Gail Bowen - The Endless Knot

As I frequently did, I had left my cell at the house, and there was a message on it from Jill Oziowy. She was at the office, and when she picked up, she was curt. “Why do you bother having a cell if you never answer it?” she said.

“And Happy Thanksgiving to you,” I said.

“Sorry. It’s crazy around here.”

“So go home,” I said. “It’s a holiday.”

“Spoken like a woman in a relationship with a millionaire.”

“I don’t think Zack’s a millionaire.”

“Well, you’re wrong. I checked him out. Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about Daddy Warbucks. I just scored a live interview with Kathryn Morrissey. She’s going to be the lead segment on the weekend Canada Tonight.”

“Does Sam Parker’s side get equal time?”

“No, because this isn’t about the trial. It’s about journalistic ethics.”

“So why not interview a person who knows something about journalistic ethics?”

“Jo, you’re supposed to remain neutral.”

“Neutral as in letting Kathryn Morrissey shred Sam’s reputation two nights before his trial begins?”

“Kathryn will be discussing how journalists pursue truth. Period. It has nothing to do with Sam Parker.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You know NationTV wouldn’t be letting Kathryn Morrissey deliver her Journalism 101 lecture in prime time if Sam Parker wasn’t going on trial.”

Jill’s voice was icy. “The journalist’s obligation to truth is at the core of this trial.”

“What about the journalist’s obligation to be ethical?”

“You are such a fucking moralist, Jo.”

“Finished?”

“No. When I talked to Kathryn today, I told her you’d be doing a nightly piece on the trial for us. I also told her you were in a relationship with Sam’s lawyer. She said that didn’t worry her. She knew you’d be fair.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel guilty?”

“It’s supposed to make you reflect on the story I hired you to tell.”

“Jill, we’ve been friends for thirty years, and I think we’re about thirty seconds away from doing ourselves some serious damage. I’m going to hang up. Have a good Thanksgiving.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow night after the interview airs,” Jill said and she hung up. No holiday wishes for me.

Zack worked through lunch. When he came over afterwards to take the little girls and me for a boat ride around the lake, I handed him a sandwich and told him about the Kathryn Morrissey interview.

“Well, that’s shitty news,” he said. Then he wolfed down his tuna salad sandwich.

“Good lunch,” he said. “Thanks. Are the kids ready to go?”

“Are you really not bothered by this?”

“Sure, but I’m not going to let it wreck our day.”

“Can you teach me how to compartmentalize?”

“No problem,” he said. “Can you teach me how to make tuna salad?”

The day was windy, clear, and fresh, and Zack, who usually drove his Chris-Craft across the water at speeds that made my adrenalin pump, took it slow, staying within easy distance of the shoreline as he circled the lake. I was grateful. And there was something else. I had snapped Madeleine and Lena into matching life jackets that signalled their commitment to water safety with a cartoon of a whale and the legend “Buoy, oh boy.” As always, I was wearing my life jacket. Standard procedure, but until that day Zack had habitually left his life jacket on the seat beside him: within reach if someone challenged him, but useless in an emergency. That afternoon, he slipped it on before we set out.

As I settled in behind him with the girls, I patted his shoulder approvingly. “Getting cautious in your old age?”

“Nope, just increasingly aware of the fact that I’ve got a lot to lose.”

The sun was still warm at 5:00 p.m., so we fired up the barbeque, threw blankets on the leaf-littered lawn, and ate our burgers outside. After dinner, Mieka and Greg and Pete and Charlie took the boat out, and Zack and I sat, hand in hand, watching Madeleine and Lena play in the lengthening shadows of the trees. That night, intoxicated by fresh air and the novelty of spending the night together, we turned in early. By the time I’d finished brushing, flossing, and slathering on the Oil of Olay, Zack was in bed. I turned out the light and crawled in beside him.

He put his arm around me. “Happy?” he said.

“I am. How about you?”

“If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

I laughed. “You are such a smoothy. Speaking of which, did you and Charlie ever talk?”

“We did. I took your advice and waited till noon, but I still woke him up. I apologized and told him I had one quick question about the Glenda Parker interview. He assured me that he and Glenda were alone during the taping, and he hadn’t told a soul about the edit.”

“That’s good news,” I said.

“It is,” Zack agreed. “And Charlie welcomed the opportunity to share it. He said it was important for me to know that I could trust him.”

“A story with a happy ending,” I said.

“The story’s not over,” Zack said. “Charlie offered to scramble me some eggs.”

“And you took him up on his offer.”

“Sure. I figured there was something on his mind, and this close to a trial, I don’t leave any stone unturned. Besides, I was hungry.”

“So what did Charlie want to talk about?”

“Fathers. He asked if I was close to my mine. I think if I had been, Charlie and I would have eaten our eggs and said sayonara. But lucky for me, I saw my old man precisely once and that was for less than an hour.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you mention your father.”

“There’s nothing to mention. Until three years ago, I’d never clapped eyes on the man. But the Hampton acquittal got a lot of media coverage, and my father saw me on television. He called the office, identified himself, and said he wanted to see me. I figured what the hell, so I met him for lunch.”

“What was he like?”

I felt Zack’s muscles tense. “He was a maggot. A piece-of-shit lawyer who ordered a number of very stiff drinks, pushed his food around on his plate, suggested I throw some business his way, and asked for a little something to tide him over.”

“Did you give him money?”

“Sure. I wrote him a cheque. Quickest way to get rid of a maggot is to throw it some meat. He couldn’t get to the bank quick enough. I guess he was afraid I’d change my mind. Anyway, he left me his business card and told me to stay in touch.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Nope. After he left, I finished my wine, went to the can, ripped up his card, and flushed it down the toilet.”

“He never came back for more money?”

“Many times. Norine handles it.”

“By …?”

“Giving him what he wants – in an envelope – sent through the mail. No more up-close-and-personal.”

“Zack, I’m sorry –”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Zack said quickly, cutting me off. “Your turn now. What about your parents?”

“They’re dead. My father was a doctor. My mother was an alcoholic. For most of my life she might as well have been dead.”

“Wow. Both of us, eh?” Zack kissed me and for a moment everything else fell away. When he spoke his voice was gentle. “But we turned out all right, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” I said. “We turned out all right.”

I drew closer and we lay side by side watching the play of light and shadows on the ceiling. “So what happened with Charlie?” I said finally.

“As promised, he made me eggs. While he was cooking, he riffed on all the variations of what he called ‘the look’ – the way people react when they’re confronted with what he referred to as ‘people like us.’ ”