“I can’t say that I do,” Mom said. “Judging by her appearance, I would think that she works for you father’s firm rather than that outfit where Jonathan works. You should see some of those women. All long, straight, grey hair and no makeup. Your dad calls them ‘bunny huggers.’ But Jonathan seems to enjoy working there. He says he is going to buy a house over near his office.”
“What does Dad think about that?”
“He says, ‘What in the world would he want to do that for. I’ve spent my whole life trying to get out of the Heights, and now Jonathan is trying to move back.’” She said it trying to sound like Daddy. “Of course, I think that is the very reason your brother is doing it. Because he knows that it riles up your father.”
I recognized that, to some extent, both Jonathan and I were always trying to get Dad’s attention, but Jonathan sure had a different way of going about it than I did. I guess it was already apparent that neither of us was going to be the trial lawyer that Daddy was. Frankly, I didn’t have any interest in the courtroom or the lifestyle that seemed to come with that type of practice. I wasn’t as good at making speeches as Daddy or Jonathan. Sure, I could turn a phrase on occasion and talk my way out of a traffic ticket. Jonathan said that I had a “potty mouth,” but he always laughed at my attempts at double entendre. Jonathan liked the courtroom well enough, but I don’t think he liked being compared constantly to Dad so he was trying to find his own way.
When Davy and I did finally marry at the end of his clerkship, Dad used it as an opportunity to invite almost everybody who practiced law in Harris County to come see the fruits of his successful practice. I understood that Daddy’s practice was largely based on referrals from other lawyers who could refer their cases to whomever they pleased but were more likely to refer them to an attorney with a successful track record since the referral lawyers were entitled to a share of the contingent fees.
At first, Davy had resisted the extravagant wedding plans, suggesting that he’d like to have Judge Collins perform the ceremony. However, it was decided that we would have the wedding in the church my family had always attended—Daddy informed Davy that Sam Houston himself had once been a member of the congregation—and that the federal judge, along with my brother and Davy’s brother, would be attendants. The wedding service took place in the large sanctuary at the First Presbyterian Church in the museum district near the Rice University campus, and the reception was at at The Menil Collection. I think that Daddy was a little worried that somebody might get drunk and fall into a piece of art, but security was tight, and the reception came off without a hitch.
Davy and I spent the night in Houston at La Colombe d’Or, and we flew to Albuquerque, rented a car, and drove up to Santa Fe the next morning. The whole wedding, reception, and honeymoon were something of a blur, but I think Davy will remember the Inn of the Anasazi where we stayed in Santa Fe. He laughs every time I call it the “Anusaucy.”
5
WE GOT BACK FROM SANTA FE ON A SUNDAY, and Davy went to work at Peters & Sullivan on Monday. I was, of course, already working at Miller and Shumard. Mostly I read documents, looking for pages that might be privileged and making sure that we didn’t turn over to the other side anything that shouldn’t be turned over. That, or I spent hours poring over documents that the other side had produced in discovery trying to find some nugget that might be helpful to my firm and its clients in complex business litigation. It was tedious, boring work, and if it hadn’t been for some nice people working with me, I don’t think that I would have made it through that first year. After that year, Davy and I bought a house, at least a mortgage on a house, in West University. I liked the house, but I didn’t see how we were going to pay for it with just Davy’s salary as I was already planning my exit strategy from the practice of law.
I enjoyed decorating the house with Mom and Jonathan’s help. I think that they enjoyed it too because we went with a different theme from either of their houses. Mom’s house was an ornate, French-style home in River Oaks and Jonathan’s was an Arts and Crafts revival over in the Heights. After scouring copy after copy of Southern Accents, we decided on a Country French motif. I remember thinking that my house was like a provincial little cousin of my Mom’s house. I liked the bright colors of Provence and Mom’s comment that distressed pine and old oak furniture wouldn’t show the wear and tear of having young children sealed the deal. I had already decided that having kids, at least one kid, was what I wanted to do next. Davy seemed fine with the notion, and I even let him think it was his idea that the little bedroom next to ours would be perfect for a nursery.
I didn’t tell anybody at work that I was thinking about having a baby, but I didn’t have to. There were enough female attorneys at the office that the firm had been through this several times before. There appeared to be a couple of different scenarios. A woman lawyer would get pregnant, have the baby, and not come back to work; or a woman lawyer would get pregnant, have the baby, and hire nannies to raise the child while she tried to work part-time but really worked full-time without securing herself a spot on the partnership track; or a woman would not ever get pregnant and hang on until she made partner. The women attorneys that I had met each seemed to think that their way was the best. The more I worked, the more I thought that any scenario that involved the continued practice of law sounded less and less desirable. I began to fall in love with the idea of having a baby.
The problem, frankly, became getting pregnant. While sex in law school had been spontaneous and frequent, it now had become “occasional.” That is to say that it had to be an occasion before we had sex: birthdays, holidays, or a verdict in one of Davy’s trials. We even joked about naming the baby after the plaintiff in whatever case had concluded when we marked it with our celebratory conception. It sounded better to me than “Valentine” or “Anne Versary Jessie.” We told ourselves that we had been trying for about three months when Davy went to Kentucky for the second time. But we really only had sex two or three times during those three months: a couple of times after trials and one Saturday morning before we both went to work to try and catch up on some things from the previous week.
Most evenings we were just too tired, or one of us, usually Davy, had consumed too much alcohol after work to be very romantic. He would come home, we would have a dinner that I had thawed out, and then he would go to bed and leave me sitting in front of the television downstairs working on my laptop. After I had gone to bed, I sometimes would hear him get up at two or three in the morning when the scotch had worn off and turn on the TV, and I would think about going downstairs and getting him to come back to the bed for sex, but I was just too tired.
I often noticed the next morning that the television was tuned to Cinemax when I turned it on to check the day’s weather while I made coffee. I guess that I assumed that he was masturbating while watching soft-core porn on Skinemax, and that assumption probably bothered me some. When we were in law school, we even used to do it together. We would each be reading our assignments at opposite ends of that gold damask couch in my apartment, and I would stop reading and start watching him and my hand would slip inside my shorts, and then he would realize what was happening and start watching me and one thing would lead to another. I’m sure Dad, if he had been there, would have quoted Dante, “That day no farther did we read therein.” Now, it was that spontaneity that was missing. I thought it was missing because we were both too wrapped up in work, and my quitting would help.
I didn’t tell Davy, but I felt like something was different when we made love after one of his trials. It was some goofy car wreck case with a plaintiff that couldn’t control his flatulence in the courtroom. It hadn’t taken the jury very long to rule against him, and I hurried home after Davy called me with the results. I caught Davy before he had very much to drink. It wasn’t that the sex was different, but I felt differently immediately afterwards. I thought I might be pregnant. I know it sounds silly to think that you might be able to tell immediately a
fter intercourse that you were pregnant. It was probably just that we had decided to stop using protection and my subconscious was telling me that getting pregnant was a distinct possibility. Or maybe I really did know.
Still, I cut out the drinking and went way back on the caffeine for the next few weeks. It was while Davy was in Kentucky on the second trip that I noticed that I wasn’t having my period at the usual time. I remember lying in bed a couple of days after my period should have started, debating in my head as to whether getting pregnant at that time was a good thing or a bad thing. If the period didn’t come by morning, I decided that I must be pregnant. I tossed and turned all night, waiting to bleed or not to bleed. When I woke up the next morning from what little sleep I had gotten, I knew I was pregnant. I really didn’t need a pregnancy test to tell me, but I stopped at a CVS on my way home from work and bought three different test kits. I raced home, ripped open the first package, and did the test without reading the instructions. I took my time on the second and read the entire package insert. I did the third one just for good measure. All three came up positive.
I couldn’t wait to tell Davy, but I had to because he was halfway across the country at the time. I wanted to tell Mom and Dad and Grandmother Zela, but it didn’t seem right to tell them without Davy knowing. I had to tell somebody. So, I got in my car and drove over to Jonathan’s house in the Heights. I knocked on his door, but nobody answered. I waited for a few minutes on his front porch and then called him from my cell phone.
“Where are you?” I asked when he answered. There was a lot of noise in the background. “I’m standing on your front porch and nobody is home. It’s after six. I knew you wouldn’t be at work.”
“No. I left work hours ago. I met some people for drinks at Mandola’s on West Grey. Is Davy out of town? Come join us,” Jonathan said.
“Yeah, Davy is in Kentucky. Do I know anybody there?”
“Well, it’s kind of breaking up. Come on over and have some Oysters Damian with me.”
Normally I loved Oysters Damian and Jonathan knew it. All of the Mandola brothers served the dish in their various restaurants in Houston. They shucked the oysters, fried them in a cornmeal batter, and served them on the half shell covered in pico de gallo. “I don’t know about oysters right now.” I asked. “How does the snapper look?”
“It looks like it is coming off the grill about an inch and a half thick, lightly drizzled in garlic butter with lemon wedges. Simple but elegant.”
“That’s my mantra,” I said. “Order me one with the scalloped potatoes and the ensalada mixta and I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later I pulled into the parking lot at the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Grey and thought that I saw that cute paralegal from Dad’s office pulling out of the parking lot at the other end. I worried for a moment that Dad might be there with Jonathan, and I would have to put off giving him my confidential news until I could get Jonathan alone and sworn to secrecy. But that didn’t make any sense because it would have been odd for Jonathan to be having drinks with Dad and his coworkers, and besides, Jonathan would have told me if Dad had been there. I saw Jonathan wave at me from the bar where he was sitting alone as the hostess asked me how many were in my party. I told her that I was meeting someone and walked across the room to Jonathan who stood and gave me a hug.
“Did everyone leave when they heard I was coming?” I asked.
“Sis, I guess that they just had other places to be. How are you doing?”
“Good. I wanted you for myself anyway. Have you ordered?”
“You look good. Yeah, I ordered for both of us. Is it okay if we just sit at the bar?”
“Whatever is faster,” I said. “I’m starving.”
“Do you want to get some wine or something?”
“No. I don’t guess so. Water will do.”
“Let’s see. You’ve come by my house to see me. Something you almost never do by the way. You look great. You’re starving. And you’re not drinking. Something up that I should know about?” Jonathan asked smiling.
“You have to promise not to tell anybody yet.”
“I promise. Not tell anybody what?” he asked.
“You’ve figured it out already. I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations. Am I the first to know?”
“Yes. I wanted to tell Davy first, but he is in Kentucky. Some pollution case he is working on with Dad. You can’t tell anybody until I tell Davy.”
“Fair enough. But why don’t we just call him?” Jonathan asked.
“I don’t think this is the kind of news you should get over the phone. I’ve had to avoid taking his calls at the office because I know that I’ll blurt it out if I talk to him. The one time I did talk to him, I had to hurry up and get off the phone before I told him. I’ll tell him as soon as he gets home. You just have to keep it a secret for a few days.”
Jonathan nodded his agreement, but I could tell that he wondered if something might be wrong that would keep me from picking up the phone and calling Davy right away.
“Have you given any thought to what you are going to do about work?” Jonathan asked.
“Frankly, I’ve thought of little else. I’m not sure that I’m cut out for this law practice gig. I like the money, but I’d like to try being a stay-athome mom for awhile.”
“You’ll be good at that. Any kid would be lucky to have you around full-time. I guess Davy’s okay with your quitting work?”
“I guess so. Honestly, I don’t know if he has given the idea much thought. He’s so caught up in his own practice that I don’t think he sees much of what’s going on with anybody else.”
“Well, you know that it’s not an either/or thing. You don’t have to work at a big firm like Miller and Shumard. You could go to work at a nonprofit or go to work for yourself or whatever. I know that you might not like the, shall we say, ‘unsavoriness’ of some of the folks I represent, but there are other options. You know, if you quit when the baby’s born, you will have been practicing about the same amount of time that you were in law school. You never know how things will turn out. You might look back and wish that you had kept your hand in the game.”
I thought about what he said for a moment before responding. “But that is just it, isn’t it? It’s just a game. Dad seems to love it. Davy . . . and you seem to also.” I included Jonathan in that sentence because I was always careful to let him know that I thought what he did was important even if everyone in my family didn’t seem to share that opinion. “But I don’t think that I do.”
“Well, like I said, I’m sure the kid will benefit from having you around full-time. I’m sure that the only reason you and I are partially sane is because Mom was around full-time for us.”
He was right about that of course. Growing up, we had rarely seen Dad. He was always gallivanting around the country promoting himself as a big shot trial lawyer, trying high profile cases, and attending political functions. Every move was calculated to turn the next case into a bigger case than the last. I recognized that Dad’s reputation made it somewhat difficult for Jonathan or me to succeed at this profession. We were never going to be as flamboyant, try as I might with my potty mouth comments, or as successful at winning big cases as Dad had been. And yet, we would always be compared to him.
Many of the plaintiff lawyers’ kids that we had known growing up were drunks or crazies that seemed to live off their daddies’ money. For one thing, it seemed to me that the practice had changed a lot since Dad started. Tort reform had eliminated many causes of action and juries were tainted by the insurance industry’s advertising campaign on “lawsuit abuse.” There weren’t many cases around other than car wrecks and bad slip-and-fall cases that a young lawyer like Davy could try in an effort to bolster his reputation. And when he did win, it seemed like the court of appeals always took away the verdict on some new ruling of law.
But it wasn’t just the lack of success by comparison that seemed to affect the offspring of
the successful lawyers. They weren’t damaged by the inattention of their peers; they were damaged by the inattention of their parents. Jonathan and I had been lucky. We had Mom. And we had each other. I’m sure that one reason Jonathan had gone to work for the public interest firm was so that he would get Dad’s attention. And while I was thinking all this, the thought also crossed my mind that maybe that was one reason I had become so enthralled with the idea of becoming pregnant. Maybe I was trying to impress Dad also.
A bartender laid out crisp, white napkins on the bar in front of us as placemats and another brought our food. I took a bite of the snapper before continuing the conversation.
“Let me ask you something Jonathan, and please don’t get mad. Why didn’t you go to work for Dad when you got out of law school?”
“Well for starters, he never offered me a job. I brought it up one time before graduation, but he cut me off before I even got started. Gave me this speech about how a man’s got to make it in this world on his own. Pull himself up by his bootstraps. Blaze his own trail. You know, that sort of thing. It did kind of hurt my feelings. I guess that I always thought that we both would go to work someday at Peters & Sullivan.”
“Me too. But I don’t think now that I would want to be there. I don’t think that I want to practice anywhere,” I said.
“I hear you Sis, but I kind of like what I’m doing now. If the truth were told, I probably got this job because of Dad. My boss was a lawyer at Butler Binion before, and I think he lost some big case to Dad way back when. I think he sees it as some kind of dig against Dad that he gets to boss me around now. Whatever. I like the work. The paycheck’s not bad. I don’t expect that I’ll do it forever.”
“You ought to be an interior decorator.”
“Your house did come out alright, didn’t it? I don’t know about decorating, but I have been thinking about using some of the trust money some day to buy old houses and fix them up for resale.”
A Minor Fall Page 7