The Laws of Gravity

by Liz Rosenberg

  Even now, a few journalists hung around the cavernous lobby, buzzing in circles like the last bees of summer, hoping she’d change her mind and grant an interview, hoping the judge would break down and open his chambers, or at the very least, that they could scoop his decision, which, Nicole thought, must surely be coming any time now. She thought of these journalists as early-bird vultures. She was tired. She was ready to let them land. And when she thought of the inevitable it was no longer with fear, but only with a piercing sadness. If that was the price of love, it was worth paying.

  Flannery waylaid the judge one day in late February. There had been a thaw and the world seemed to be melting at their feet. Snowdrops and crocuses appeared, where only yesterday there had been nothing but a crust of dirty traffic-blackened snow.

  “I’ve never asked you for a favor,” Flannery said, as soon as Sol walked in. “Never a personal favor, in all these years.”

  The judge hung up his cashmere winter coat, and then sat down, facing his court clerk. Flannery seemed to be aging and shrinking before his eyes.

  “What do you need?” the judge said.

  “I’ve met someone,” Flannery said. When Sol continued to look at him uncomprehendingly, he added, “An extraordinarily beautiful and cultured woman, a widow who recently moved up here from Clearwater, Florida. She’s a few years younger than I am, still working.”

  “How much younger?” the judge asked.

  “In her forties,” Flannery admitted. “But wise beyond her years.—What’s more,” he added, “she is extremely interested in politics and current affairs, which is highly unusual, especially for a woman with school-age children.”

  “I can imagine,” the judge said drily.

  Flannery began to walk around the chambers in small circles. The last time Sol had seen him act this way was when his cat had died, years earlier.

  “Unfortunately, I am not the only suitor,” Flannery said. The slight Irish lilt in his voice had become more pronounced as he worked himself up. “The lady is much sought-after,” Flannery said. “Beautiful, intelligent, well-en—” Flannery began to make a rolling gesture with both hands in front of his chest.

  The judge snorted.

  “I was going to say, well-informed,” the clerk said, offended.

  “I’m sure you’ll win her over,” Sol said. “You have more charm than a barrel of monkeys.”

  Flannery stopped circling and looked dead-on at the judge. “I don’t wish to be a laughingstock,” he said. “Not to you, Your Honor, nor to anyone else.”

  “Of course not,” Sol said. “Sorry.”

  “I want to make an impression,” said Flannery. “I need to make an impression.”

  Sol sensed he was treading on thin ice, and wisely said nothing.

  Flannery said, “You know I’ve been a confirmed bachelor all these years. Lonely as it’s been, I’ve occasionally found female company”—Sol knew his chief clerk wasn’t above calling an occasional escort service between lady friends—“but I never found my true match. I know you think I’m just a romantic Irishman, but I’ve fallen head over heels. Bridget is unlike any woman I’ve ever met in all my life. I consider her perfection itself.”

  Sol, who did not trust himself to speak, merely nodded.

  “She is hesitant because she’s had two bad marriages, and as I say, there are other men courting her, somewhat my junior. And she is—” He waved his hand over his head.

  “Crazy?” Sol suggested.

  “Statuesque. Bridget is a tall woman, over five foot nine in her stocking feet. She is sensitive to appearances. Doesn’t want to look foolish, that sort of thing. She reads two newspapers a day, every day. The New York Times, of course, and then also…” He hesitated briefly. “Newsday.”

  Sol finally saw where all of this had been leading.

  “I have never asked you a personal favor in all the years we’ve worked together. But I need to come out right in this woman’s eyes.”

  “What is it exactly you’re asking for?” Sol said.

  “I’d like you to open this whole case to the press. Let it be televised, if they wish. I want you to have the advantage of presenting our side of things, not to let conjecture and rumor ruin years of work, years of the most sterling reputation in the Supreme Court of New York State.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Sol said. “What’s your second choice?” Sol suspected Flannery would have come up with a backup plan.

  “Allow me to speak to the press,” Flannery said. “Stephanie can’t handle this. She’s close to a nervous breakdown. I won’t reveal anything you wish to keep concealed. Simply matters of public record—when the case is going to be on the calendar, procedural matters, a brief overview of legal philosophy. Your Honor, I could be—as, I hope I may say, I have been, on many occasions, in my labors over countless years—your voice.”

  “Granted,” Sol said.

  Flannery stared at him, his lips parted.

  “I’m saying yes. Fine,” Sol clarified.

  Flannery’s eyes squeezed shut, and to Sol’s dismay, the chief clerk began to weep. He grasped the judge’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you!” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

  “I just hope you won’t be disappointed,” the judge said. “The media can twist anything. Be aware of that. Say as little as possible.”

  “Indeed.” Flannery nodded vigorously. He was still teary with relief. “I’ll be the very soul of discretion. I promise you won’t regret this. Thank you.”

  At this inopportune moment Myra walked by, carrying a heavy armload of files. “I’d love to know why I always carry the heaviest files,” she said. Then she stopped in her tracks. “What’s going on?” she asked. “What is he blubbering about?” Her face showed more concern than her words.

  “I believe I am getting married,” Flannery said.

  “Holy crap,” Myra said. “I mean—congratulations.”

  Flannery reached for a tissue and blew his nose loudly. “Thank you again, Your Honor,” Flannery said. “From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.” He bowed himself out of the room.

  Myra rolled her eyes at the judge. “What did you do?” she asked. “Provide the dowry?”

  “Something like that,” Sol said. He turned his back on Myra. She wasn’t going to worm another word out of him.

  Strangely enough, the media took to Flannery. Sol had feared they would mock him, caricature his Irish accent, those pointed ears halfway between a Keebler elf’s and Mr. Spock’s. But they reported his every announcement with respect. He became a weekly sight on the Long Island news. He managed to make it seem as if he were giving away valuable information when all he provided was dates, procedures, and legal truisms.

  “Justice is the law tempered by mercy,” he announced.

  “The law is not only a necessary counterbalance in government, it is the capstone and truest measure of any society.”

  Having written other men’s briefs most of his adult working life, Flannery now had the chance to demonstrate his own eloquence, and canny instinct for sound bites. “We are bound to serve the law, and we are bound and determined to serve the law with diligence.”

  His popularity reflected back onto the Nassau Supreme Court in general, and even DeNunzio softened a little in the glow it cast over all of them. Only Tom Lieu said to Sol, in the basement coffee shop, “You will be relieved, I think, when this case is over.”

  Sol nodded, tight-lipped. “All over” to him meant the death of the young red-haired plaintiff. He never forgot that. He suspected most of the people around him did. “Human beings,” he said, “are always crying out for justice. What they really want is something else. And they won’t find it here in this building.”

  “Had you asked me,” Lieu said, “I would have advised that sometimes it’s best to let go. You might have been happier stepping down at the end of last year, as intended.” There was no reproach hidden in that “had you asked me.” It was merely a state
ment of fact. “But you have never been one to accept any of that. Has any good come of it? Could any good come of it? You would have had more time of your own.”

  “Soon,” Sol said.

  Tom Lieu patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, soon.”

  “I should have come to you instead of going to DeNunzio,” said Sol.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Lieu said, coloring a little.

  “I know that,” Sol said. “There were many mistakes—I just had to acknowledge that one.”

  Sol remembered that when he and Sarah first moved into the big, gracious house in Roslyn Heights, some stranger had driven by, honking, just as Sol was moving things from the van.

  “Watch out for your new neighbors!” the man hollered. He was driving a Buick. “I hear they’re crazy!”

  Solomon had laughed as he watched the man pull into the driveway right next door.

  Joe Iccarino had retired early—he was still in his sixties, his ulcer had gone out of control, he was done working, he claimed. Yet Joe was forever busy with one project or another. He volunteered at the Catholic church, the local hospital. He painted the inside of his garage silver-white and outlined the shapes of hand tools on the walls, then hung the tools inside those shapes. You could have eaten off the gleaming floors of that garage. He fussed and fretted over his lawn the way new mothers did about their babies. Joe kept the hedges perfectly manicured between their two houses. He came out dressed for the job like a man on combat duty. He wore the kind of helmet beekeepers wear. He sported an old but meticulously clean green coverall, goggles, enormous thick leather gloves, and leather work boots. The hedges were covered with red berries in summer, auburn leaves in fall, and sharp spiky thorns all year round. The day his Christmas decorations came down, Joe set straight to work again on the tangle of thorns. Sol would have hacked them down ages ago.

  Joe’s new power clippers were bright orange. The things made a tremendous amount of noise and dust. If Sol startled him, Joe was likely to jump in the air and chop off his own hand. So he waited till Joe had paused, and cut off the machine, then offered the mug of hot chocolate Sarah had sent him out to deliver. Two large cinnamon sticks clinked pleasantly in the ceramic mug. Compared to the roar of the machinery—it had been vaguely irritating the judge all morning—it sounded like chimes in an orchestra, or the first few notes of a harp. Joe smiled. He had a wide smile and even white teeth. “Thanks,” he said.

  “I wish you’d let me hire someone to do this,” Sol said.

  “I like the work,” Joe said. “I like being outside in the fresh air.” He raised the mug. “Salut.”

  “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from,” Sol said. “Sarah made it from scratch. Real cocoa, real sugar, real everything.”

  “Tell her I appreciate it. Especially I love the cinnamon.” He bent his head over the mug and breathed in. When he breathed out again, his breath made a ghost in the morning air.

  “Come by if you want more,” Sol said. “I’m not doing anything much. Nothing that means anything. Reading the paper.”

  Joe cocked his head. Sol sometimes had the eerie sense that his neighbor could read his mind. “Might do that,” he said. But Sol and Joe both relied on their wives for any sort of social life. That was their generation. This moment, standing together on the pavement, was the best the two men could manage on their own.

  So Sol was surprised when Joe showed up an hour later, holding the empty mug in his hand, so clean and sparkling it looked new. He handed it back and said, “Why don’t you come over?” The judge could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Joe had invited him anywhere.

  “Come on,” Joe added. “Helen made cheesecake. Italian style. You’ve never tasted anything like it, not even in Italy.”

  Sol put down the crossword puzzle. He’d come to the door holding on to it; he was stuck anyway. Sunday puzzles had become another chore; once they had relaxed him. Now he preferred the Newsday Monday and Tuesday puzzles—what he used to call contemptuously “idiot’s puzzles.” First signs of old age.

  He shrugged into his winter coat, and followed Joe down the pristine patch of sidewalk outside the Iccarinos’ house—no snow or ice allowed to linger there—and up the equally spotless front path.

  “Helen’s out marketing,” Joe said. “She acts like we’re still living in the old country; shops every few days. I think she’s just avoiding the big supermarkets. They look like warehouses. Who can blame her?”

  He’d been watching TV, and instead of turning it off, he hit the mute button. He gestured at the set. “There’s an accident in Hicksville on the Southern State, backed up all the way to Valley Stream. I don’t know what’s going on anymore—if they don’t have enough lights, enough cops, or if it’s just too many cars, like too many rats in the cage. We’re all jammed in together—I remember when Long Island was one flat stretch of land,” Joe said. “Farm country. That’s how long we’ve been living here. The expressway was actually the fastest way into the city. The northern was the scenic route. No more.”

  He went into the kitchen and came back with two black lacquered plates, each with its serving of cake sprinkled with crushed almonds on top, and biscotti jutting out in half moons. The forks felt heavy, real sterling. The Iccarinos lived well; not ostentatiously, like Europeans. No junk food. No junk.

  “Thank you,” Sol said. “This is a treat.”

  “Five-car pileup outside Plainview,” Joe said, sighing. “Stuck. Look at that.” He clicked off the TV. “Did you know there’s a station that shows you Long Island traffic, day and night?”

  Sol shook his head, his mouth already filled with cheesecake, sweet and creamy, with a slight hint of liqueur.

  “I watch it too much,” Joe said. “It fascinates me, seeing how things have changed, how everything gets all snarled up. One person makes a mistake and everyone on the road pays for it. No one can move. You realize how interconnected we are. You see it so clearly on that screen. Late at night whenever I can’t sleep, I find it soothing. Like a Christmas tree in a dark room. Blinking lights. Cars whooshing by.—My father-in-law in Ohio,” he added, shifting in his chair, “used to watch the Weather Channel, day in and day out. I hate to think how I used to make fun of him.—Chin-chin!” he said, raising the plate.

  “My daughter used to love TV infomercials,” Sol admitted. “I’m embarrassed to tell you what we have in our closets, bought from those things. She used to beg us to buy the craziest items when she was a kid. A food dehydrator. Some kind of spinning fishing pole, for Christ’s sake. Rock polishing kits. She was going to make her fortune with that one. If you watch anything for more than twenty minutes on TV, you begin to believe it.”

  Joe said, “I’ve been reading about that case between the cousins in the paper. Must be tough, a situation like that.”

  Sol’s mouth tightened. “All cases involving family are tough,” he said.

  Joe waved his fork. “I know you can’t discuss it with me,” he said. “I respect that. Believe it or not, there were trade secrets in the furniture business as well.” He scraped at the top of his cake as if he thought there might be something hiding underneath the surface. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way.”

  Sol said nothing. He laid the biscotti untouched next to the morsel of cake he hadn’t polished off.

  “Eat,” Joe said. “Have seconds.” He himself was doing more construction work than eating at the moment, rearranging the top of his cake and the crushed almonds. Sol remembered that Joe had started out as a bricklayer. “There’s something you probably don’t know about me,” Joe said. “Most people don’t.”

  This sounded ominous. Sol’s mind went in ten directions at once, none of them happy. The crossword puzzle was beginning to look easy.

  “Relax yourself,” Joe said. “It’s no big deal—I was a kidney donor. A couple of years ago you might remember I went into the hospital for a few weeks.”

  “I thought that was your ulcer,�
�� Sol said.

  Joe waved the hand holding the fork. “I didn’t want to advertise it. I went on one of those sites where you find a stranger in need of a kidney, and I donated mine. People found that sort of thing very strange, especially at the time. I’m not sure Helen ever really understood it. She worried.” He took one tiny bite of the cake, then laid the fork down altogether. “I never knew the young man I donated to. We corresponded briefly by e-mail. Maybe there was one phone call, a few Christmas cards. I didn’t do it to be thanked. Some people expect a relationship, they end up disappointed. But I didn’t go into it with any ideas like that. I just relished a feeling of—purpose. Does that sound foolish to you?”

  “Not at all,” Sol said.

  “Helen and I were never able to have children,” Joe admitted. “I designed and sold furniture all my life. I wanted something else, something that would make me feel as if I had been given my life for a reason.”

  “I understand,” Sol said. “You can’t reach our age and not have some of those thoughts.”

  “Please don’t think I’m trying to influence you one way or the other. This is none of my business, I know nothing about the law. I just wanted to tell you that giving up that kidney made me the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I never regretted it for a second. It wasn’t such a big deal. Everyone was against it. I had to follow my own conscience, and it ended up all right. People get so frightened for no reason, but I’ll tell you, to live with no purpose is a far more frightening proposition.” He looked out the large picture window of his house as if his thoughts were standing on the spotless front lawn. “You bring yourself to say yes when you always thought the only possible answer was no, and your whole world changes. That’s all I can tell you.”