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

She reaches for Jonathan’s hand, holds it tightly, and leans against him, breathing in his comforting, familiar smell: like linen that has dried in the sun. For the first time in weeks, Jonathan responds with his familiar warmth, leaning into her and rubbing her back with his free hand. Don’t cry, she tells herself. Be reasonable. She concentrates on her breathing, tries to think of a winning strategy. She will explain. She will make the best argument. She will get him back. She will get them both back.

In the darkness, lost in her thoughts, Jonathan’s voice startles her. “Abby, was Cal going to drown?”

She turns to look at him. Jonathan’s gaze is cold. His words are like a reckoning, allowing her to see, finally, why he has been so hard with her and how far she will have to crawl before she can climb out of a hole that is spreading wide and deep like an abyss.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

11:30 a.m.

Office of Jorge Estrada

Riverside, California

“Will Ellet, what a surprise.” Estrada comes around from behind his paper-piled desk, hand extended. His smile is friendly enough but his eyebrows are raised and his look is questioning. They shake. “Have a seat.”

There had been no traffic this time and Will had managed to get to Estrada’s strip mall office in eighty minutes. Leaving work, he had told his secretary he had a client visit scheduled at the Riverside County Jail. A lie, but a plausible one. Part of the job for the LA-based federal public defenders involves handling cases from one of the satellite offices in Santa Ana and Riverside on occasion.

Will is dressed for court, has in fact, two court appearances later that afternoon back in Los Angeles. Estrada, too, is wearing a suit and tie.

“You look well, sir,” Will says. Estrada does, in a neatly pressed suit, thick gray hair freshly cut. He looks relaxed, as if he has been away on vacation, which Will suspects he has been. When Will had driven out last week and the week before, the office had been closed.

“You look like you haven’t been sleeping.”

Will smiles, trying not to show his irritation at the fatherly smile of concern. “Stress at work, you know how it is.”

“I would have thought,” Estrada says, “that they would have given you a break.”

Will rubs his jaw. No one had offered him a break, but his caseload hadn’t exactly been punishing, either. That wasn’t what was keeping him up at night, causing him to lose his appetite, and making him snappish, even cruel, with Meredith.

“The thing is,” Will says, trying to keep his voice casual, “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Luz. She’s changed her cell phone number and she’s not staying with Father Abelard anymore. I went by Maria Elena’s house and it’s up for sale.”

Will pauses, waiting for Estrada to say something. When he doesn’t, Will continues, “She’s been through so much, as you know. And I’m—I’m concerned about her. I want to make sure that she’s okay. That she and Cristina are okay. So I thought maybe, since you were her lawyer, too, at one point, that you might have some contact information, maybe her new number or an address.” His voice goes up at the end, and he forces himself to smile, hoping to mask the tinge of desperation.

Estrada picks up a paper clip from his desk and begins prying it apart. “You haven’t spoken with Ms. Rosenberg about any of this, have you?”

Will has a ready answer for this. “Abby is on maternity leave. And she’s been, well, there have been some issues with her—her domestic situation.”

“So I read. Unfortunate that someone inside the LAPD leaked that report when they had no intention of charging her.”

More like hundreds of cops vying for the honor, Will thinks. After the Rayshon Marbury case, Abby has been about as popular with the LAPD as a low-flying seagull at a beach picnic.

Will, too, had read the coverage, finding it impossible not to take great pleasure from it. Joan of Arc, Feet of Clay? was the headline on one of the legal rags. He must have read the first sentence a dozen times: In acquitting her client of first-degree murder charges and reuniting her with her baby, Abigail Rosenberg may have sacrificed the well-being of her own child, according to a report made by the child’s father, who has obtained temporary sole physical and legal custody following an emergency filing in court. The gossip in their office was off the charts, though Jonathan and Paul remained tight-lipped. Will had made no attempt to contact Abby himself. Not after the way she had treated him. And anyway, provoking her—or being perceived as passing judgment—was begging for trouble. People in glass houses.

To Estrada, he says, “Well, there’s an ongoing case of some kind in family court, and I haven’t wanted to bother her.”

Estrada has the paper clip undone now, in a horizontal line balanced between his two index fingers. He moves it to the left, then to the right in abbreviated half circles.

“Luz and Cristina are doing well,” he says finally. “They’re safe. Luz is—” he pauses “—recovering.”

Will tries to keep the excitement out of his voice. “So you’ve—you’ve heard from her?”

Estrada smiles. “Son, I live with her. It’s all legal now.”

Will feels the blood rushing to his face. He lunges over the desk, hands grasping Estrada’s tie to pull him forward so that their faces are inches apart. “You married her? You—you’re sleeping with her?” Estrada’s hands are on Will’s forearms, his grip surprisingly strong, but Will hangs on, jerking him closer, and hears the sound of fabric ripping. “You perverted old man, you sick fuck.”

Estrada pushes Will away, sending him backward. Papers fly everywhere and Will stumbles, nearly falling before grabbing ahold of the desk edge. He is beside himself, shaking with rage.

“I didn’t marry her, I adopted her.” Across the desk, Estrada is removing his ruined tie and massaging his neck, but his