The Good Fight by Lia Matera

Author:Lia Matera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

19

I closed my eyes and my bedroom seemed to swirl as if I were being flushed down a drain.

I rewound my message cassette, fast-forwarding over reporters’ requests for statements and information (including why White, Sayres & Speck claimed I was no longer with the firm). I finally reached the right spot on the tape. And there was Hal’s voice:

“Laura?” Background noise: voices, music—probably a bar. Someone asking, Got it? “You’re probably taking a lot of shit about what you”—a garbled word or two, drowned out by a hoot of background laughter—“Crosetti. I saw it on TV. I don’t say this very often, not as often as”—more inaudible words— “thought you did fine. Crosetti deserved a departure from the usual horseshit.” A long pause. Even the background noise grew quieter. “Oh god.”

That was all. A few words of unexpected approval. And a despairing, “Oh god.”

My machine continued spewing out messages. A woman saying, “Susan Yen, Channel 33. I was at the press conference. Do you remember me from an interview after the verdict in—” I clicked it off, seeing, in a blink of the mind’s eye, an Asian woman in a red suit.

Hal might be coherent again (thank god), but he wasn’t all right. His voice was labored, weary, tentative. I remembered his unsteady progress across the rehabilitation room floor, the confusion in his eyes. Jesus, only five days ago. Where was he sleeping now? How was he finding food?

I pulled the tape out of the machine, dropping it twice before I got my trembling under control. Couldn’t Hal understand? I’d thought he needed care; I wasn’t trying to force it on him. Bad enough to pay for your mistakes without having to pay for your good intentions, too.

I looked around the bedroom, loathing every hand-stitched eyelet in the comforter, every shimmer in the oiled wainscot. My modest opulence offended Hal. To Danny, it must have seemed obscene.

God, I hoped there was more to me than the sum of my possessions.

I slipped the cassette tape into my suit pocket and replaced it with a blank. Almost immediately the phone rang, and my message began to play.

As soon as I heard a stranger’s voice respond to the beep, I left the bedroom. I went out looking for Hal.

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