Jess Walter - The Zero

April seemed to be straining with every word. “There were no children. And she won’t make a claim.”

The lawyer glanced at Remy. “Nevertheless, I should have the information-”

“She worked in his office,” April said. “She died, too.”

“Oh,” said the lawyer, and Remy could tell that the lawyer was somewhat pleased to have this wrinkle out of the way. “Office romance. Sure. Oldest story.” Then he remembered his client. “I’m sorry.”

“But I do want Derek’s parents to have some of the money,” April said, trying to change the subject.

The lawyer looked back at April disapprovingly through his bifocals. “I wouldn’t advise that.” Then he looked at Remy, as if hoping he might talk some sense into her. “If you give them money, it doesn’t preclude them from taking action to get more… and in fact, it sends a message that you believe they are deserving.”

“They are deserving.”

The lawyer was becoming frustrated. “It is my responsibility to tell you… that you are entitled… to his entire estate. All of it. What you do beyond that, well…” Then, as an afterthought, “But you should know that even if you give his family some money, my fee comes out of the full settlement, and not simply the portion you choose to keep, so you should-”

He clicked to the next screen. “Remember that.” The screen read: 3. Factoring in Dependents . He swung his head back to the wall.

“Now. Dependents. You would also be entitled to one hundred fifty thousand for each dependent… but you and your husband had no children, is that correct?”

“Yes,” April said meekly. “That’s correct.”

“But at one time you were planning to have children.”

“No. We weren’t.”

“I just mean, at one point, there was certainly talk of children,” he said, as if dropping a hint. “Young couple… that kind of thing.”

“No. I told you. We were separated.”

“Right. I understand. We’ve established that. But surely at some point you talked about having children.”

“No. It never came up.”

He turned his body again, wearily, as if it were a strain to look away from his PowerPoint presentation, and his hand went quickly back to the rash on his neck. “Look. Mrs. Kraft. I don’t mean to tell you what to say, but what couple doesn’t at least talk about having children? See? These are the kinds of details that can influence the examiner and the special master and have an impact on compensation-”

“We had no plans for kids.”

“-a young, attractive couple, their lives ahead of them, who had once planned for a family but were going through a difficult period, a temporary trial separation-”

“I can’t have children,” April said quietly. “I had a hysterectomy when I was nineteen.”

“Oh,” Remy and the lawyer said at the same time. April looked over at Remy.

The lawyer stuck his jaw out. “Okay. Right.” He opened his mouth, and Remy thought he was going to find some angle to exploit, but perhaps he sensed that he shouldn’t because he simply nodded and flipped to the next PowerPoint screen: 4. Computing Future Earnings .

The lawyer took out a pair of glasses, put them on, and looked through the bifocals at the chart on the wall. “This is going to be woefully less than the decedent actually could have earned… that’s just the way these settlements are being paid out… but you should know that in your case, we’re going to try for more because, frankly, this is one of the few areas where we can make up some ground. Now, the tables, based on age and income put…” He looked down at his legal pad to find the name. “…Derek’s total future earnings at two-point-two million, but we’re going to ask for three based on the high-risk high-reward nature of business law, and his potential for making partner based on evaluations from his personnel records. They won’t give you that much, but we need to ask. Now, if you could bring pay stubs, W-2s, copies of your income tax, any bonus letters he might have gotten… that will help us greatly.”

April nodded without looking up from her shoes.

“As far as other supporting documents: any medical bills, funeral expenses, counseling you may have undergone, any after-tax income that your husband might’ve received. And we’re going to make the argument that as a contracts lawyer with a degree in finance Derek had virtually no risk of unemployment.” He smiled at April. “This is when you get paid back for him spending all that time at work.”

Remy coughed and they both looked at him as if it had meant something. He looked away from them to his shoes and eventually the lawyer turned back to the wall and then thought of something else. The lawyer spun back around to face April and Remy. “Can you bring photos to the hearing?”

“Photos?”

“Yes. Wedding photos, vacation photos, holidays, that kind of thing. Pictures are tremendously effective… you can have the best sob story in the world, but what really sells it are photographs.” The lawyer began to turn back to his presentation, but then thought of something else. “Oh. And bring pictures of your sister, too. You’re not entitled to any compensation for her, obviously, but it doesn’t hurt to have the pictures handy.”

“Excuse me.” April jumped up and left the room, covering her mouth.

The lawyer stuck out his jaw again, stroked his neck again, and sighed. “That happens a lot. It’s… difficult.”

They waited quietly for a few minutes and then the lawyer checked his watch. “I have a noon, so I’m going to go over the rest of this with you and you can explain it to Ms. Kraft afterward, okay?” He began flipping through PowerPoint pages, pausing on the important ones.

Remy looked down the hall to see where April had gone.

“Now these are the breakdowns of deductions that the compensation board will factor from the total: for life insurance, pension plans, social security, and workers’ compensation, the sum of which we’ve calculated to be about one-point-six million, which we subtract from the two-point-seven we arrived at to get…”

“I don’t remember things too well,” Remy said, his voice a low croak.

“Don’t worry. It will all be included in the report that Mrs. Kraft gets.” He spun through several more pages before the lawyer arrived at a page with smaller writing than any of the others. It was a breakdown of the fees the law firm would take. He said that they were taking a reduced rate, but the lawyer pointed to two columns on the bottom of the page, deductions for “Vicarious Trauma” and “Compassion Fatigue.”

Remy leaned forward. Compassion fatigue? “Are those for… you?”

“Yes. For the lawyers working on the case. As you might imagine, these are difficult cases… emotionally.” He removed his glasses and wiped his dry eyes. Then he seemed to think of something else and put the glasses back on. He looked hard at Remy. “Oh, in case you are wondering, April can remarry without affecting her settlement in any way. You wouldn’t have to wait, in other words.” He smiled as if he and Remy were in the same profession. “So that’s good. For you. Obviously.” He smiled and reached in his pocket, pulled out a tin of mints, and offered Remy-

A BIG truck, the biggest he’d ever seen, sat on risers in front of him. It was a pickup as high as a two-story building, on tires taller than a man. At first Remy thought his sense of scale had been thrown off, that his eyes were playing some kind of trick, but this was, in fact, a giant truck. Remy looked around. He was in an arena of some kind – empty and dark – except here in the center, where spotlights shone down on the dirt floor and on this giant truck. He looked closer at the pickup. It was painted red and blue, airbrushed with American flags fluttering in an unseen wind, with an angry-looking eagle perched on the hood and, on the doors, a long list of familiar names, cops and firefighters, Italian, Irish, and Latin, like the roster of a Catholic school football league.