Promise(12)

I feel my pulse rate rising just knowing she is somewhere in this building. She’s not here, but she is here. She’s everywhere and nowhere, and I have to think about each breath.

After a thirty-six hour trek, I shake my head wondering what it means to walk in here and find the one girl that etched herself permanently into my heart in that courtroom ten years ago. The same girl I should have saved when she needed me most. But I didn’t. Just another victim of my bad choices.

She has no idea who I am. And, I can never tell her.

I don’t believe in fate. In serendipity. But, I’m starting to believe in something.

“She’ll be here tomorrow. Seven AM.” Bruce’s voice is soft. He’s got an ever-present twinkle in his eyes that makes him seem as though his mind is off somewhere else, fixed on something hilarious, and he’s holding back laughter.

“Thanks. I want to thank her for taking good care of my Dad. She left before I could. ”

Bruce nods. I can sense he is silently calling bullshit on me. Then, he spins on his heel and takes a few bouncing strides toward a huddle of three other scrub-clad women whose eyes keep darting my way.

“Thanks. I owe you.” I whisper even though I know he can’t hear me. I turn to make my way out to the parking lot. And my head is pounding as my pulse is slowing.

Either it’s the thirty-six hours with no sleep or the fact that Promise has just been dropped into my lap like a firecracker, but I need to sit down, or I’m going to fall down.

I’ve tried every fucking trick I can to forget her over the years. Not just forget her, pretend she doesn’t matter. Pretend that whatever it is—or was—that I’ve felt for her is some version of mixed-up guilt, some concoction that stewed inside me from my near inexhaustible need to save the unsavable.

And, I’ve failed miserably to relinquish her to the corners of my mind where I put nearly every other human I come in contact with. She’s the angel in my nightmares. The light inside the darkness that I cannot reach.

I’ve made two unforgivable sins in my life. My mother and sister paid for one. She paid for the other.

She’s here to punish me.

Or redeem me.

Whichever it is, I’m ready.





Promise

I have two hours and fourteen minutes until I take the stage, and I’ve been waiting forty-five minutes for Mr. Dennis Archibald, Esq to see me.

It’s tough, constantly having my hat in my hand. It’s hard to beg for help when all I want to do is keep my head down and never meet anyone’s eyes. It causes me physical discomfort to have to interact with people, to try to hold eye contact and speak in clear and even sentences.

Sitting in the reception area, I cross my legs tightly and huddle my arms around my body trying to keep from flying apart.

There’s irony here. Sitting in this office with its mahogany shelves filled with hardbound volumes of the Rules of Law and so-and-so vs. so-and-so, I feel dirtier than when I’m cleaning bedpans back at Windfield. I try to pass the time and not think, so I start counting the seemingly endless volumes of law books.

I’ve counted to five hundred and seventy-two by the time Mr. Archibald finally stands in the open door to his office.

“Miss Henderson? Come in, please.” He looks like Matlock with a misogynist ego.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s leaning back in his I’m-a-very-powerful-man tufted desk chair and giving me the look.

“My fee is $350 an hour plus expenses.” I can see from his expression he knows I’m on a ramen noodle budget, and he’s caviar.

“How many hours do you think it will take?” I keep my voice as steady as I can.

Mr. Archibald looks away after a couple seconds of uncomfortable eye contact. I get it; I’m not your all-American girl, and most people find it difficult to look me in the face for very long. But, for $350 an hour, I would expect him to put in a stellar effort.

“Listen,” he sets the tip of his gold Cross pen to the legal pad in front of him starts scratching away. “This is a tough case. You are barely on your feet. You sure you want to go down this road? Saying it will be long and expensive is the watered down version.”

“Can I win?” I need to cut to the chase. I can’t be late for my job. I have two buses to take, and I need an hour just to get cleaned up and dressed.

He smiles, but it’s not the kind of smile that makes you feel any better. It’s a smile that says I-don’t-want-to-tell-you-the-truth.

“I will do my best. That’s what people pay me for. But, there are never guarantees. You do what I tell you, we will put the best case forward we possibly can. My retainer is $5,000.” He pauses and raises his eyebrows, making sure I heard that number. “We need to have our motion filed within thirty days to even have a chance the court will hear your petition. You know why, right?”