by Teresa Hill
"What happened?"
"Not much, at least not that I saw. But Zach was alone with him for a few minutes, and when he came out he was so upset. He claimed it was all over, that the man would never bother us again, but... he just hasn't been himself ever since. He's avoiding our calls, and he won't come home. I really need for someone who knows him to go see him and tell me he's okay."
"Sure."
"Thanks, Julie. So... I guess I'll see you soon? I mean, with what's going on with your parents and everything?"
"I... Well..." Out of excuses and ashamed of wanting to make them, she buzzed her assistant, two short beeps, the signal to interrupt her, to save her. Sure enough, Maggie buzzed her right back. "Grace, I'm sorry. That's my secretary, and I really have to go. But I'll let you know after I talk to Zach."
And with that, she escaped.
"Anything I can do?" her secretary asked through the intercom.
"No, thanks, Maggie. That's all I needed."
She sat still for a minute, thinking about Zach seeing a father who'd been in prison since Zach was just a little boy. How would that feel to him? She thought of what he might remember of the time he'd spent living in the same house with that man, what it would take to shake someone like the man Zach was today. She'd never seen him even break into a sweat.
Julie glanced at the clock on her desk. It was almost eleven. Not indecently early for lunch, and court had to break at some point, didn't it?
Five minutes at the courthouse, Julie told herself. Then she'd be done. Life could get back to normal. Steve would be back. She'd explain somehow. They'd get married, and Zach would leave town. Everything would be fine.
* * *
The courthouse was packed. She slipped into a seat in the back corner in time to catch the last ten minutes of Zach's closing argument.
He was calm, sincere, passionate and persuasive, painting a picture of a boy who'd never had a break in his whole life, one who'd been abused and neglected and tormented in ways that would make most people sick to even hear about them.
What would a child do under those circumstances? When he was pushed one step too far and seemed to have no hope of escape, no way out?
She looked at the defense table where, between Zach and another man, Tony Williams sat in a chair that seemed too big for him, wearing an ill fitting suit that swallowed his small frame, shoulders hunched forward, gaze glued to the surface of the polished table in front of him.
He looked like a little boy. A sad, angry and lost boy.
She hadn't expected to get so caught up in his dilemma, but she had tears in her eyes by the time Zach was done.
And she kept thinking, it could have been Zach sitting there. If he, Grace and Emma had never been taken away from their birth father, and one day the man had come after Grace or Emma... Zach would have done anything to protect them.
The judge announced a break for lunch. The crowd got to its feet and began to drift out. Julie waited in the back of the room until Zach and a man who must have been his co-counsel had finished speaking with their client, until finally she and Zach were the only ones in the room.
Zach sat back down, one arm folded across his chest, the other going up so that his hand covered half his face, as if he couldn't bear to see, and he looked oddly vulnerable sitting there. He was tired, too. She could see it in every line of his body, see the tension and what looked like pain.
Obviously Grace was right to be worried.
Julie slowly rose from her seat and walked toward the aisle. She bumped her knee on one of the last seats in the row, and at the noise Zach turned around, startled and obviously not happy to find that he wasn't alone.
"Hi," Julie said, standing where she was, about ten feet away from him.
He got to his feet but didn't come any closer. "What are you doing here?"
She shrugged and played dumb, thinking she'd slowly get around to what his sister had told her. "Bad day, huh?"
"Bad week. Did you hear any of the closing arguments?"
"About ten minutes of yours. You did well, had at least two of the jury members in tears."
"I'm afraid that won't be enough to win this thing. One or two people aren't going to be able to hold out against all the others," he said.
She tried to imagine Zach failing, and feeling the way she did sometimes, but she just couldn't do it. Then she tried to see him as a boy who grew up knowing his father was in prison, and now a man with that same father walking around on the streets free.
As Zach had talked about Tony Williams's life, she'd wondered if the emotion in his voice had come, not from listening to Tony talk about his childhood, but from Zach's memories of his own. No doubt, that's where the passion and the drive came from that made him so good at what he did.
"You look tired," she said. And strung tight as a piano wire.
"Like you said, bad day."
He probably had a lot of those. How could he not, doing a job like this? She wondered who took care of him when he wasn't sleeping or eating the way he should. Who did he talk to late at night, when the world seemed like a big bad place and he just wasn't sure if he could make it through another day?
He must feel like that. Sometimes she thought she was the only one, but other times she saw the fallacy in that. And she was worried about him, too.
"Have you had lunch?" she asked.
"There's a canteen downstairs. I'll grab a sandwich."
"From a machine?" She made a face.
"Wouldn't be the first time," he said, turning to the stack of papers in front of him and trying to bring some order to them.
"But I thought you were done. That was your closing argument, right?"
"The judge still has to charge the jury."
"Charge the jury?" she asked, daring to come closer finally.
"We get to tell the judge what we want him to say about the points of law as they apply to this case." He stuffed papers into his briefcase. "What it takes to find Tony guilty. What applies to bringing in a finding of not guilty. But that won't take long. The jury will probably start deliberating this afternoon."
"And then you can rest?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Not while the jury's out."
"What do you do while a jury's out?"
"Pace," he said, closing the briefcase and getting to his feet. "Run. Lift weights. Hit a punching bag, if I can find one. Go over my notes from the trial. Things I wish I'd done better. Things I might have tried but didn't. Things I might use on appeal, if it comes to that."
"You have to rest sometimes, Zach."
"Not in trial," he said. "Why are you here? Another fight with Stevie Boy?"
"No. He's out of town."
Zach nodded. "So you thought it was safe to see me, since he's gone?"
"No... Well... I guess. I really wasn't thinking about him. I was thinking you need a keeper almost as much as I do." She walked over to him and let herself slip her hand through the crook in his arm. If she didn't lead him out of here, he might not go. "Come on. Let's get out of here and have a decent lunch, at least. You'll breathe some fresh air for a change. Have you seen anyplace else since you've been here?"
He shrugged. "The jail?"
"Doesn't count."
He stared at her. "You still didn't tell me why you're here."
"I was worried about you." She stayed by his side, her arm linked with his, refusing to think about how welcome a feeling it was, to touch him.
"Me?" He found the energy to summon a grin at that. He really was a gorgeous man, even dead tired and drained.
"What? No one's allowed to worry about you?"
"I'm fine, Julie," he insisted.
Which was odd, because had she been in his position, exhausted and dreading the next minute, she would have smiled and lied through her teeth. Just like that.
She didn't expect anyone to take care of her, didn't let herself lean on anyone. Not really. She'd tried with Steve, but she'd never really shown him the deepest, darke
st parts of herself. She didn't show those to anyone, and she wondered now if Zach did the same thing. If maybe they had this one thing in common.
"Humor me," she said. "I came all the way down here to see you. Come have lunch with me."
"I can't. Really. I have to confer with Alan, the public defender, the other guy you saw at the defense table. He'll be back any minute. We're still working on exactly what we want to ask for, for the charge to the jury."
"How about you sit here and work, and I'll go get us some lunch. We can sit outside and eat. There's a park half a block away. Great shade, lots of benches. It won't take fifteen minutes."
"Julie, really—"
"Let me do this one thing for you." Because she hadn't ever taken care of him, not that she could remember, not in all the time she'd known him.
"Okay. Fifteen minutes. That's it."
"I'll be right back. Any requests?"
"I'll eat anything," he said.
Julie smiled for what felt like the first time in a month. It wasn't much, but at least she could feed the man.
* * *
She was back too quickly, Zach claimed, and she practically had to drag him out of the courtroom and across the street.
"See?" She pointed to an elm. "It's called a tree. See how green it is? And that blue stuff up there? That's the sky. Those puffy things—aren't those nice?—they're clouds."
"I think I have some vague memory of them," he said as they settled themselves on a bench and she presented him with two huge roast-beef sandwiches and some potato salad. "Thanks. How are things going with Steve?"
"They're not," she admitted. "We argued after the party, then hardly spoke until he left for Birmingham, and he hasn't come back yet."
"Sorry. I shouldn't have come there that night."
"It's not your fault. I made this mess all by myself."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Just try to make it through the day. That's the sum total of my plan right now."
"So you didn't come down here to ask me about your parents or Peter?"
"No." She'd picked up her own sandwich, turkey and avocado on a French roll, but now she put it back down without taking a bite. "Could we not argue about this, Zach? I know you think I'm... Well, I know what you think, and I'm sorry."
"For what?"
Disappointing him, mostly. The man had been like a conscience to her, the measure of what was right and wrong, and she knew he thought she was dead wrong on this. She'd been waiting ever since the night of her engagement party for the phone call telling her that her parents were in jail, asking her to come take Peter. So far, the call hadn't come.
"It hasn't happened yet, has it?" she asked finally. "They haven't been arrested?"
"Not yet," he said.
But clearly it was coming.
She picked up her sandwich and ate, any pleasure she might have had in the day gone. He ate, too, and they didn't say a word for the longest time. Finally, he got up to throw the food containers away and then stood there, hands in his pockets, staring down at her.
"I have to get back," he said. "Want to give it one more try? Tell me why you're really here?"
Julie could read between the lines. He thought she wanted him to talk her into going home. He'd done that so many times—convinced her to do the right thing. It seemed he'd never give up on her, never lose hope that maybe someday she'd be a different person, a better person.
She shook her head. It just wasn't going to happen. "I came because you need to call your sister."
He frowned. "Grace?"
Julie nodded. "She told me about your father getting out of prison."
"He's not my father," Zach shot back, all his tension back with vengeance.
"I know. Sorry."
"No." He waved off her apology. "I'm sorry. I know you know who he is. I just..."
He wasn't handling it well. Wow. She didn't think she'd ever seen Zach not handle something well.
"Is he bothering you?" Julie asked.
"Everything about that man bothers me," Zach said.
Of course it would. The man had beaten his mother to death. Zach had lived in that house. The things he must have seen and heard... Julie knew about yelling and screaming, about what happened when people drank. Her stepfather had slapped her mother around, and sometimes Julie, too, but he hadn't... She was thinking that he hadn't really hurt them. But the truth was it had hurt.
Obviously, the things that had gone on in Zach's house when he was a little boy had hurt him, too. She'd just never seen the scars before. Or maybe she hadn't been looking. She'd seen the facade of perfection that shined around him and taken that at face value, was ashamed now of not seeing it for what it was.
A facade. An act.
Julie should have spotted that a mile away.
"So, that was it?" he asked. "Grace sent you?"
"Yes. Is there anything I can do for you? Now?"
He looked like he simply didn't understand the question. It would have been funny, if it hadn't been so sad. No one could be that strong all the time.
"I'll be fine," he claimed, again reminding her of herself.
"Okay." But no matter what he said, she was going to worry. "I'll tell Grace you'll call. This will be over soon, and you'll be going home, right?"
"I don't know," he said. "We're down one attorney in the office, and I'm not sure what kind of juggling might have been done to the schedule."
"You need to go home, Zach." To the people who loved him and would take care of him. If she had a place like that to go to, she'd be there in a heartbeat.
"We'll see," he said.
"Call Grace." She frowned. "And if you need anything, I'm right here."
"What about Steve?"
"He'll just have to handle it."
If Steve was here and speaking to her.
* * *
She did not sleep well that night, slept right through her alarm and got to the office late to find that Steve was due back that day. She still didn't know what to say to him.
Somehow, she made it through the day.
Six o'clock came and went. Still no Steve. Finally, at six-twenty, she tried his secretary. He'd been in the building since two o'clock, but was now stuck in a meeting that was running late.
She went home, ate a carton of yogurt and a banana. Maybe he wasn't coming. Maybe he really was done with her.
The phone finally rang shortly after nine. She jumped at the sound, her heart pounding. "Hello."
"Julie, it's me. It's taking me longer than I thought to get out of the office."
"All right." He was late. No big deal. Not like lying to the person he was supposed to marry.
"I guess I'm still trying to decide what it is I want to say to you."
"Well... I can understand that." My, how tentative they'd become with each other.
"I may come by later tonight. I'm not sure."
"Whatever you want to do." She'd sit here, waiting, thinking, beating herself up, things like that.
And then he was gone.
She sat there, the TV droning on in the background. Before she knew it, the local news was on. Was it really that late? Then Zach's face appeared on the screen.
Julie hit the volume button. Oh, no. Tony Williams had been convicted of murder.
Just the look on Zach's face was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Sometimes life was just too hard, and those were lousy times to be alone.
She knew. She'd been there herself.
She looked at the clock. Eleven-ten.
She didn't want him to be alone, not after the way he'd looked the day before. She didn't know what she'd say to him. But she couldn't leave him all alone.
Chapter 5
Fifteen minutes later, she knocked softly on his door.
"Go away," he called out.
"Zach? It's me."
"Not tonight, Julie. I'm not fit company for anyone. Go."
"I can't," she said. "I won't. Let me in."
/>
He sounded just a little crazy, and his words were slightly slurred. A shiver of unease worked its way up her back. He wouldn't be drunk, would he?
"Zach, please, just let me in. Let me know you're okay."
She banged on the door, deciding it felt pretty good to hit something now. He said he hit a punching bag if he could find one, when things got bad. She'd tell him to try the door next time.
Zach pulled open his door just as someone opened the one next door and scowled at them both. "Jesus, Julie, what are you doing?"
"Getting you to let me in," she said defiantly, cradling a fist in her hand. It hurt now. But then everything did eventually, didn't it?
She pushed him aside and walked in. He'd knocked over the end table in the far corner and all the papers on it. A bar glass, half full of amber liquid, stood on the coffee table, and a bottle beside it.
So he had decided to have a drink. Or two or three or five?
She turned back to look at him. His hair was mussed, like he'd run his hands through it too many times. He'd discarded the jacket of his suit. His feet were bare, tie gone, shirt unbuttoned, as if he'd given some thought to undressing and falling into bed. He had lines she'd never seen before on his face, at the corners of his eyes and his mouth, across his brow. His mouth stretched into a bleak line, and he wouldn't look at her. She tried not to look at anything but his beautiful, sad face. An odd feeling of intimacy slipped into the room.
"Grace send you here?" he asked.
"No. I was watching the news. Zach, I'm so sorry."
"Me, too. Fucking lot of good it does Tony Williams."
"But... you can appeal, right?"
"Yeah." He laughed. "Maybe we could get it overturned. After he's sat in jail for ten or fifteen years. I'm just praying I made some kind of colossal mistake that gives us grounds. Or that somebody did, and I can find it."
"I'm sure you did everything you could," she said.
He finally looked at her. Defiantly. Angrily. "Well, it just wasn't good enough, now was it?"
He said it like he absolutely hated himself. How could someone like him hate himself?
"Well, sometimes, no matter what you do, it just isn't good enough." She certainly knew that, but she didn't hold people's lives in her hand, which had to be so much worse.