The Damage

by Caitlin Wahrer

  “You know how it is. Court’s backed up, DA’s backed up, and time hurts a case like Nick’s, so Eva will push it out as far as she can.”

  “What if he can’t wait that long?”

  “Nick has to just live his life, try to forget about the case.”

  There was another long pause.

  He started again. “Look, ah.” She was a professional, in a way, even if she wasn’t on this case. “Between us, Julia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not sure there’ll be a trial.”

  “Really?”

  “I just heard from a faux friend of Walker’s that he knows his goose is cooked. I think he’ll take a plea. Probably not until the eve of trial, you know how it goes, but then I bet he’ll take it. I think some of his bravado is for show. He’s scared shitless.”

  “Really? Did it sound like it would be soon?”

  “Well, no, he seems the type not to roll over until it’s really showtime. But Nick might not have to testify. Don’t tell him that, don’t get his hopes up, but I don’t think you need to worry so much about the end result. I think it’ll settle. It’s the waiting we can’t do anything about.”

  She paused. “Okay.” Her voice was high and quiet. She sounded like she was trying not to cry. “Thanks for your time, Detective.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, Julia.” She’d already hung up, but he needed to say the words anyway.

  56

  Julia Hall, 2015

  Julia hadn’t slept the past two nights. There were moments where it seemed she had fallen into a light sleep, but the whole time she was dreaming she was awake. Awake and obsessing over what her husband was going to do.

  She asked him how he would do it. He wouldn’t tell. When he would do it, and where. He wouldn’t tell. How he would ensure he was free from suspicion. He would be sure, he said. He just kept repeating his mantra: “It’s safer if you don’t know.”

  Julia didn’t feel safe. She felt frantic. He promised he would wait until the dispositional conference, when the case might settle. If Walker agreed to plead guilty, Nick wouldn’t tell the prosecutor the truth, and maybe Tony would let this go. So she had until January 12. Two weeks. Two more weeks to try to figure something out.

  She could go straight to Nick—try to get him to give up the case—but would that solve the problem? Or would Tony do it anyway, because giving up the case meant Walker went unpunished? And if something happened to Walker after Nick abandoned the case, would they be even more suspicious of Tony? Would it look like Nick had given up the case so that Tony could enact justice of his own?

  She’d already tried calling Detective Rice the day before. It was pointless, just like she’d expected. Walker had done nothing to get himself thrown back in jail, out of Tony’s reach.

  She’d tried to reason with Tony: What about the kids? What about Nick? What about her? It was like he couldn’t hear her. He thought he had the moral high ground—he was so far up there he had altitude sickness.

  And morals—she was surprised by how little of her desperation to stop him came from the immorality of it.

  So much of her identity, as a lawyer, as a mother, as a wife, friend, person, had been focused on being good. It was such a vague goal, but she never questioned it, maybe because it came easily to her. Do the right thing. Treat people well. What was right was usually easy for her to identify. The first time she met with Mathis Lariviere and his mother, she had to convince both of them, not just the boy, that he should have a substance abuse evaluation and start therapy immediately, long before he was sentenced.

  “The better he is,” Julia said, “the better his result in the case will be.”

  “You mean the better he looks, the better his result,” his mother, Elisa, said coolly.

  “No,” Julia said. “He can’t just sit through a year of therapy with his headphones in. He’ll need to change. The judge will see through it, otherwise.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Elisa replied. “Some of us are good at looking good.”

  At the time, Julia wrote off the woman’s comment. They hadn’t seen eye to eye on much, she and Elisa Lariviere, whose son had told Julia things about his family that gave her chills. For Elisa to insinuate that Julia’s morality was an act had been laughable.

  But now she wondered. Maybe Julia had just been good at looking like she was good. Acting like she believed in doing moral things. Because in this moment, she cared far more about looking good than being good. Everything that kept her awake and squeezed sweat from her hairline had to do with Tony being caught. Not what he wanted to do in the first place.

  If Tony was caught, she’d lose him. The kids would lose him. He was a good man. That sounded impossible, given what he was doing right now, but Tony Hall was a good man, and a great father, and her kids were going to lose him if he wasn’t careful. And she’d told him from the start—from the first night they talked, she told him she would never marry a man who wasn’t serious about what that meant to her. Who wouldn’t fight like it was life or death to keep whatever they made together. She’d been so sure he was that man. How could he do this to her?

  There was only one thing she’d thought of that might work.

  She texted Charlie Lee.

  I need one last thing

  she wrote.

  And Charlie responded,

  Anything.

  57

  Julia Hall, 2015

  Julia leaned over her dresser as she worked mascara through the upper lashes of her left eye. Nina Simone crooned softly from her cell phone. She stepped back to survey her work—all that was left was lipstick. She selected a tube of brick red. It wasn’t her favorite, but Tony loved it, and it would vamp up her plain black dress. She applied the color to her open mouth and took her hair back down. The grays at the crown of her head caught the low light of the lamp on her dresser; she was due for a touch-up. She scrunched her fingers into her roots and refocused on the music. Nina wouldn’t worry about gray hairs—and she’d probably call them silver. Julia swayed a little to “Feeling Good” as the brass came in, letting the song seduce her. Sometime after they’d had babies, she’d come to feel that the act of getting ready for a date with her husband was the night’s first opportunity for foreplay. She was forcing the magic tonight.

  If they hadn’t made a reservation months in advance, they probably would have stayed in. One of the side effects of their decision to get married on New Year’s Eve nine years ago was that reservations were a necessity if they wanted to eat out on their anniversary. Julia had booked the table long before she knew she’d be spending all her free time wondering if her husband really was capable of killing a man.

  Julia picked up the small purse she’d abandoned on the bed earlier. She snapped the clasp open, and the envelope of her card peeked out. The words inside were imperfect, and mostly stolen, but she was satisfied that she had captured what she was feeling at rock bottom, beneath all the other emotions. This card might go onto the collage in the closet, and it might not. Would either of them want to remember this time?

  She knew what her notes meant to him, but this year she had been at a loss for what to put on paper. Earlier that evening, the card was still sitting blank in her office when she climbed into the shower. It was there that she’d thought of their first dance song: Barry White’s “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.” She’d slung a towel around herself and darted down the hall to write her favorite lines into the card. He was the sun and the moon, she wrote. “My first, my last, my everything.”

  Nine years ago today, they’d danced to this song. Everything had seemed so simple then. She had imagined their vows would be tested over a long life together, but not like this. She read the lines over again. The words seemed empty in the face of where they stood. But she had to say something, and there was still truth in the song. He was
still everything to her. That’s why it hurt so much.

  Now, she pushed the tube of lipstick into her purse, next to the card.

  “Wow,” Tony said from the doorway. She caught a glimpse of him in the mirror as she turned—clean lines and dark hair.

  “Wow yourself,” she said. “I love that blazer.”

  “I know you do,” he said, and he spun slowly for her to the music. “Notice anything . . . new?” he asked as he thrust his arm out in time with a trumpet’s bleat. His new watch popped from his sleeve, and Julia laughed in spite of herself. She was holding on to something angry, sad; it was palpable. She would let it go. At least for tonight, she would let it go.

  She bent to pull her heels on, and when she stood he had come to her. They were closer to eye level now with her added inches. He wrapped his hands around her waist and leaned in to kiss her gently; she sunk into him with a soft sigh. When her husband pulled away, his lips were smeared with melted red. She giggled and wiped them with her thumb, her fingers under his clean-shaven chin.

  “Maybe when my mom comes for the kids we should skip dinner,” he murmured, holding her close against his waist.

  “She’s watching them here—they’ll be asleep when we get home.” She pecked his cheek and stepped back.

  “Stay a minute,” he said with a wolfish grin, and pulled her back to him.

  “No,” she said flatly as she pushed his hands away and stepped back. He looked surprised, confused. She was, too. Something about him telling her to stay—holding her so firmly against him—had infuriated her, just for a split second. She crossed the room and paused at the door. She was being so cold to him lately; sometimes by choice, other times by impulse.

  “Grandma’s here!” Chloe shouted from the living room.

  Julia took the stairs quickly, leaving Tony behind.

  * * *

  Julia scuffed her feet as she stepped into the warmth of Buona Cucina, grinding slush and salt into the welcome mat.

  “Happy New Year,” the hostess said as she collected menus from her post. “Coatrack’s behind you.”

  Buona Cucina was a small, expensive Italian restaurant in downtown Orange where they’d celebrated a few anniversaries and birthdays over the years. With its exposed brick, hardwood floors, and decor, it reminded Julia of several places in Portland, including the Ruby, the bar she used to tend. Part of why she favored Buona Cucina for romantic nights was because it felt so much like the places she and Tony went on their first dates.

  They crossed a landing into the smaller of two dining areas. As they walked, Julia reached out and squeezed Tony’s hand: an unspoken apology for pushing him away earlier. Tony squeezed back.

  They ordered a bottle of sparkling water for the table, and a glass of pinot noir for Julia.

  “Will you at least tell me how you’re going to do it?”

  Tony looked surprised. “What?”

  Julia lowered her voice. “You know what.”

  He sighed. “Why do you want to talk about this on our anniversary?”

  “I can’t get it out of my system because you won’t tell me anything. Just tell me how.”

  “I want you to be safe. I need you to be, the kids—I think not telling you is what I have to do.”

  “But you can’t plan something like this alone. You keep saying you’re being careful, but how can I know that if you won’t let me ask you questions—test your plan.”

  “They’re not even going to know it was anything but an accident.”

  “Okay, so—” She shook her head. “Right there. That sounds like wishful thinking.”

  “It isn’t.” He adjusted the fork next to his plate.

  “You’re really going to do this?”

  He looked surprised. “I thought you were okay with it.”

  “When have I ever said that?”

  Tony frowned. “Well, I need you to get okay with it.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or, nothing, I guess,” he said as he straightened up in his chair. “I’ve told you what I’m doing.”

  “Where does that leave me?”

  “Supporting me, I thought.”

  “Cornered,” she said. “You’ve cornered me.”

  “I don’t know how to make you understand.”

  She shook her head. “I do understand about you and Nick. I didn’t grow up taking care of someone else. But I have you, and we have the kids. So what about us?”

  His face went soft in the candlelight. “I promise you we’ll be okay. I know it. Like I’ve known so much about you and me.”

  He put his hand over hers and went on. “I knew I’d marry you the day we went ice fishing with Margot and her ex, remember? And you dropped the flask in the hole, then snatched it out and took a sip?” He laughed softly. “I knew then, in a weirdly calm, almost psychic way, that we would be married, and everything would be okay. I feel the same now. I’ll be careful, and we’ll be fine.”

  Julia wanted to pull away from him, but she left her hand in his.

  The waiter appeared in her peripheral vision, sidling up to the table like he knew he was interrupting something. He took their orders and left. They sat for a moment in silence, unsure of where to pick up.

  Tony laid his napkin back on his plate. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom.”

  Julia was alone. She watched the flames flicker in the frosted glasses at the center of the table. Between the two candles was a single blossom in a thin glass. It was orange, with thin petals unfolding from the center.

  She had lost. There was nothing more to do but admit that she was not, in fact, as good as she thought. All of Tony’s talk about leaving her out of it was meaningless. When this was over, she would be complicit in what happened to Ray Walker.

  Tony talked about the moment he knew he’d marry her. Hers hadn’t been a moment so much as a day: a day they had a picnic with Nick. She’d met Nick before, but she’d been dating Tony for long enough on this day that they’d all dropped the pretenses of impressing each other. Instead, they were just being together. She watched how Tony talked to the boy. She listened to the strong warmth in his voice. Saw him put an arm around Nick at one point and squeeze him close. She saw all of this and thought, this is the man I want to make babies with. My children will have this man as their father. She had missed that he already was a father, in a way.

  And as much as Tony had driven her crazy at times in the beginning, always trying to do things for her, she had liked how he was a fixer and a fighter. He wouldn’t watch idly if their marriage grew stale. He would do anything for his family. And if he got sick one day, he would fight like hell to stay with them. As much as she loved Nick, loved him so much, she had missed how much a part of their family he was, by way of Tony. Tony was everything to her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love the kids. Maybe even more than she loved him. The soul has room for competing loves. She had three. Tony had four.

  She looked out the window beside their table. She could make out the shape of snow on the ground, but otherwise it was nothing but darkness. If they could just make it to spring, maybe everything would feel different. The sun and the crocuses would lighten up Tony’s heart. He would see that the world had not, in fact, gone pitch black. But spring was months away, and between here and there, Nick would tell the ADA his story, and the ADA would be forced to tell Walker. There would be media again, more talk, more public opinion about things people knew nothing about. And that was the clock that Tony was racing against. It would all be over long before spring came. When the light came back, would they be able to face what they’d done in the dark?

  Julia reached forward across the table and brushed her fingertips over the orange blossom’s broad face. She tipped the bloom down into the flame and watched the petals singe.

  58

  Tony Hall, 2016

  Things got eas
ier after their anniversary. After she found his stupid search on the computer, Julia kept surprising Tony with questions and arguments ad nauseum, every time they were away from the kids. He could feel her eyes on him when he looked at his phone or even just moved around the house. Tony wished she didn’t know anything at all about Walker—he wanted her in the dark, just to be safe. If something ever went wrong, she would not be an accomplice to him. But still, she knew almost nothing. He had stood firm in the face of her questions, and finally, after their anniversary, she stopped asking.

  At times he wondered if she was on his side, but the storm truly seemed to have passed. A day ago, Julia’s phone rang and Charlie Lee’s name lit up her screen. Tony locked eyes with her over the phone, then she answered on speaker and asked Charlie what was up. He said he had the contact information she needed for the records report. She gave Tony a withering look, and he put up his hands in surrender as she took the phone to the study. So it was true—she wasn’t using Charlie Lee to investigate Raymond Walker anymore. Still, there was something in it all that Tony wanted to analyze. He took the first couple of days of January off, and the kids were on school break. He’d expected to spend the days hanging out with her and the kids, but instead she’d been working on her records report most of the time. It was like she was subtly punishing him for lying about going to work by working while they should have been together as a family.

  At the moment, though, the four of them were together, sitting in the living room. Tony and Seb were lying in the recliner together, Seb’s tiny body wedged against his. Julia sat on the couch; Chloe perched behind her on the couch’s arm, her legs sticking out on either side of Julia. Tony was reading aloud from Swallows and Amazons, a gift that year from Julia’s mother. The inscription showed it had been Julia’s as a girl: Dad used to read you this, Julia’s mother had written. C & S will love it, too. Tony wished, in moments like these, that he’d met Julia’s father. He had been a wonderful parent, Julia told him. She desperately wished he’d made different choices at the end of his life, but until that moment, he had been perfect to her.