30
W
hen they got back to the office, Anna fled to her own floor instead of going to the war room with Jack. She needed some time to herself.
It was seven-thirty at night, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office was quiet. She was the only lawyer left on the Sex Crimes floor, and was glad for the solitude. She could bury her personal issues in work. There was plenty of it. She prepared for tomorrow’s hearing about Madeleine’s books, then continued to look for legal authority to compel the congressional videotapes. Jack still had to respond to Davenport’s motion to disqualify him from the case.
It was hard to keep up with Davenport’s army of lawyers. At least they had Sam and her FBI analysts combing through phone records and credit reports. Anna and Sam might have their differences, but the woman was a worker. Anna looked out her window to the FBI’s Washington Field Office next door. It was a big square building of concrete and glass. Rumor had it that the WFO was shockproof, so if someone set off a bomb, the FBI building would simply bounce the shock waves back, turning the U.S. Attorney’s Office into a heap of rubble. The USAO had no such protections. Anna had seen bullet holes in the windows on the lower floors.
As Anna gazed out the darkened window, she saw a figure appear behind her, mirrored in the glass. She turned to find Jack in her doorway.
“Hey,” Anna greeted him with surprise. “I thought you’d be home by now.”
“Too much to do. Luisa agreed to stay with Olivia as long as I need.” He handed her his draft response to Davenport’s motion.
Jack looked exhausted. Davenport’s motion had clearly gotten to him. Like most AUSAs, Jack believed in the honor and importance of being a prosecutor. They weren’t just advocating for a client; they
were fighting for justice, wearing the white hat. There was nothing more upsetting to a prosecutor than a personal attack on his integrity. Despite his advice to ignore criticism, Anna could see that Jack was taking this motion personally.
She felt sorry for purposely distancing herself when he was having a hard time. She stood and went to him. “Hang in there,” she murmured.
She wrapped her hands around his neck, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him. He pulled her toward him, pressing her body against his.
There was movement in her peripheral vision. Anna pulled her mouth from Jack’s and looked over. Her boss, Carla Martinez, stood in the doorway. Anna jumped away from Jack as if she’d been electric shocked. How could she have been so careless? To be kissing Jack in the office, with her door open!
Carla looked as surprised as Anna felt. “Oh my goodness, I’m sorry,” Carla began. “I didn’t think—”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” Anna interrupted. “I didn’t mean to be, um . . .” She couldn’t come up with anything coherent to say.
Jack cleared his throat. “Welcome back, Carla. How was the National Advocacy Center?”
“Thanks, my course at the NAC went well. I just got in, came here right from the airport. I saw the light on in here and thought I’d get an update on the case, but . . . I’ll catch up with you two tomorrow, okay?”
Before Anna could speak, Carla turned and hurried back down the hall.
“It’s a total
disaster.” Anna paced the length of Jack’s kitchen an hour later, wondering whether there was any way to minimize the damage she’d just done to her career and her relationship with Carla. Raffles sat by his food dish, his orange eyes following Anna as she paced.
“Come on. It’s not that bad.” Jack leaned against the kitchen counter, nursing a bottle of Dogfish Head Indian pale ale. They were using the loud whisper adults employ when they’re fighting but don’t want to disturb sleeping children.
“Jack, she’s my boss. She’s probably the one person in the world I most want to impress.”
“You don’t think dating me is impressive?”
She was too upset to laugh. “Not for someone in my position. That’s why we agreed to keep our relationship private.”
“Look, I haven’t told anyone. But something like this was bound to happen.” Jack took a swig of his beer. “Life’s gonna be a lot easier if we just give in to the inevitable and stop hiding.”
“Were you
trying
to out us?” Her voice was getting louder.
So was his. “Anna. I came to discuss the case.
You
kissed
me
.”
Anna knew that part of her anger at Jack was misdirected anger at herself. She sat at the kitchen table. “I’m sorry. I just—I can’t stand the idea of another office sex scandal.”
“Don’t worry about Carla.” Jack set down his beer and put his hands on Anna’s shoulders. He began to knead her tense muscles. “She’s not going to go gossiping about us.”
“How can you know that?”
“Carla knows how to keep a secret.”
“What does that mean?” She ducked her shoulders away from his hands and turned to look at him, trying to imagine what kind of secret the two rivals would keep for each other.
“Nothing.” He put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, I’ve been in this office for twelve years, and I’ve seen some real sex scandals. This is pretty mild. We’re both single adults. It’s not like we’re on opposite sides of a case.”
“Ouch,” she said at his reference to her relationship with a public defender last year.
“Look, this isn’t a problem.” Jack sat down next to her. “As far as I’m concerned, it could’ve come out months ago. Anna, I’m in for the long haul. We’re going to get married one of these days. And we’ll invite our colleagues to the wedding. It doesn’t seem worth the struggle to keep it secret for a few extra months.”
Anna’s stomach somersaulted. She wasn’t ready to be married or even to talk about being married. The only marriage she’d ever seen up close was her parents’. They’d been madly in love at first, according to family lore. But most of Anna’s early memories ended with
her father, drunk and screaming, taking a swing at her mother. Later, when her father was passed out on the couch, her mother would try to explain:
Your father loves us, he just has trouble showing it sometimes.
That was the kind of love Anna never wanted to see again. It was why she became a sex-crimes and domestic-violence prosecutor in the first place.
Even if she got over her general qualms about marriage, she wasn’t sure she was ready to marry Jack. She loved him. But marrying him meant jumping ahead ten years, giving up parts of her life that she’d always hoped for. There’d be no traveling around the world. No happy hours with her girlfriends. Just the life of a middle-aged mom, hurrying home from work in time to take care of Olivia, who didn’t want her there. Anna wasn’t sure she could do it.
“We’ve only been dating for six months,” she said at last.
“We’ve known each other for a year and a half. I’m thirty-seven. I don’t need the two-year courtship. I know what’s out there, and I know a good thing when I’ve found it.”
“I’m only twenty-seven.”
It sounded weak even to her ears. Most of her high-school friends were married, many with kids. Even her law-school friends, who’d postponed coupling in favor of professional goals, were getting engaged and married. Twenty-seven was a perfectly appropriate age to settle down.
“We’re not your parents,” Jack said softly. “I won’t turn into your father if we say ‘I do.’”
She looked down at her hands. Jack was a good man, gentle and generous. With him, she would never have to fear what her mother had. But Jack was also set in his ways, demanding, and stubborn. She could see her life being consumed by his—to the extent that it hadn’t been already.
“I assumed we were both in this for good,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t have involved Olivia if that weren’t so. But now it seems that I need to ask. What’s
your
plan for us, Anna?”
“I don’t have a plan.” Her voice rose in pitch. “And I don’t want one.”
Jack cleared his throat and looked away from her. This was the first time he’d ever mentioned marriage. He’d probably expected a more enthusiastic response.
“Then what are you doing here?” he said.
“I care about you a lot, Jack.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was a mistake.
“Oh, you ‘care about’ me? That’s good to know.”
“No, I mean I love you. But marriage is something I need to think about, that’s all.”
“Fine.”
Jack turned and went upstairs. Anna sank back in her chair. She had hurt him, deeply. But she didn’t know what else to say.
A shuffling noise came from the living room. Two big green eyes peeked up from behind the couch. With her black hair in two high pigtails, Olivia looked like a frightened Muppet.
“Olivia?” Anna called quietly.
The little girl shuffled into the kitchen. She wore purple pajamas with footies. She looked worried.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Anna knelt down so her head was level with Olivia’s. “Did we wake you up?”
The little girl nodded.
“I’m sorry,” Anna said. “We should have been quieter.”
“Can I have a glass of milk?”
Jack had a no-drinks-after-bedtime policy to avoid bed-wetting. But this seemed like a good time for an exception. Anna filled a plastic
Princess and the Frog
cup with milk and handed it to the little girl. Olivia took a long gulp. Raffles meowed, so Anna poured some milk into a saucer for the cat.
“Are you mad at Daddy?” Olivia asked.
“No, sweetie.”
“Are you going to leave us now?”
“No.” Anna was surprised by Olivia’s concern. She used a napkin to wipe the milk mustache off the girl’s upper lip. “Sometimes grown-ups have disagreements. But they’re still friends, and they still love each other. They just have to figure things out.”
Anna felt a weight of responsibility as she said these things to Olivia. Any fight she had with Jack would affect more than the two of them.
“Mommy and Daddy were fighting like that right before she left and went to heaven.”
Anna tried not to show her surprise. Olivia had been two years old when her mother died. That must be one of her earliest memories. What had her parents been fighting about? Did it have something to do with why Jack wouldn’t talk about Nina’s death? Anna brushed the thoughts aside to give her full attention to the little girl. She tentatively put her hands under Olivia’s arms. Feeling no resistance, she lifted the child onto her lap.
“No one’s leaving,” Anna said.
The warm little body felt comforting on her lap. When Olivia finished her milk, she let Anna lead her to her bedroom. Anna tucked her in, then got suckered into a round of flashlight tag, then a telling of
Little Red Riding Hood
. Olivia didn’t seem to want to let Anna go. But by the time the wolf was wearing Grandma’s bonnet, Olivia had fallen asleep. Anna looked at the little girl and wondered if they’d just broken through a wall. She kissed Olivia’s forehead and tiptoed out of the room.
She went into Jack’s room. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw that he was already lying on his side of the bed, facing the wall. She washed up and changed into cotton shorts and a tank top.
When she slid under the blanket, he didn’t move. If he were really asleep, he would stir when she got in. She rolled over and lay on her side, facing the opposite wall. The room was painfully silent. They stayed like that for a long time, awake but not speaking, side by side but with their backs turned to each other.
Wednesday
31
I
t wasn’t her alarm clock but the quiet of the house that roused Anna from sleep. She opened her eyes and looked around Jack’s bedroom, flooded with sunlight from the stained-glass arch above the curtained window. Jack wasn’t there.
She glanced at the clock: seven o’clock. Jack and Olivia should be puttering around downstairs, eating breakfast, negotiating how much TV Olivia could watch that day. The quiet was eerie.
Anna slid out of bed and padded downstairs. She looked by the front door and saw that Olivia’s backpack and Crocs were gone. Olivia sometimes went to the park with Luisa on summer mornings, and Jack had been having the nanny come earlier than usual since the Capitol case started. But where was Jack? A note by the coffeepot answered her question.
Went in early,
Jack’s handwriting said.
Anna tried not to feel stung. He could go in to the office early if he needed to. Still, with their fight the night before, his early departure had a distinctly chilly feel.
She showered and dressed in the quiet house. The coffeepot held some lukewarm coffee, which she poured into a mug and drank down to the bitter dregs. She grabbed a granola bar, locked up the house, and walked to the Takoma Metro station alone. Though the morning was already hot, the day hadn’t yet reached unbearable levels. It was a beautiful walk, through shady streets of colorful Victorians and adorable bungalows. She often smiled at the fleets of Priuses parked in the famously liberal neighborhood. Normally, she would enjoy the walk, the most peaceful part of her day.
But Anna was still upset about the argument with Jack. She hated to hurt him, although she seemed to be doing a fair amount of that lately. On the other hand, how could he expect them to get married when he still wouldn’t talk to her about his late wife? Olivia’s comment about her parents fighting made Anna realize how little she
knew about Jack’s prior marriage. Ideas and suspicions had tumbled through her head last night, as she tangled up the sheets with her insomnia. Now she was so tired, she felt like she was moving through water.
When she got off the Metro at Judiciary Square, she went directly to the Firehook for more coffee.
“Where’s Mr. Jack?” asked the barista as he handed her the cup. With his Jamaican accent, he sounded like he was asking for Meesta Shock.
“I don’t know.” Anna managed a smile as she paid. “I haven’t been to the office yet.” Who was she kidding? Even the barista could guess they were dating.
When she got to her office, a note in Vanetta’s handwriting was scrawled on the wipe-off board on her door:
Marty wants to see you.
Suddenly, she was awake with a nervous energy more powerful than any caffeinated beverage. Being summoned to the front office meant trouble. Five minutes later, Anna sat anxiously in the ante-room outside the office of Marty Zinn, the acting U.S. Attorney.