Starter House(79)
“I don’t think you do.” Ella’s Dane’s voice was steady and firm. So this was how it was going to be. A perfectly reasonable relationship, Ella Dane using her telephone voice to Lacey, not letting their eyes meet.
Lacey went into the room. The necessary conversation with Ev Craddock oppressed her; she’d have to find out what he knew, tomorrow or the next day, after she’d rested and caught up with all these changes in her life, and after they’d dealt with Bibbits. She piled the pillows at the head of the bed and lay propped up, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes until the tears sank deep. The baby rolled over, and she patted her belly. He pushed back, as if responding to her greeting. It made her laugh, even in her misery. It was worth everything, if she could save him—she’d give up Eric, the house, everything.
Chapter Thirty-five
THE SHINY GIRL’S FRONT HAIR was orange. Was she even the same girl? She took Lex to a room with a big table and a lot of mixed-up chairs. Some were office chairs on wheels, some were padded in different colors, some were wooden. Each had something wrong, scratches or torn cloth or broken legs or burns. “Wait here, Mr. Hall,” she said.
She left him alone and he checked the mirror to make sure it wasn’t one-way glass, with lawyers and cops watching him on the other side. The old man had taken him to dinner last night and had told him how to behave. “Act happy,” he said.
“What if I’m not happy?”
The old man sighed over his pizza. “Just play with her.”
Lex had bought a computer game a few weeks ago, a Chinese game called mah-jongg. It laid out a pattern of tiles, and you had to pull the tiles out in pairs, matching them up. He played it over and over again. When he lost, he went back and played the same game until he won it. Every game could be won. Everything lined up, everything matched, and there was nothing left over.
Theo wasn’t old enough for mah-jongg. Maybe when she was five or six, they could play together. They could take turns. He could show her what to do. She would let him play his favorite tile, the eight of bamboos. He liked the way the eight bamboo sticks lined up, four on top saying W, four underneath saying M.
The shiny girl came back with a plastic crate. “We keep a box of toys,” she said. “You didn’t bring anything, did you?” Lex shook his head, and she sighed and said, not to him but to some invisible thing in the ceiling, “They never do. So here’s a couple of dolls, some Duplo blocks, crayons and coloring books, and this noisy Elmo thing—they all like that. Oh, and this is a camera.” She put a video camera in the middle of the table. “Stay where it can see you.”
“Why?”
“And the bathroom’s down the hall to your right.”
She left. Lex laid out the toys on the tabletop. He sorted the Duplo blocks by color, and then by size within colors. They didn’t come out even. There were seventeen crayons, and five of them were broken, but he liked the way they smelled. It reminded him of something.
The shiny girl came in carrying Theo, and the big dog lawyer came in behind her with a magazine under his arm. “Here you go, Mr. Hall,” the shiny girl said cheerfully. She set Theo on the floor. Theo tipped forward until her hands reached the floor, and sat there, her legs spread, supporting half her weight on her thick little fists. “Anything else?” the shiny girl said.
“We’re good,” the big dog said.
“He’s not my lawyer,” Lex said. “Where’s my lawyer?”
“You haven’t got new counsel yet?” the big dog said. His voice was too loud, big dog barking so everyone could hear. “Eric’s in court. You’re a lucky man, Mr. Hall.”
Lex backed up, trying to get as many chairs as possible between himself and the lawyer. “How’s that?”
“Somehow that boy persuaded MacAvoy to change the visitation to this office. Pro bono, and there ain’t a lawyer in a thousand who’d work so hard for a guy who’s not his client. But you got to call those names we gave you, get someone new.”
“I don’t want a new lawyer. I want my lawyer.”
“Any lawyer’s yours that you pay for, and Eric says there’s three hundred bucks left on your retainer. You don’t want to do it, Sammie’ll set something up for you.”
“I don’t want a new lawyer.”
“Suit yourself.” The lawyer sat at the other end of the conference table, leaned back and crossed his legs, and folded his magazine open. “We’ll refund the retainer.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” Lex asked.