Look Closer

Apparently, at that point, the judge ordered the lawyers into chambers and shooed away the court reporter. Simon said the judge asked Glory for one reason why he shouldn’t hold her in contempt. She replied that she was concerned about how the Judicial Inquiry Board might feel about a sitting judge making on-the-record demeaning comments toward a female lawyer. The judge announced a recess for the rest of the day.

Word got back to the law firm, and the firm’s executive committee demanded she apologize to the judge. She refused. She left the firm that day and never went back.

But one of the women in the courtroom gallery that day obtained a copy of the transcript, framed this page, and gave it to Glory as a present.

It sounds like I would’ve liked Simon’s mom.

The last two photos were near the end, when Glory was bound to a wheelchair and had lost a good amount of her functioning. The animation in her face was replaced by a more deadened stare, her beaming smile now a crooked turn of her lip. I don’t know why Simon keeps these around. The last two years of her life were difficult for everyone and not the way to remember her, not the way she’d want to be remembered, if everything I’ve heard about her is true.

I think Simon keeps those photos to remember how everything fell apart.

—

Here it is, the password list, in his sock drawer. The password to his trust account is Glory010455, his mother’s name and date of birth.

I head downstairs. Simon put on coffee before he left, still hot in the thermos mug. It’s delicious. He uses good beans. And he sprinkled on some pumpkin spice before he brewed it. It’s not quite September, but it reminds me of autumn, my favorite season, which I’m sure is why he did it. He does little things like that for me all the time.

I wish it could be different with Simon and me. I wish he’d come out of that bubble more often. I don’t know if the law became his refuge after everything that happened with his parents or whether he’s just hardwired that way, but teaching and talking and writing about the law is everything to him, his passion, his life. The way he lights up when he breaks down a legal issue into simple parts and then reconstructs it, the way he brings it to life like a breathing organism. Even I, knowing only as much about the law as I’ve seen on television, can get sucked in listening to him.

They say the law is a jealous mistress. But that’s not true. The law has an ironclad grip on Simon’s heart. I’m the jealous mistress.

That’s what I tell myself, at least, the problem I focus on, probably so I can pin the blame on him. The bigger problem, why we will never work, is children. Simon wants them. He wants it all, marriage and kids, a nuclear family. The family I had growing up was nuclear, all right, but not in a good way. I’m not doing it.

Simon says I’m just scared, like any future parent would be. Yes, I’m scared. I’m scared I’ll wreck them. I’m scared they’ll turn out like me. What could I teach them? What kind of role model would I be? What if I had them and realized I couldn’t handle it after it’s too late?

I love my nieces, the M&Ms. I like being the aunt. Isn’t that enough? Not for Simon, it isn’t.

Oh, he’d compromise, I know. He’d live without children. But I don’t want to be the reason he settles.

We just don’t work.

I sit down at the kitchen table and open my laptop. I pull up the website and type in the password to access his trust account.

Simon inherited money from his father after his father died twelve years ago. As far as I know, he hasn’t touched a penny. It was substantial to begin with, but it’s built up with interest and some conservative but decent investment decisions made by the trustee, who is not Simon. Which is good because Simon is terrible with money.

As of today, the balance in Simon’s trust is $21,106,432.

Twenty-one million and change.

Talk about delicious.

—

I continue the Google search that I started previously, looking for investment advisers. I’ve narrowed it down to four. A guy by the name of Broderick, middle-aged and bald, who talks about his personal relationship with his clients. I’m guessing he has halitosis and high blood pressure.

A man named Lombardi, in high-end “wealth management,” a phrase I see repeatedly. He has a full-wattage smile and kind of a waxy look to him, like he should be selling carpet shampoo on an infomercial.

A guy named Bowers, with tons of initials after his name, offers “full-service wealth management and security,” which I think means he’s going to want to sell me insurance as well as being my investment adviser. Kind of a bookish guy, with small eyes and a pencil neck.

The last one is Christian Newsome, who doesn’t look like any investment adviser that I’ve ever seen. He looks like a Calvin Klein model, at least from the chest up in his photo.