Look Closer

“He married into it. His wife inherited a fortune, and the company. Paul’s the CEO, but he’s beholden to her.” She pats the laptop. “How do you think wifey’s gonna feel about what her husband said about her, much less what he was doing?”

“She wouldn’t like it. If she ever saw this video, which she won’t.”

“Of course she won’t. Paul would never let that happen. He’d be out on his ass.”

“Paul is never going to see this video, either, Vicky. I’m not going to use this.”

I look up at her. She looks down on me like a disapproving parent. Which is kind of ironic, because I’m the one trying to take the high road here.

“This isn’t Paul Southern’s fault,” I say. “He’s just trying to help his son. I don’t like it, but he’s not malicious. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Yeah, I feel real

sorry for Paul. He seems like a great guy!” That sarcastic look, that faux cheerfulness.

This is one of the ways where Vicky and I differ. I may push back when people do things to me, but I don’t generally distrust people. Vicky, she made her way through life being used by other people, mostly men, so she basically starts with the opposite presumption, that everyone deserves a good kick in the shin until proven otherwise. She would look at Paul as someone who had it coming, even if he never personally did anything to us.

“You’re letting them push you around,” she says.

“Hey, I applied, didn’t I? You have to give me that much.”

“I do, yes. But now the dean’s going to steamroll you if you don’t protect yourself. Why won’t you let me help you do that?”

Because I don’t want anything else in my life to taint my job.

Because I’ve let my life be controlled by what others have done, and my inexplicable need to settle the score, and okay, inside my own internal courtroom, I make the rules, I am judge, jury, and prosecutor, fine, but that’s my fucked-up internal world, not my job.

Because what I love about the law is its purity, its honesty, its search for justice and fairness.

Because I love teaching the tools of that craft, honing minds, showing them the majesty of the law at its zenith.

Because I won’t let anything contaminate that.

That’s why.

Most people would laugh at me if I said these things aloud. Vicky would not. She would appreciate them. But I don’t need to speak those words. She already knows. She understands me.

I come out of my fog and look up at her. She has her hand out, like she’s raising it for attention but isn’t into the whole arm-raising thing.

The first time I met Vicky, she raised her hand just like that. We were in SOS, her first time, a girl in a tank top and shorts and baseball cap sitting in the back row, and after several other people had spoken, as the session seemed to be dying down, she raised her hand just like that, not even shoulder level, showing me her palm, a look on her face like she didn’t really like having to be called on.

“My sister committed suicide six weeks ago,” she said. “I’ve been listening to everyone talk about how guilty they feel. Am I the only one who’s fucking pissed off?”

Everyone laughed and started clapping, appreciating the release in the tension, her blunt acknowledgment of an emotion most of us survivors experience. That was the moment I fell in love with her. That’s the moment I realized I’d do anything for her.

“Never mind,” she says to me now. “It was a bad idea. I won’t mention it again.”

The reason I still love Vicky, oddly enough, is that what I have to offer her is not enough. After the life she led, having to do unspeakable things to survive, you’d think it would be enough to have a man who loves you, who thinks the world of you, who will treat you with respect, who will care for you, who will give you anything you want. I check every one of those boxes.

But through all of that, she has demanded more. She wants to be in love. She wants the fairy tale. And no matter what other feelings she may have toward me, I can’t give her that.

That’s why she’ll leave me. She’s never said so explicitly, but I know it. She’ll leave in November.

47

Thursday, October 20, 2022

When I walked through the door this afternoon, you stood there, a distance apart, waiting for what I had to say.

“I saw the divorce lawyer today,” I told you.

You nodded. “Did you tell Vicky?”

“I did not. But I will.”

“When?”

“Before I file,” I said. “Which will be after November 3. I can’t cut Vicky out of the money, Lauren. I can’t do that to her. I won’t.”

Your face went cold. “I see,” you whispered. You didn’t seem all that surprised.