Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  He should take Jamie sledding.

  Michael, too, if he'll come. He should take them both sledding while he still can.

  Why has his desk been situated with his back to the window all these years? Why has he looked at a wall and a door when he could have looked at the sky? If he's convicted, who will take them sledding?

  He needs to talk to Mark about these things. Time is running out.

  "Jack?"

  He swivels back and looks into the kind face of the sixty-one-year-old woman who has mothered him since the day he started at the DA's office. And like a mother, she always refuses to believe the ugly accusations tossed his way. Even when he admitted to being Jenny's alibi, she forgave unconditionally. Has he ever thanked her? He thinks so, but not enough. It's never enough. "Yeah. Sure.

  Tell everyone to take off before the roads get bad. I'm going to stay a moment more, watch the snow."

  "Are you—"

  "I'm fine. Thanks." She turns reluctantly to go, but he calls her name to stop her. "I mean that. Thank you, for everything, okay?"

  "Try to get some rest."

  He shrugs, waves her out. "Merry Christmas, Bev."

  "Merry Christmas, Jack."

  Once his staff clears out, he takes the elevator to the top floor of the

  courthouse and slips into an empty, unlit courtroom. The tall windows afford him a magnificent view of the Mall below.

  Through the prism of the blizzard, the multi-colored Christmas lights strung through the tree branches resemble glowing gumballs. Traffic on the city streets is light and the television crews he anticipated on the sidewalk haven't materialized. Has everyone evacuated the city already, eager to start the holiday early?

  He sits in the gallery, at the end of a row closest to the windows, and stares at the front of the courtroom. He's not sure what drew him upstairs, to sit here like this. Maybe he's simply too weary to face what waits for him at home. He knows his sledding fantasy is just that—a fantasy.

  He thinks about the second case he ever tried, when he first understood his special rapport with juries. He was still at Newman at the time, and the case was a pro bono civil rights case. He represented a prisoner suing the government for abuse he'd allegedly suffered at the hands of prison guards. It was the type of appointed case every lawyer had to take in order to practice before the Federal District Court. Neither the firm nor Jack received compensation, and the partners made it clear in their subtle way that associates were to spend as little time on such cases as ethically possible. Almost without exception, the cases were losers.

  Jack had already won his first trial, a straightforward wrongful termination suit in which he'd represented the employer being sued. All of the evidence supported the employer's position; only an idiot could have left the courthouse without a verdict.

  But the prisoner case was different.

  The odds of winning were slim to none.

  But whether too naïve at the time or simply too stubborn, he refused to accept that the case was the loser all the partners told him it was. He believed his client's claims of abuse and was convinced he could make the jury see the facts the way he saw them.

  On the first morning of trial, as he left Newman's offices on foot for the

  courthouse, file boxes in tow on a rolling caddy, he received pats on the back and pep talks that focused not on winning, but on not letting the impending loss bother him too much. He knew then that a career at Newman wasn't in his future.

  Three and a half days later, he left the courthouse with a verdict so rare it made the front page of the next day's paper. He knew then that a career as a trial lawyer was.

  On the way home, Jack picks up Jamie from his friend Christopher's house.

  Ironically, Jamie was at this same friend's house four years earlier when the news broke about Jack being Jenny's alibi.

  Now, Christopher's mother eyes Jack with a look somewhere between sympathy and skepticism, and this tells him the story has hit the news. As Jamie ducks under his arm and heads for the car, she wishes them Merry Christmas with forced cheeriness and quickly shuts her door before Jack can return the sentiment.

  By the time they enter their

  neighborhood, the snow completely blankets the ground. He turns onto their street and sees the news trucks and vans waiting. The flap on their mailbox hangs open.

  "Why are they back?" Jamie asks.

  "Just keep your door locked and your window up, okay?" Jack pulls alongside the curb and sees mail inside the box, the top envelope swollen and moist from the snow. Now they're rifling through his mail? He considers whether to remind them it's a federal offense. Instead, he lowers his window and quickly retrieves the mail as he tries to ignore the crush of bodies shouting questions at him and the microphones shoved in his face.

  "Daddy!" Jamie shrieks at seeing the rising window about to close on a hand gripping a microphone.

  "It's okay," Jack assures him. The hand slips out before getting trapped, as Jack knew it would. He grabs a pen and yellow legal pad from his briefcase, quickly scribbles a message and holds it up for the crowd to read.

  IF YOU USE VISUAL

  AND/OR AUDIO

  FOOTAGE OF MY SON, I

  WILL PURSUE ALL

  LEGAL REMEDIES

  AGAINST YOU.

  When he pulls into the garage, Claire's side is empty. He lowers the door, shuts off the ignition, and closes his eyes. For a moment he understands Jenny's desire to give up. Fighting, even when innocent—

  especially when innocent—is exhausting.

  Have I decided Jenny is innocent? He feels Jamie's worried gaze. "It's okay, buddy,"

  he says again. "Everything will be okay."

  "Are they the reason we didn’t put up lights this year?" Jamie asks, startling Jack with the direction of the question. This is the first year they didn’t string outside lights. Even the Christmas Jack missed, after Claire kicked him out, the house had lights. She didn’t decorate as much as he usually did, but it was something. This year, both Jack and Claire were unwilling to brave the cameras they knew would be pointed at them if they tried to adorn the house with holiday cheer.

  "Yeah," Jack sighs, "they’re the reason."

  Jack now thinks, for Jamie's sake, they should have at least hired someone to do it.

  His phone rings and he sees Harley and Ruth on the screen. Knowing it's

  probably Harley, he debates whether to answer or ignore it. But maybe Claire went to her parents' house and is trying to reach him. Maybe her cell phone battery died.

  But Jack's luck still hasn't turned.

  "Jack," Harley says with mock kindness.

  "Harley."

  "Enjoying the little Christmas gift from my friends at the SLPD?"

  The question stuns Jack into silence—

  at first, because he's trying to process its meaning, and then, because of his rage.

  Harley. The leak was Harley's doing.

  He feels Jamie's gaze, waiting to see what Grandpa wants. Jack somehow stills his shaking hand enough to hit the End Call button. "The call dropped," he says.

  A lame explanation, but one Jamie accepts. Or else the look on his father's face has made him afraid not to.

  He fingers through the mail then, barely registering its contents. But when he sees a letter addressed to John W.

  Hilliard from the "Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, Missouri Supreme Court," his throat closes and he has trouble breathing.

  Harley has also made good on his

  original threat.

  His attempt to have Jack disbarred has officially begun.

  Jack hears the television as soon as he and Jamie enter the house. Realizing it's tuned to the news and the news is about him, he makes a racket so Jamie won't hear. He slams the garage door; he jangles his keys and swings his briefcase so it lands with a thud on the dryer. By the time they round the corner to the kitchen and family room, Michael has taken the hint and switched stations. He lies on the
couch, one hand behind his head, the other gripping the television remote.

  He pretends not to notice Jack and Jamie. Jack is about to say hello—he's not looking for a fight—when he notices the bags of groceries on the counter. Jamie sees them, too; he hurries over to peek into each one to see what surprises await him.

  "Has Mom been home?" Jack asks. No response. "Michael? Has Mom been home?" Still, nothing. " Michael."

  "What?" Michael mutters the word so quietly that Jack has trouble interpreting the tone.

  "Has Mom been home?"

  "No."

  "Did you go to the grocery store?"

  "No."

  He obviously plans to make Jack work for every bit of information. Jack sets the mail on the middle island, walks over to the couch, removes the remote from Michael's hand, and shuts off the television.

  "Where did the groceries come from?"

  "Mrs. Edmond dropped them off."

  Jack pieces together what happened.

  Claire must have heard his message and understood immediately that the media would descend upon them again, so she asked Marcia to pick up groceries for her.

  Jack wonders if Marcia met up with the crowd outside, too, or if she dropped them off earlier.

  "Did you already put away the cold stuff?"

  Michael shakes his head.

  " Was there cold stuff?"

  Jamie yanks open the refrigerator just as Jack asks the question. "Yup, there's the ham!" He seems to have already dismissed the spectacle outside.

  "Yeah," Michael says as if Jamie hasn't already answered. "She put it away."

  The door from the garage is suddenly flung open. It bangs loudly against the wall in the laundry room. The violence of the entrance tells Jack that Claire is home and that she plans to get right to the heart of the matter. The post-Sedona calm is officially over.

  She drops her purse and satchel on the kitchen table. Her keychain follows, clanging as she lets it fall from her grip.

  "Michael, Jamie, get started on your homework. Jack, can I see you upstairs?"

  The chill in her voice rivals the air outside.

  "But we're on Christmas break!"

  Michael protests.

  "You still have homework, don't you?"

  "Yeah, but—"

  "Then get started on it."

  She climbs the stairs without a further glance at any of them. Despite her command, Jack plans to wait a few minutes before he follows.

  "You want me to fix you a snack, Jamester?" he asks Jamie, who managed a minute ago to get excited about

  Christmas. Now he's slouched over the kitchen table digging books and papers out of his Iron Man back pack. It breaks Jack's heart, seeing him so confused.

  Michael's feigned apathy upsets Jack, of course, but it doesn't surprise him. Jamie, though, has always been oblivious to the cruelties of the world.

  "I'm not hungry. I ate lunch at Christopher's." He answers without looking at Jack.

  The whoosh of water behind the family room wall draws Jack's attention back to Claire. The sound that comes from the poorly insulated pipe whenever anyone flushes a toilet upstairs has irritated him since the day they moved in. For months he dogged the builder about it, but eventually gave up when more important things demanded his attention. Now what he wants is to take a baseball bat to both the wall and the pipe.

  He swipes the only piece of mail he cares about off the counter and heads up after his wife.

  Claire sits on the bed, staring out the window at the snow. He tucks the

  envelope into his back pocket. Quietly he closes and locks the door in case Jamie decides to act as peacemaker and tries to join them. Jack reminds himself not to take his anger at Harley out on Claire.

  "Sorry I interrupted whatever you had going on at the university. Earl was afraid

  —"

  She stops him with a look. "Tell me exactly what happened that night."

  For a moment he simply stands by the door; they stare at each other. "With Celeste?"

  "Yes, with Celeste. Unless there's a different night I should know about."

  He crosses the room. Instead of taking a spot next to her, he sits on the sill of the window just across from her. The glass is cold against his back, but he ignores it.

  He needs to be facing her. "I've told you everything."

  "No, you didn't tell me about hairs.

  You didn't tell me she scratched you."

  "When have we taken a moment alone to talk about this in any detail?" When she doesn’t respond, he says, "You know how it works, Claire. You know as well as I do where the hair in her bra came from."

  Her gaze remains unyielding even as her eyes tear up. "Do I?"

  "Don't you?" His frustration builds.

  The one person who should have his back still doubts him. "You know they were on the couch. I didn't see Michael or Celeste until after I told them to get dressed, but you know she was probably—"

  "I don't know anything, Jack! I don't know anything except the little you've told me. So it's all hearsay as far as I'm concerned!" She spits the word 'hearsay'

  at him. " Unreliable hearsay."

  He lets out a disgusted laugh. Shakes his head. "Thanks for that."

  "What do you want me to say? That I believe every word that comes out of your mouth even though you continue to keep things from me?"

  "I haven't kept anything from—"

  "You didn't tell me about any of this evidence. Why do I have to find out everything from the press?"

  "Maybe because every time we start talking about the case, it disintegrates into this!"

  She purses her lips, but he sees she's weary and might be willing to listen.

  He lowers his voice, tries to say the next words gently. "Tell me what you want to know. I'm not hiding anything from you."

  "I just want to know what happened that night, okay? Everything, good or bad.

  I don't want to be the last to find out.

  Can't you understand that?"

  "I do understand. I've told you what happened. Maybe I haven't been specific enough, but it's not because I have anything to hide."

  "Explain the hair in her bra."

  He told this to Earl several times, but Claire's right; he never explained it to her, not in any detail. "I woke to hear voices. I looked at the clock. It was past time for Celeste to be home. I was about to go down to see what was happening, but when I got to the top of the stairs, I could tell from their voices they were drunk and fooling around on the couch."

  Claire listens with her head tilted. Her lips are pressed tight, her arms crossed.

  He realizes she doesn't absorb the meaning of what he just said. "Your son was screwing his girlfriend, Claire." She's about to protest, but he cuts her off. "I heard her say, 'I think someone's coming.'

  And do you know how he responded?"

  "He's your son, too," Claire mumbles, but Jack catches the spite in the remark.

  Is she even listening to him? Or does she simply want to fight? He won't take her detour this time.

  "He said, 'I hope so.' That was his response to 'I think someone's coming.'

  I'm willing to bet he didn't mean he hoped one of us was about to show up."

  The phone on the nightstand rings.

  Claire glances at it as if debating whether to answer. Don't you dare, Jack thinks.

  You're the one who wanted to have this conversation.

  After three rings it stops. After so many harassing calls, Jack instructed both Michael and Jamie to let them go to voicemail if they don't recognize the number.

  "I made my presence known, but I gave them time to get dressed. I can't swear her bra was off, but I think it's likely.

  That had to be when she picked up the hair."

  "Why didn't you tell me this?" Her tone hasn't changed. He can't decide whether she believes him and is angry that she didn't know, or whether she's still skeptical. He doesn't answer because anything he might say will sound as if h
e's blaming her for his silence. He shrugs and raises his hands in a what can I say gesture.

  She scoffs at his vague response. "Is it true you parked for a couple hours with her in Rockwoods?"

  There it is. There's the question that, when answered, will cause her to distrust him more. Somehow, he and Claire have never even talked about where he and Celeste were while Celeste sobered up.

  He may be able to explain away the physical evidence, but Jack and Celeste are the only two who will ever know with certainty what happened in the car that night. He can't prove or disprove any of it. Whatever Claire ultimately decides, it will have to be a decision based on nothing more than faith, or lack of.

  "Yes." At the word, Claire's face tightens. It's slight—she tried to remain impassive—but he sees it. "She'd asked me to pull over. She said she was going to be sick. She was just stalling. When I started to leave, she begged me to wait.

  She didn't want her dad to know she'd been drinking."

  Claire reaches over and grabs his right wrist. She roughly yanks his arm toward her, forcing him off the windowsill. His shirtsleeves are already rolled up; she searches his arm. When she doesn't find what she's looking for—the scratch was superficial and didn't leave a scar—she pushes him away. He feels like a

  specimen.

  "They're saying they have pictures of your arm that prove the two of you struggled. And that your skin was under her fingernails. What are they talking about?"

  "She started to panic when I said I had to tell her dad everything. She seemed terrified of him, what he might do. She went a bit crazy on me. I reached down to put the car in gear and she grabbed my arm."

  "She grabbed your arm so hard that she scratched it?" The way she speaks the question, he knows what she left unsaid.

  Yeah, right.

  "Yes. She didn't just grab me. She clawed at me."

  Claire won't meet his eye. She looks past him outside the window and shakes her head. She doesn't believe him.

  "Claire."

  "What?" She whispers the one word, still staring at whatever has her attention in the yard.