Danielle Steel - Full circle

“Of course I was. Oh Harry, I'm so happy for both of you!” There were tears in her eyes, too, and she invited him up for a drink. He was there five minutes later, and he looked tired, but the happiest she'd ever seen. And it was the strangest feeling, watching him, listening to him tell it all, as though it had been the first baby that had ever been born, and Averil were miraculous. She almost envied them, and yet at the same time, she felt a terrible void deep in her soul, as though that part of her just wasn't there, almost as though it had been left out. It was like listening to someone speak a foreign tongue and admiring them tremendously, but having no understanding of the language at all. She felt completely in the dark, and yet she thought it was wonderful for them.

It was five o'clock in the morning before he left, and she slept for a little less than two hours before getting up to get ready for court, and she went back to her big case. It dragged on for more than three weeks, and the jury stayed out for nine days, after Tana argued before them heroically. And when they finally came in, she had won. The defendant was convicted of every charge and although the judge refused to impose capital punishment on him, he was sentenced to prison for life, and deep within her, Tana was glad. She wanted him to pay for what he had done, although his going to prison would never bring the girl back to life.

The newspapers said that she had argued the case brilliantly, and Harry teased her about it when she came to see the baby in Piedmont after that, calling her Madam Hotshot, and giving her a bad time.

“All right, all right, enough. Let me see this prodigy you've produced, instead of giving me so much flak.” She was fully prepared to be acutely bored and was surprised to discover how sweet the baby was. Everything was tiny and perfect and she hesitated when Averil tried to hand him to her. “Oh, God … I'm afraid to break him in two.…”

“Don't be silly.” Harry grabbed the baby easily from his wife and plopped him into Tana's arms, and she sat staring down at him, utterly amazed at how lovely he was, and when she handed him back, she felt as though she had lost something and she looked at them both almost enviously, so much so that when she left, he told Averil victoriously, “I think we got to her, Ave,” and indeed she thought about them a great deal that night, but by the following week, she had another big rape case on her hands, and two big murder cases after that. And the next thing she knew, Harry called her victoriously. He had not only passed the bar, but he'd been offered a job, and he could hardly wait to start.

“Who hired you?” She was happy for him. He had worked hard for it. And now he laughed.

“You won't believe this, Tan. I'm going to work for the P.D.”

“The public defender's office?” She laughed too. “You mean I have to try my cases against you?” They went out to lunch to celebrate and all they talked about was work. Marriage and babies were the last thing on her mind. And the next thing she knew, the rest of the year had flown by, and another one on its heels, trying murders and rapes and assaults and assorted other crimes. Only once or twice did she actually find herself working on the same case Harry was on, but they had lunch whenever they could, and he had been in the public defender's office for two years when he told her that Averil was pregnant again. “So soon?” Tana looked surprised. It seemed as though Harrison Winslow V had been born just moments before, but Harry smiled.

“He'll be two next month, Tan.”

“Oh, my God. Is that possible?” She didn't see him often enough, but even at that it seemed impossible. He was going to be two. It was incredible. And she herself was twenty-eight years old, which didn't seem so remarkable actually, except that everything had gone so fast. It seemed like only yesterday when she was going to Green Hill with Sharon Blake, and taking long walks with her into Yolan. Only yesterday when Sharon was alive, and Harry could dance.…

Averil had a baby girl this time, with a tiny pink face, a perfect little mouth, and enormous almond-shaped eyes. She looked incredibly like her grandfather, and Tana felt an odd tug at her heart when she looked at her, but again, it didn't feel like anything she could ever do herself. She said as much to Harry when they had lunch the following week.

“Why not, for chrissake? You're only twenty-nine years old, or you will be in three months.” He looked at her seriously then. “Don't miss out on it, Tan. It's the only thing I've ever done that really matters to me, the only thing I really give a damn about … my children and my wife.” She was shocked to hear him say that. She thought his career was more important to him than that, and then she was even more startled to hear that he was thinking of giving up his job with the P.D., and going into practice for himself.

“Are you serious? Why?”

“Because I don't like working for someone else, and I'm tired of defending those bums. They all did whatever it is they claim they didn't do, or at least most of them anyway, and I'm just sick of it. It's time for a change. I was thinking of going into partnership with another lawyer I know.”

“Wouldn't it be dull for you? Ordinary civil law?” She made it sound like a disease and he laughed as he shook his head.

“No. I don't need as much excitement as you do, Tan. I couldn't run the crusades you do every day. I couldn't survive that day in, day out. I admire you for doing it, but I'll be perfectly happy with a small comfortable practice, and Averil and the kids.” He had never set his sights high, and he was happy with things just as they were. She almost envied him that. There was something deeper and hungrier that burned within her. It was the thing that Miriam Blake had seen in her ten years before, and it was still there. It wanted tougher cases, across-the-board convictions, it wanted harder and more, and greater challenges all the time. She was particularly flattered when, the following year, she was assigned to a panel of attorneys that met with the governor over a series of issues that affected the criminal processes all over the state. There were half a dozen lawyers involved, all of them male except for Tana, two of them from Los Angeles, two from San Francisco, one from Sacramento, and one from San Jose, and it was the most interesting week she thought she had ever spent. She was exhilarated day after day. The attorneys and the judges and politicians conferred long into the night, and by the time she got into bed every night, she was so excited about what they'd been talking about that she couldn't sleep for the next two hours. She lay awake running it all through her mind.

“Interesting, isn't it?” The attorney she sat next to on the second day leaned over and spoke to her in an undervoice as they listened to the governor discuss an issue she had been arguing about with someone the night before. He was taking exactly the position she had herself and she wanted to stand up and cheer.

“Yes, it is.” She whispered back. He was one of the attorneys from Los Angeles. He was tall and attractive and had gray hair. They were seated next to each other at lunch the next day, and she was surprised to discover how liberal he was. He was an interesting man, from New York originally, he had gone to Harvard Law School, and had then moved to Los Angeles. “And actually, I've been living in Washington for the last few years, working with the government, but I just came back out West again, and I'm glad I did.” He smiled. He had an easy way, a warm smile, and she liked his ideas when they talked again that night, and by the end of the week, all of them felt as though they had become friends. It had been a fascinating exchange of ideas for the past week.