permitting nonsense.
I type back: Yes. 8 sharp.
He’ll roll in at 8:20 and pretend it was the plan. I’ll give him a look, and he’ll give me one back, and we’ll get it done. He thrives in the chaos in a way I never will.
The house makes its small night noises. The ice maker wakes and drops a few cubes in the tray. The HVAC hums. Somewhere far off, a horn sounds, long and low, a ship heading out or in.
I lean back and let everything be for a minute. It’s a trick I learned the hard way. If I move from one thing to the next without a pause, my thoughts run long past midnight andtake me with them. If I stop here, let my mind list the facts and file them, I sleep.
Facts: The motion to suppress was handled. The jury heard what I needed them to hear. Opposing counsel will come back in the morning and pretend he wasn’t rattled, and he’ll fail at it; the nerves will be in his tapping fingers again. I will be polite and efficient, and the jury will like me because I know how to connect with them. I will work the law. I will not chase drama. I am good at this.
Another fact: the house is empty. Not because no one wanted to fill it. Because I do not want that right now. The bed is made, and the right side of it is undisturbed every morning. The closet holds what I wear. The kitchen holds what I cook. The study holds what I read. No one else’s scent is here. No hair in the drain that is not mine. No second coffee cup left in the sink because someone had to run. Some nights that emptiness is a comfort. Some nights it’s an ache I sit with and count my breaths through until it passes. And some nights, like tonight, it’s both.
A memory forms, the way a bruise blooms under pressure. A morning in August. A laugh from the other room. The sound of a stainless steel pan on the stove and a voice humming a melody that still plays in my mind daily. Maria. I see the small, unfettered tilt of her lips when she caught me watching her at the sink and shook her head like I was trouble.
It’s there. It always is. A strand I can pick up if I want to pull the whole thing loose.
Not tonight.
Iput it down. Not by force. By decision. Grief is not a request; it doesn’t care what you want. But attention is a resource, and I don’t spend it when I can’t win anything back.
I stare past the glass, find the boat lights again, pick one, and watch until it’s gone. The feeling eases. It doesn’t vanish. Just eases.
I stand, stretch, and my spine answers with a small pop.
The clock in the hall ticks past 10:00. Early, for me. I think about the morning. The walkthrough, a call with the compliance team, a lunch I can’t skip with a city person who likes to tell stories he thinks are clever but are really just long.
I’ll sit, nod, file the real information under the talk, and get out. After that, there’s a meeting with Caterina about contracts I’ll review. She’s sharp. She sends only what I need to see. I don’t waste her time; she doesn’t waste mine. It works.
I turn off lights as I go. The alarm chirps when I arm the perimeter. The sensor shows all windows closed. The log shows no activity today, but the cleaner at 11:00, then the cleaner leaving at 3:00, and me now. Good.
Tomorrow morning, Clara is coming in. She’s my head of house, but she’s only in four days a week because that’s the way I like it.
Upstairs, I brush my teeth, wash my face with cold water, and stand there a second, towel in my hands, looking at nothing. The bed receives me like it always does. I don’t scroll the phone. I don’t check the news. There will be noise in the morning, on the sites that make a living off outrage. I don’t need it.
I turn off the lamp, and my eyes adjust.
I think about nothing on purpose. It’s a trick I learned young. When my mind tries to bring me faces, I give it lists: names of judges in the county in order of seniority, the addresses of every courthouse I’ve argued in, the major exits on the Parkway from north to south. It’s dull by design, and it works.
When sleep comes, it does it without warning. One minute I’m counting, the next I’m gone.
I’m up before the sun, the house still dark enough that the bay is not visible through the glass. I dress in the closet. Navy suit, white shirt, the tie I can knot in fifteen seconds flat without a mirror.
The espresso machine has already started warming, and when I come back down, the kitchen is exactly how I left it last night. I like the way the stillness settles around me in the morning. It makes the rest of the day filled with voices and chaos easier to handle.
I slice two pieces of bread, drop them into the toaster, crack two eggs into the small pan, and push them around until they’re just set. I’m not hungry for much. I eat so I don’tget stupid in court. The toast pops; I rub a cut clove of garlic across it, add the eggs, a grind of pepper. The espresso flows into a small cup, crema tight, the scent doing half the work of waking me.
The house lights are at thirty percent. I don’t turn on more. The light outside the window steadily brightens. It’ll be a clear day. I take a sip of coffee and feel the edges of the night smooth out.
Soft footsteps sound behind me. “Morning, sir.”
“Morning, Clara.”
I don’t look up right away because she doesn’t need me to. Clara’s been with me long enough to know what I will and won’t fuss about. Head of house is the title she uses with vendors. To me, she’s Clara, the person who keeps the house running without leaving fingerprints on my life.
