They Called Me Copy Girl. I Wrote the Law. Chapter 11

They Called Me Copy Girl. I Wrote the Law. Chapter 11 Thursday

The silence lasted a long, long time.

Then one of the committee members said, very quietly, “Gerald. Would you like to respond?”

He didn’t.

That was the response.

They asked us to step out.

They called us back in nineteen minutes.

Dana Whitlock: partnership terminated, effective immediately, with a mandatory referral to the Grievance Committee for tampering with a licensing record.

Gerald Pruitt: resignation “accepted,” effective end of month.

Me: suspension vacated. Full reinstatement. A written apology from the firm, which I have never once read.

Dana walked past me on her way out.

She stopped.

“You know what the worst part is?” she said, and she wasn’t performing anymore; she just looked forty and exhausted. “You were fixing my motions for three years. Forty times. So I never found out what I actually was. And now I have to find out with no one underneath me.”

“Dana-”

“Don’t be kind to me,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it.”

And she left.

Sebastian was waiting in the corridor.

“You didn’t need me,” he said.

“No.”

“You didn’t even look at me once.”

“I know.”

“I liked it,” he said. “Very much. Which is an alarming thing to discover about yourself at thirty-four.”

I laughed – an actual laugh, the first in what felt like a decade – and then I put my hand over my mouth because it came out sounding like crying.

He didn’t touch me. He just waited.

“There’s something I have to do,” I said. “And I don’t want to do it alone.”

“Name it.”

“There’s a letter,” I said. “My mother left me a letter three years ago. I told her attorney to burn it.”

“Did he?”

“Mr. Abernathy has been calling me every eleven weeks for three years,” I said. “Nobody calls that many times

about ashes.”

Abernathy’s office smelled like paper and old coffee.

He was seventy-one and he cried when he saw me, which I was not remotely prepared for.

“Ms. Marlowe. Three years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Sit down.” He unlocked a drawer. “She left instructions. Not to be delivered on a date. To be delivered when you came for it yourself.” He shook his head, smiling. “Your mother knew you extremely well

He handed me an envelope.

My name in her handwriting, which is my handwriting, which is a thing I had never noticed before and which nearly took my legs out.

I sat in the car in the parking garage for eleven minutes before I opened it.

Sebastian sat in the passenger seat and didn’t say a single word, which is possibly the kindest thing anyone

has ever done for me.

Ivy

If you’re reading this, something happened, and I’m not there, and I’m so angry about that I could spit.

Here’s what I think you’ll do. I think you’ll blame yourself for something that wasn’t yours. I think you’ll put your hands in your pockets and find somewhere small and quiet, and you’ll call it peace, and it will be a coffin

with the lid off.

So let me say this while I still have a pen.

If I ever end up in a courtroom – and I know how this family’s luck runs – I want you. Not a stranger. Not the best mouth in Washington. Yours. If you can’t win it, then nobody could have, and I will have lost being defended by the only person I ever made who was better at this than I am.

You are better than I am, Ivy. I never said it out loud because you were twenty-six and unbearable enough already.

Your voice isn’t mine. It was never mine. I only taught you when to use it.

Don’t you dare go quiet.

Be brave enough to be yourself, sweetheart. It’s the only thing I ever actually wanted for you.