“Yes, sir,” Lex mumbled, and he began the long walk back to his Heart Healthy parking spot. Halfway along the first aisle of cars, he stopped and looked back. The new lawyer was standing by the glass doors, watching him walk away.
Chapter Twenty-one
ERIC WAS GLAD to have been called out of court. The case was the judiest of judies: a young man who had bought his ex-girlfriend a car and was suing her because she wouldn’t pay the insurance. He was as passionate about it, as desperate and sincere, as Lex Hall about his baby, or any of the almost exes about their children, dogs, and houses.
The judge wanted to know why the young man didn’t cancel the insurance and let the girlfriend fend for herself. Eric wanted to know that, too. This case, like so many others, should have been heard in small claims, but the young man was suing for the car as well as for the insurance, even though Eric had explained for twenty minutes (half a billable hour) that his having bought the car on the girlfriend’s birthday and having the dealer put a big red ribbon on it made it incontrovertibly a gift.
“It’s not right,” the young man said. “She owes me. It’s not right.”
“For future reference,” Floyd murmured as he stepped next to Eric to make his apologies to the judge and take over the case, “the customer ain’t always right. You should never have let this goober near a court.”
“Couldn’t stop him,” Eric said. “What’s wrong?”
Floyd raised his voice. “Family emergency, Your Honor. Your wife’s at Women’s Health,” he said to Eric, more softly, but loudly enough that everyone in court heard, while believing they were not meant to hear. Eric marveled at Floyd’s instincts, using this trick on such a worthless case. “Trouble with the baby. Better get there fast.”
Eric drove with his mind full of blood, unable to clear away the hateful, pragmatic questions his legal mind laid out as for a deposition: Would Lacey want to touch it, hold it, and say good-bye? He knew she would, and she’d want him to do it, too. Could he hold in his arms this not-quite-a-person who had never lived? Would he remember it forever, would it pollute his feelings for the living child who might be born someday? Would they have a funeral? Was there some law about disposal of medical waste, and would a funeral home be legally permitted to take a stillborn fetus? They hadn’t chosen a name. They’d need a good name but not too good, not a name they would regret having wasted.
Dr. Vlk met him when he arrived, and the baby was fine, and Lacey was fine. All his questions disappeared, leaving a residue of shame. Before letting him see Lacey, the doctor questioned him stringently about Lacey’s daily activities. “She bruises easily,” Eric said. “Half the time she doesn’t know what she did.” He kept his tone concerned, eager to help, distracted: “You’re sure the baby’s okay?” he asked again. As if he didn’t know what this was about. Lacey had a suspicious bruise, and the doctor wanted to know why. “I blame myself,” he said, with sincerity worthy of Uncle Floyd. “I should be home more, taking care of her.”
That did it, finally. The doctor led him down the hall to Lacey’s exam room. Lacey was asleep. Seeing her in this medical light, pale and shadowless, Eric was struck by how terrible she looked. She was so small, and the huge round belly bulged like a parasite that had almost drained its host, a grossly overgrown caterpillar on a flower stem. The skin around her eyes was stained purple and black, and her mouth fell in as she slept. No wonder Dr. Vlk thought he’d been beating her. If a client came to Eric looking like that, he’d file a restraining order and drop her off at the women’s shelter himself.
What could he do, what more could he do? He’d bought her the house, the car, the furniture; he’d called her mother here to take care of her; and he had to work to earn money for all that. He’d bought the bassinet and the newborn clothes, dozens of things they’d need for the baby, without troubling her about any of it. He planned to change diapers, get up in the middle of the night, hold her hand during delivery, all those good-father things his mother always complained his own father never did. Right now, there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t take one moment of her pregnancy for her.
“Hey,” he said, taking her right hand.
She blinked, turned her head toward him, and smiled. The smile hurt him, false and difficult, an ill-fitting shoe squeezed back onto yesterday’s blisters. She shouldn’t have to smile like that. Without his noticing, something had gone badly wrong between them, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t reach her. “Bad day,” he said.