A Good Mother by Lara Bazelon (different ereaders txt) 📗

The fact that the idea is inspired by Jonathan’s stray comment before he started scolding her makes it delicious. If he’s right, he’s just handed her a new tool.

Now she says to Dars with a dead calm that surprises even her, “We don’t have a problem and I’ll prove it. I am going to take off my clothes.”

Dars snorts.

“Don’t believe me? Watch.” Abby stands up, removes her suit jacket and lets it drop to the floor. She unzips her skirt and leaves it on top of the jacket. She pulls off her shoes, slowly peels off her pantyhose, and drops the lot onto the growing pile. Standing in her white cotton underwear, she unbuttons her blouse and opens it. She feels both intensely present in her body and outside of it at the same time, as if the real Abby—the nice-looking but not hot one—is watching her from somewhere high above alternatively screaming at her to stop and cheering her on.

Dars is staring at her, eyes wide open.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Dars moves his head a fraction to the left and back again. If she’d blinked, she would have missed it. Or maybe she had imagined it. But he wasn’t saying a word.

Abby gives him a big smile as she removes the blouse, then twists her arms behind her back to undo the row of hooks that hold up her nursing bra. In ten seconds, she is standing, one hand on her bare hip, fully exposed. She smiles, and it is genuine this time. It’s intoxicating, the power she is exerting over him. “Underwear?” she asks politely.

His nod is almost imperceptible, and Abby looks down on her white cotton Hanes Her Way bottoms as if considering it. Too bad she hadn’t planned this out in advance, she’d have gone out and bought something sexy. Something Hot Abby would have worn. She snaps the elastic band. “No, I don’t think so. You wouldn’t really be checking for a wire at that point, would you? But your interest is much appreciated.” She smiles again. “Especially after, well, that hurtful comment you made that day on the fifteenth floor. It still stings, Dars. Every time I replay it.”

Beads of sweat have formed on Dars’s hairline.

“Want to see some more?” Abby walks around to his side of the desk so that she is standing directly in front of him but well out of reach, her arms at her sides. She raises them so he can see she isn’t concealing anything, then puts her hand back on her hip, shimmying as she does a slow 360-degree turn. Jesus fucking Christ this is empowering. Jonathan is right: this is quite possibly the best she will ever look. Suddenly conscious of the size and hardness of her breasts, she has to force her baby from her mind. No leaking.

Now she’s facing him again, she sees that Dars has swiveled slightly in his chair. He’s still staring at her, breathing heavily through his nose. They remain like that for a full minute.

“Just say the three magic words, Dars. ‘I recuse myself.’” She drops her voice to a breathy whisper. “I recuse myself. So simple. Just say the words and then presto!” She snaps her fingers. “Next week, there’ll be some other poor defendant lined up for you to fuck over.”

Then Dars starts to smile his awful smile. And then comes the heh-heh-heh, a low thrum from the back of his throat, and now there is a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Thank you for the show.” Dars’s smile widens to show his teeth. “I thoroughly enjoyed it. Your little tale, well, that was less compelling.” He stops smiling. “Now get dressed and get out. I’ll see you, as they say, in court.”

2005

Monday, December 26, 2005

3:47 a.m.

Willowick, Ohio

From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

To: travman@hotmail.com

wtf travis, i’m having your baby. rite back.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

4:05 p.m.

Ramstein Air Base

Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany

From: travman@hotmail.com

To: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

Jaxx,

of course im happy its a beautiful thing if we made a baby together. don’t get mad but how do u know its not lance’s anyway? u wuz with him 2.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

4:11 p.m.

Willowick, Ohio

From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

To: travman@hotmail.com

cuz i used protection w/ lance and not w/ u. want a paternity test? Cuz I went all monica on you and kept sum jizz u left on my sheets. gotchu coming and going no pun intended!

ur pissing me off travis. yeah, and I made a new FB friend today you’ll never guess who.

happy new year motherfucker

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

4:19 p.m.

Ramstein Air Base

Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany

From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

To: travman@hotmail.com

things here is complexxx. i will work it out, but u got to have faith and not go all crazy on me. u telling is not the way. knock off that FB shit with her.

2007

Friday, February 2, 2007

11:00 a.m.

Office of Dr. Tabitha Cartwright

Beverly Hills, California

“Thank you,” Will says, as he takes his place beside Abby on the couch. “We appreciate your taking the time, Dr. Cartwright.” Will and Abby are here about Luz, of course, but sitting on a shrink’s couch with the shrink herself staring them down, it is hard not to feel as if he and Abby are the ones under evaluation: a mismatched couple mired in mutual misery.

Tabitha Cartwright is a forensic psychologist. After her PhD is yet another jumble of letters, the piled degrees indicating a vast store of knowledge about human behavior derived from decades of rigorous training. She is small and impossibly slender, perched on the edge of her armchair with her head cocked, gray hair in a short, cap-like cut, round tawny owl eyes unblinking. Not an ounce of meat on those bones; Will imagines that picking her up would entail no more effort than lifting a child. First Luz, then Abby, and now the doctor. Will feels surrounded by petite women with outsize demands on his time and mental energy. He longs suddenly for Meredith—her just-right height and weight, her easily satisfied needs: take out the garbage, pick up his