Laura Caldwell - Claim of Innocence

“What are you having?” Theo asked Spence.

“Helmsley gin with a splash of tonic.”

“I’ll join you in that.”

I smiled, pleased. The truth was, I’d never known Theo to drink gin, but I loved that he was making an effort with my family. I squeezed his hand. When I had dated Sam he’d never joined Spence in a cocktail, and this fact, although meaningless, made me beam at Theo more.

“Good man!” Spence pounded Theo on the back and went toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Isabel, I’ll get you a glass of wine.”

Theo looked at my brother, who had stepped up to us. “Good to see you,” Theo said.

“Yeah, hey,” Charlie said pleasantly. They shook hands and started chatting about Poi Dog Pondering, a local band we’d seen a few months ago when Charlie and Theo first met. Charlie saw live music frequently, and he started rattling off other band names, then Theo told him about a bunch of British bands he followed.

Soon, Spence was back with our drinks, and we were all seated around the fireplace without even one second of that awkward, So, Theo, tell us what you do for a living kind of conversation. Instead, it flowed from one thing to another, from Theo’s company to Charlie’s job as a radio producer—after years of living happily off a worker’s comp settlement—to the trial with Maggie. At some point, my mom asked Theo where he was from.

“We moved around a lot for my dad’s work,” he answered. “California, Oklahoma, New York. Then we moved to Chicago when I was in high school.”

“Brothers and sister?” my mom asked.

“Just me.”

“And if I could ask, Theo, how old are you?”

I shot my mom a glance. She already knew the answer to that question.

“Twenty-two,” Theo said unapologetically.

I’d wondered if my mother would think Theo too young for my thirty years. Sam had been a perfect age, she’d told me once while we were engaged. But now she only said, “So young to own a business.”

“Yeah, I went to Stanford for a year,” Theo said. “I met my partner, Eric, who was a senior, and we started working on this software. By the end of that year, we were selling it. My dad helped us form the company, and we’ve been growing strong ever since.”

“Where exactly is your office, son?” Spence asked, loving anything that had to do with commercial real estate. That drew Theo and Spence into a new conversation.

We listened for a while, then my mother stood and gestured at me to follow her to the kitchen.

When we were there, she pulled me toward a counter and put her hand on my shoulder. Her blue eyes, more fair than Spence’s, were clear and striking. “I like him,” she said.

“You do? I’m glad.”

She nodded. “For many reasons. And my God, he is gorgeous.”

My mother rarely, if ever, commented on men’s looks, but I wasn’t surprised because nearly everyone mentioned Theo’s. When I’d introduced Theo to my former assistant, Q, short for Quentin, he’d commented—crudely, yes, but accurately—that every person in the room, male or female, gay or straight, young or old, wanted to fuck him. Everyone lit up for Theo, got a little red in the face, a little flustered. And the adoration only grew when people realized that he didn’t notice those reactions. Theo knew he was good-looking, sure, but he really didn’t know how good-looking. Or maybe he just didn’t like to identify with his hotness. Theo was a working guy, someone who ran his own web-design software company, and I think he liked to be connected to that more than anything.

Now, in my mom’s kitchen, I sighed a bit. “Yes, Theo is gorgeous.”

“Has your father met him yet?”

“I don’t think they need to meet.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed a little. “He is your father. And he lives in Chicago now.”

“When did you start advocating for Dad?”

My mom looked pensive, but her thoughtfulness appeared to have some curiosity about it, as if she were looking inside herself and interested in what she found there. This was different from how she usually did things; usually she shut down, became depressed and we all tiptoed around her.

In the living room we heard Charlie guffaw and Theo saying, “Exactly, dude,” laughing with him. A good sound.

“Your father deserves your respect,” she said.

“Does he?”

She looked at me, her blue eyes slicing into mine. “Yes.” A slight bob of her head. “And you should make some attempt to give him that.”

I’d seen my dad occasionally, but it was always awkward. More than awkward. For most of my life, he wasn’t around. We had believed him dead, when in truth he’d been working undercover for years. When I’d first seen him again, it was shocking. I was hunted by a faction of the Italian mob that my father had worked most of his life to shut down. As far as I knew, those particular dangers were gone now. But then again I knew that only because my father had told me so. The truth was, I didn’t entirely trust my father. Mostly, we made small talk, as if we weren’t ready to go into the big things yet. Lately, I’d avoided him. I didn’t know where to place him in my life, in my emotions. Avoidance was unlike me, but it had seemed the only workable option as of late.

“I’ll ask again,” I said to my mom, “when did you start being his advocate?”

The air was prickly as we stared at each other. We were in a minor spar, new territory.

A rueful smile came to my mother’s face, accompanied by—what was it?—a look of contentment, it seemed. It was that contentment, more than her smile or our spat that shook me somewhat. So unlike her, I thought.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose your sense of intuition?” my mom asked. Without waiting for my answer, she shook her head. “No, you have always been so good at following your gut instincts.”

“That’s not true. Last year, when Sam disappeared, I had no idea if my gut instincts were right or wrong. I was confused all the time.” I let myself feel the grief of that situation again, the whallop of confusion that had hit me over and over.

“But ultimately you followed your intuition,” my mom said. “Your intuition told you Sam was a good man and he had a reason for doing what he did. And you were right.”

“I still lost him.” But now he might be back.…

“I know how hard it’s been.” She gave me a sad face. “Really, Isabel, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up. This isn’t the time for that conversation.”

In the other room, Charlie said something about preseason football, followed by the sound of a TV being turned on. My mother shook her head a little. Spence had insisted that they put a TV in the living room. It was hidden behind a painting that would slide away, but my mother still firmly believed TVs had no place in a formal living room. Spence had won.

“What conversation are you talking about?” I asked.

An exhale. “Well, I was just going to say that what I’ve learned lately, or maybe what I’ve decided—” she paused, seemed to be regrouping her thoughts “—is that someone can have a gut instinct and struggle with it, just as you did when Sam disappeared. That wasn’t easy, but you were smart enough to think of all the options, to play them out, and ultimately you stuck with your intuition.”

I thought about it. “Okay.” I searched for my intuition about Sam now and found my head empty.

“When your father died so many years ago, I lost that ability. I knew he was alive. I knew it in my soul. But every thing told me I was wrong. And so I had to shut down that instinct. Because he was dead. Because I buried him. Or so I thought.”

Her blue eyes shone bright against the white backdrop of her skin, more animated than I’d seen in years. Maybe ever.