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

eyes are fixed on Will, as if the look alone will keep him in place. “She’s my daughter now. Cristina is my granddaughter.” When Will just stares back, bug-eyed, Estrada says almost wearily, “Sit down.”

Will drops heavily into his seat and Estrada retakes his own seat in the battered leather chair. “I’ve known Luz for quite a while,” he says, “through Father Abelard. I’m a member of his church, too, and I do pro bono work for some of the members. Usually, it’s helping people fill out medical forms, insurance forms, reading over rental agreements, fighting evictions. Every once in a while, one of the members, or their kid, gets into trouble, and they ask me to handle that, too.”

“Luz’s juvenile case,” Will says hoarsely. “I know.”

Estrada nods. “With the white kids, it’s all about counseling and second chances. With the brown and black kids, it’s all about ‘find me the nearest juvenile hall.’ I’ve seen prosecutors and the police throw away too many people in my community. With Luz,” he says, and shakes his head, “I just wasn’t going to let them do it. Not after everything that had already happened to her.”

“She hurt that other girl pretty badly,” Will says.

Estrada nods. “For a while there it looked like maybe she’d have to do some time for it.”

“But she didn’t.”

“That’s right.” Estrada is picking up the pens that have spilled from their holder and is putting them back one by one. “It helps to have an older gentleman like myself, a fellow parishioner and quasi-pillar of the community, on the record as representing her for free. And I talked to the victim’s family beforehand, explained Luz’s situation. Turns out they didn’t want her to get thrown away, either. Because they understood, you know, that there is a bigger issue with what is happening to our community and it’s not going to be solved by locking up our children.”

“Luz kept in touch with you after?”

Estrada shrugs. “Not regularly. I would see her from time to time at services but then of course she moved away. I always told her, though, that if she needed help she could come to me. The attorney-client relationship, you know, it never really ends.”

Will thinks of the billing records, the calls in the months and days leading up to Travis Hollis’s death. “Did you think she was going to kill him?”

“You know better than to ask a question like that.”

Will says, too eagerly, “I believe her. I’ve always believed her when she told me it was self-defense.” As he says the words, it occurs to Will that Luz has never told him that, has never told him anything about what she was thinking the night that Travis died other than to reject Will’s various attempts to explain it for her. But the man sitting across from him knows what happened, or at least enough of what happened that he went to jail over it, and maybe, it occurs to Will now, not only to protect Luz.

They sit in silence for a moment, Will with his hands clasped together trying to regroup, reminding himself of his goal. Estrada has picked up another paper clip, is fiddling with it. Will keeps waiting for him to say something, but Estrada seems content with the silence and finally Will breaks it. He tries again for the aw-shucks grin, the one that until recently he had slipped on comfortably on so many occasions over the course of his life and to such great effect. “Look, sir, I just need to see her. Just—I need to see for myself that she’s okay.”

Estrada stretches the paper clip, pressing it flat on the table. “Is that why?” he says.

Will feels his face flush. “I just want—She’s my client. You said it yourself, the attorney-client relationship never really ends.”

“I have reason to believe,” Estrada says, “that your relationship with Luz went beyond attorney and client.”

Will tries to hold his gaze, looks away.

“Luz has a history of problematic relationships with men,” Estrada says quietly, “Sergeant Hollis being the most extreme example. It’s not surprising, given how she grew up, with no father, no real parenting. I’m trying to be that for her now. A parent. Technically, she’s an adult but she’s still a teenager, you know. She and Cristina are alone in the world.”

“What makes you think you’ll have any better luck with Luz than her grandmother did?”

“Maria Elena was a good person and she did her best, but she was overwhelmed and outmatched. Back then, Luz was at a different stage in her life, less open to thinking differently about her own behavior, particularly around romantic relationships. Part of it is breaking these cycles, don’t you think? These relationships aren’t healthy—for either party.”

“So you’re the hero in this story, is that it?” Will says bitterly. “What a bunch of bullshit. You’re just exercising another form of control over her and congratulating yourself all the way to a $400,000 payday.”

“That money is in a trust for Cristina,” Estrada says sharply, “not that it is any of your business. And no, I don’t see myself as a savior. Far from it.” He looks at the picture of the girl behind him on the credenza with the long dark hair, smiling against the sky blue background. “My motivations are selfish. I’m long divorced. My own daughter is dead. It’s a lucky, lucky second chance for me. To be part of a family again.” Estrada leans forward, elbows on his desk, hands clasped, the paper clip momentarily forgotten.

“But I’m not the only one who has a second chance here.” Estrada inclines his chin toward the platinum band on Will’s left hand. “Go home to your wife. Move away with her, maybe somewhere closer to her parents or yours. Forget all of this. It’s over now.”

Will closes his eyes against the hot and sudden tears.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

12:30 p.m.

Elysian Park

Los Angeles, California

“Thank you for meeting me.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” Paul dusts off the park bench carefully with