by Sarah Morgan
“Or we could take the drinks onto your terrace.”
He hauled on jeans without bothering to button them. “You want to have sex in public and risk falling off my balcony?”
“I was thinking more of having wine and conversation.”
“Conversation. I can probably do that. As long as you stay on one side of the terrace and I stay on the other.” He threw her a shirt. “Put that on.”
“I have a dress somewhere.”
“Your dress is what got us to this point. If you put it back on I’ll be taking it off you again in under four seconds. Your only chance of wine and conversation is if you wear a shapeless shirt. And even then there are no guarantees. I suggest you button it up to the neck.”
She felt giddy, happy and ridiculously flattered, but she did as he suggested, pulling on one of his shirts. It fell to midthigh and flopped past her fingers so she rolled back the sleeves.
Because she had nothing else to wear on her feet and she’d definitely heard the sound of breaking glass, she slid her feet back into her high heels.
As she walked downstairs she could hear him cursing.
“You’re right. We did break something. Don’t come in here. I’ll clear up and bring the wine onto the terrace. That’s if I can find a bottle we didn’t break.”
Molly checked on Valentine and then wandered outside, feeling the air cool her skin.
The roof terrace wrapped itself around two sides of the apartment. Up here they were insulated from the bustle and the street noise, the craziness of New York City. Far beneath her she imagined people strolling along Fifth Avenue, pausing to gaze in shop windows, jostling the crowds. Friends, lovers, strangers, all crammed together in the small area that was Manhattan. She heard the shriek of a siren, the muted blare of car horns. No one bothered to look up as they hurried about their business. Coming home from work, going out to dinner, walking on air, walking off a temper. Everyone had a different reason for being there. It fascinated her to think of all those separate lives. People passing each other, but never meeting, oblivious to the highs and lows of each other’s lives.
She stood for a moment, content, and then turned as she heard him behind her. “I’ve lived in this city for three years and there is still a point in almost every day when it takes my breath away. The view from your apartment is incredible.”
“It was the roof terrace that sold me on the apartment. That and the fact that the craziness is far beneath you.” He was holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Sometimes, after a bad day, I sit out here.”
“And today was one of those days?”
“It started out that way.” He poured the wine and handed her a glass. “But it ended well.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Definitely not.” He leaned his forearms on the balcony railing and stared over the park. “I’m the guy who has full control over his emotions. I don’t need to talk about anything.”
She stared at his profile, waiting, and eventually he turned his head to look at her again.
“What?” He sighed. “Okay, I’m lying. Generally I am that guy who has full control over his emotions. When I’m working, I’m the lawyer. I’m there to do the best for my client. Nothing else comes into it. I pride myself on my professional objectivity. I’m as neutral as Switzerland.”
“But?”
He breathed deeply and ran his hand over his face. “Undone by a little girl and her doll.” He muttered the words so she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“Excuse me?”
“Lately it’s been harder for me. My personal experience is coloring my professional life. It’s creeping in, so that mostly I don’t notice. Then I’ll react differently than usual. A little more extreme. A little less detached.”
“And that’s usually when you’re dealing with cases involving children?”
“I’ve spent my career dealing with cases involving children. I don’t know why this is happening now.”
She was silent for a moment. “Sometimes something happens in the present that makes us think about the past. For example, if you were dealing with a case that mirrored your own childhood experience, that might make it harder than usual to stay detached. Because whether you like it or not, you’re bringing your personal experience, and feelings, to the situation.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” His voice was husky. “I’m particularly sensitive to cases where child custody is used as a threat.”
“You mean when one party threatens to deny the other access in order to manipulate the marital situation?”
“Yes. And I worry about the damage that witnessing conflict does to a child.”
Molly took a sip of her wine, marveling at how comfortable she felt with him. “Conflict in a relationship isn’t necessarily bad. What’s more important is the way the conflict is played out and resolved. When kids witness their parents fighting, but then resolving the fight, it reassures them. That’s not disturbing in the way that other marital conflicts might be.”
He frowned. “Such as?”
“For example where one parent just gives in. That isn’t resolution, that’s avoidance.”
“Wait—” he lifted his hand “—you’re saying screaming rows can be good?”
“Obviously it’s better if there isn’t screaming, because screaming doesn’t exactly create a calm and positive environment for children and it can be scary, but if the argument is heated and leads to a clear resolution that the child can see, then yes, it would be widely recognized that it might not be so damaging. If one parents screams at another and the response is that the other parent walks out and doesn’t come home for three days, and then there is no discussion, or resolution, that’s likely to be more harmful.”
“Because they don’t see it resolved.” He listened attentively. “They get all the tension, but never see it fixed.”
“That’s right. If one parent continually capitulates and the atmosphere is fraught with unspoken resentment, that’s more harmful than an explosion that clears the air and ends in a resolution. A child doesn’t understand what’s happening. There’s uncertainty, fear, insecurity.”
“So it’s all about resolution.” He put his wineglass down. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Seeing parents argue is a lesson for life. We experience conflict all the time. Not just with partners, but with friends and in the workplace. Learning how to handle conflict is a life skill, and it’s a life skill that’s ideally learned in the home, in a safe forgiving environment. Good parents will show their children how to resolve conflict in a positive, healthy way where both sides feel heard. That way the child goes out into the world and they resolve conflict the same way. It’s self-perpetuating.”
“So what’s your view when a couple aren’t good at resolving conflict in a healthy way? You’re saying their child grows up unable to solve conflict?”
“It’s not quite as simple and linear as that, but yes, that’s always a possible outcome. Maybe they’re afraid of expressing an opposite point of view in case the other person becomes upset. If they’ve seen a parent never argue back, but bottle up resentment, that may be the only way they know to deal with conflict. They walk away instead of dealing with it in a calm, mature fashion.”
“Or maybe they go the opposite way and they’re the aggressor.”
Was he thinking about his father? “That, too. But sometimes what they don’t learn from parents they can learn from other people around them. Siblings. Schoolmates. So it isn’t necessarily cause and effect.”
He let out a long breath. “You know a hell of a lot.”
“It’s my job. I’m sure you know a hell of a lot about yours.”
“So do you deal with this sort of stuff on a daily basis?”
“To a degree. I’m not as deeply involved as you are. I skim the surface. I’ve written blogs on handling conflict within a marriage.” She almost mentioned her new book, and then realized that would steer the con
versation to a place she wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. It was too soon. The relationship was too new and that was a part of her life she wasn’t ready to share. “It’s an important issue. You can’t spend the rest of your life with someone who doesn’t listen to you, who tramples over your views and your hopes.”
“That was what happened to my mother. My father was a control freak with anger management problems. It took very little to set him off. If my mother disagreed with him, he’d explode. If she tried to voice a view he didn’t share, the outcome was the same. If she wore something he didn’t like, smiled in a way that annoyed him—” He broke off, staring at the glass in his hand. “What you said just now—I hadn’t thought of it that way. That conflict in the home can be good for a child. I think I’m naturally wary about advocating to keep children in what I see as a destructive family environment.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m sure there are plenty of times when a child would be better off if the parents divorced. But simply witnessing conflict isn’t necessarily one of them.” She watched him. “I gather your parents weren’t good at conflict resolution.”
“Does throwing plates at the wall count?”
She felt a stab of sympathy. “I suppose it’s one way to go about it. That must have been pretty scary to witness.”
“It was. My father had a terrible temper. My mother was terrified of him. Everything she did, the way she lived her life, was designed to soothe him and keep him calm. ‘Don’t annoy your father’ were the words we heard most growing up. My mother was the woman you described—the one who walks away and closes the door. I used to hear her crying through the bedroom door.”
She put her hand on his arm, feeling the hard muscle through the soft fabric of his shirt.
“I don’t know how you coped.”
“I was too occupied protecting the twins to think much about myself. It was never physical, but verbal can do as much damage. Fliss fought back, which wasn’t great either. But Harriet—” He frowned and shook his head. “He only had to raise his voice for her to be paralyzed by fear. She had a severe stammer as a child. It drove him insane. The more he yelled, the more she stammered. There was an incident at school…” He hesitated. “She had to recite a poem. Fliss and I had helped her practice. Over and over again. Not a single stammer. She was so excited and proud. Then she got up onstage and saw our father in the back row. He never showed up to school events. I swear he only did it that night because he knew how important it was to her to recite that poem perfectly.”
Molly felt a rush of cold horror, only too able to imagine what had happened. “She saw him and couldn’t get a word out.”
“Yes, and that single cruel act undid all the hard work that Harriet had put in. Fliss was so angry she flew at him with a skillet.”
Molly was appalled. “How old were you?”
“I don’t know. Sixteen? The twins would have been around eleven. Occasionally life was fairly normal. We used to spend every summer with our grandmother in the Hamptons while my father was working in the city. She owns a house right on the ocean. It’s spectacular. She’s been offered a small fortune for the land by developers but she won’t sell. So there’s my grandmother in her modest beach house, surrounded by mansions. Apart from the few occasions he visited, those were our happiest times. Mom told me later that she used to dream of us living like that, just the four of us, by the beach.”
“So you became a lawyer so you could make that happen for other people. What happened to your father?”
“He had his first heart attack five years ago. The second one a year after that. It mellowed him a little, but only because he’s afraid. He’s spent his life driving people away, alienating them, and now he’s discovered that he’s alone.”
“You see him?”
“He won’t see me because he blames me for the fact that Mom eventually divorced him. Which suits me fine.” He leaned on the railing, watching as darkness spread across Central Park. “He won’t see Fliss either.”
“And Harriet?”
“Harriet sees him occasionally, but it stresses her. In a way she suffered more than any of us. Even now, if she’s upset, her stammer sometimes reappears. It’s one of the reasons she works with animals and not people.”
“And your mother?”
His expression softened. “After the divorce she finally rebuilt her life. It was a bit like a child learning to walk. Small steps. A thrill of achievement and the realization that taking steps leads to places. It was wonderful to watch. She trained as a nurse and then last year she decided she wanted to see the world. She’s currently in South America with three friends she met at a support group she attended.”
“That’s a nice story.”
“Yes. She finally has the life she’s always wanted.” He took a deep breath and drained his glass. “And I’ve just told you a ton of stuff I’ve never told anyone in my life before. That must be what happens when you hang around long enough to have a conversation after sex.”
She smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s what happens when you trust someone.” If anything the conversation had deepened the intimacy, rather than lessened it.
Daniel turned to look at her, a strange expression in his eyes. “Maybe it is.” He brushed his hand over her cheek, his fingers lingering on her jaw. “You look good in my shirt. How can you look good in my shirt?”
His touch made her pulse quicken. “It’s the light,” she said. “It’s very forgiving.”
“I just realized I still haven’t cooked you that steak.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Tomorrow. We’ll try this whole thing again.” He lowered his head. “I’ll buy you dinner. We’ll go out. That way I can’t rip your clothes off. And we’ll talk about you, not me.”
“I’m busy tomorrow.”
“You’re prioritizing a spin class over sex?”
“It’s not a spin class.”
“Cooking class? Salsa? I don’t even know what day it is—”
“It’s a work thing.” A work thing that right now, with his eyes on hers, she was tempted to cancel, but she knew she couldn’t. It was too important.
“What time does it end? Come here afterward.” As his hand slid under the hem of the shirt, she felt herself weaken.
“I’m free the night after.”
“Good.” The words were muffled as he trailed his mouth down her neck. “That will give me time to clear up the rest of the glass.”
Thirteen
“The father didn’t exercise his parenting time on any weekend in the first three months of this year, and his behavior isn’t consistent with—” Daniel paused as Marsha walked into the room and then returned to his phone call. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I’m saying… He missed two parent-teacher conferences so I don’t think so, but let’s talk later.” He put the phone down. “You’re wearing your serious face, but I can tell you nothing is going to stress me today.”
He’d had the best night of his life. And it hadn’t just been the sex, although he’d been thinking about that for most of the morning. It was more than that. The way she’d listened. The way they’d talked. He would have expected to feel a little uncomfortable about all the things he’d told her, but for some reason he didn’t. He could have talked to Molly all night. He could have had sex with her all night, too. In fact he had, for most of it. The only thing they hadn’t done was eaten, but he was going to fix that. He was going to take her to dinner somewhere special tomorrow. Somewhere romantic.
He sat back and smiled at Marsha expectantly. “Well? How do you intend to burst my happy bubble today? As long as you’re not about to tell me you’re leaving me, everything is good.”
Marsha’s expression told him that everything was far from good. “What did you do last night?”
It was unlike her not to get straight to the point, but Daniel played along. “I had a date with Molly. You?”
“Dinner with my girls.” She put coffee on his desk. “M
olly is the girl you met downstairs? With the gorgeous dog?”
“Yes, she’s the one. You’d like her. She’s smart, funny and a great listener.” And phenomenal in bed, he thought, not to mention sexy. One minute she was an athlete with her cute ponytail swinging across her back as she ran, the next she was rocking a dress and sky-high heels. Remembering made his whole body heat. He had a feeling there had been lace underwear, too, but he’d been in too much of a hurry to get her naked to pay attention. Next time, he was going to pay attention. It was more than a little annoying that “next time” wasn’t going to be tonight. He, who had previously not had the time or the inclination to date on consecutive nights, was feeling mildly irritated that she already had plans.
He forced himself to focus on work. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“You wanted Max to find out the identity of ‘Aggie.’”
“Judging from your expression, I’m not going to like what I hear.”
“I think she does good work. I don’t approve of your mission to unmask her and take her to task.”
“Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”
She gave him a long look. “Once you find out who she is, you’re going to wish you’d never asked.”
“So she is a person? I was starting to think Aggie might be a call center with a hundred people dishing out random advice based on something written by a computer. I’m glad to hear there is at least someone I can connect with and she’s human.”
“She’s definitely human.”
“Great.” He held out his hand for the file and Marsha hesitated.
“Sometimes it doesn’t pay to ask too many questions. We might find out things we would rather have not known.”
“Another topic on which we disagree. I prefer to ask as many questions as possible. Then I can make an informed decision.” He kept his hand outstretched and she handed the file over reluctantly.
“Aggie is the pen name of Dr. Kathleen Parker.” She said the name slowly, with emphasis, waiting for a reaction from him.