More than two years have gone by since the unveiling of the Jacob van Eyck Memorial, and I’m taking advantage of a rare quiet afternoon to take up my pen, as Isabel Hardwick might have said, to add a postscript, a note to record how those of us involved in the case have fared since that amazing day.
The President, as we all know, was elected to serve a second term. No one can prove, or disprove, that his unveiling of such a patriotic memorial not long before polling day played any decisive role in the campaign, but it was a close race and I can’t see that it could have done him any harm. Henry Shilling continues to serve with great distinction as Attorney General. The Secretary of the Treasury, on the other hand, resigned shortly after the election to spend more time with his family.
Aunt Meg passed away about three months ago. She and Sam had become very close. Sam went to see her from time to time, and they exchanged letters regularly in between. Aunt Meg had told Sam that she felt she could die happy, now that Jacob had received the justice and recognition he deserved. I and the whole team went to Upper Merion Township for her funeral, which was attended by a huge throng of van Eycks, at least as many as had been present at the New Orleans reunion, and which turned into something of a spontaneous reunion itself, with an impromptu reception and dinner, which Aunt Meg would have loved. The family had been granted permission for her to be buried at the Old Swedes Church, where she joined many earlier generations of van Eycks.
While I’m on that general subject, a team of faculty and students from the archaeology faculty at Penn State approached us recently with a plan to locate and formally identify the remains of Jacob van Eyck, and to seek permission to have them reburied with military honours in Arlington cemetery. Sam and several other family members descended from each of Jacob’s brothers have supplied DNA samples, and they plan to start work as soon as the King of Prussia Historical Society and the church elders, who have dominion over the church, sign off on the project. Whether they will succeed in finding and identifying Jacob’s remains, and if so, whether they will be able to persuade the government to approve his reburial at Arlington, we can only wait and see, though I have a hunch that, if they can get it all done before this president leaves office, they have a good shot at it.
Sam goes from strength to strength. In the aftermath of the case, her agent was deluged with offers of work, everything from serious theatre to national commercials. Being Sam, she prefers to continue with the work she’s always done, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and the other American staples. The difference is that where before she was working with regional repertory companies in the South-East, she’s now doing the same repertoire on Broadway and in the major regional theatres across the country. A spell in London’s West End is pending, and she is under contract for two movies, neither of which will bear any resemblance to Revenge of the Zombie Cheerleaders. Consequently, I don’t see as much of her as I used to, but whenever she’s within striking distance, we get together. She is a friend for life, and that’s a wonderful gift to have.
So, what about me? Well, I’m still practising law, but in rather different circumstances now. I’m the senior partner of the law firm of Harmon Petrosian Matthews & Associates. Once news of the settlement hit the streets, I was inundated with offers of work – and by work, I mean seriously good commercial work, as well as some far-fetched nonsense from fantasists with the federal government in their sights. I’m not sure what took up more of Arlene’s time, taking on board the serious clients or discouraging the others. We succeeded in doing both, but it was obvious that we needed help, and needed it without delay.
Fortunately, I’d also been receiving unsolicited job applications from any number of young lawyers who’d been attracted by reports of the van Eyck case, and presumably thought it was the kind of stuff I did all the time, and that it would be great fun to work for me. Some of them I wouldn’t have looked at twice, but quite a few really raised my eyebrows. These were bright young lawyers from top law schools with glowing résumés, lawyers who could have been applying to the big firms on Wall Street. I hired four of them immediately, and told another three that they would be next if the practice continued to grow. The three included Jenny, our faithful intern from Kate Banahan’s Wills and Trusts class, who had actually dropped out of law school for the rest of the semester to stay with me when the van Eyck case was at its most desperate. She had asked for nothing in return, but I told her then that she had a job if she ever wanted it, and now that she’s about to take her bar exams I hope she may join us soon. But having good associates wasn’t enough.
I needed partners – experienced lawyers who could handle the pressure of big cases, work without my supervision, and supervise associates themselves. I approached Dave and Ellen almost immediately. I had no experience of having law partners, and the thought intimidated me, but I’ve always had a theory that lawyers go about choosing their partners in the wrong way. Almost always, partners come from one’s circle of friends or colleagues, meaning that if you’ve worked together at all, it’s been on the same side of the case. But partnership is an intimate relationship, one that has to be built on trust, and it’s always seemed to me that you have a much better idea of how far you can trust another lawyer when you’ve been on the other side of a case. That was my experience of Dave and Ellen. I’d known them only as opponents, but I felt I could trust them with my life. To my surprise and delight, they didn’t even think about it: they both jumped at the offer. I made a faint pass at Harry Welsh too, but he told me that he’d always been a government man, and always would be – not to mention that Maggie Watts was about to be promoted to Deputy Attorney General and he was about to be promoted to take over her job.
All these changes required new office space, still in Arlington but far bigger, and an office staff comprising legal secretaries and paralegals. Making that happen was a huge undertaking, and the credit for the smooth transition is due entirely to our Executive Practice Manager, Arlene, who rules the roost with her unique combination of extraordinary competence and homely Texas words of encouragement, the latter occasionally taking new associates and secretaries a bit by surprise.
At Dave’s insistence, the firm has a policy that no one – partners, associates or office staff – works so hard that they can’t spend enough time on their personal or family life. That was non-negotiable for Dave, and given my own tendency until that point to allow work to take over my life, it was a policy I was very glad to accept. I was ready for a change.
Arlene is a bit secretive about it – I’m getting this mostly from him rather than her – but I happen to know that she’s been seeing quite a bit of Powalski. They’ve been for long weekends to New Orleans together once or twice, and Powalski’s been taking Bubba to watch some NFL and college football games.
I still see Arya, of course. She’s doing great, and her armchair, incense, foot rubs and occasional sumptuous dinners remain a big part of my life. Of course, my stress level is through the roof these days, but in a good way. It’s not about the Week any more. It’s about the stresses of handling a large, successful law practice, and I’m handling it just fine. All the same, Arya is still my rock, and I lean on her often.
And I guess that’s about it.
Well… OK… I guess there’s one more thing, although there’s nothing definite yet, and I don’t want to give the impression that there is. But… well, there’s this guy. His name is Doug. He’s a doctor, a cardiologist actually, and we met at a reception in Arlington a few months ago. He’s a little older than me, but not enough that it matters. He was widowed by cancer about three years ago, and he has a beautiful little girl called Amy, who’s almost seven. I met her at his place after our third date, and when I sat down on the sofa she immediately leapt into my lap and hugged me, and stayed there with me until she fell asleep, and it felt really good. I don’t know. Neither of us knows. I don’t know whether I’m ready to trust a man again, and he doesn’t know whether he’s completely over the death of his wife. But the thing is, even if we’re not there yet, there’s this feeling that we’re getting there together, and that we’ve come most of the way. And there’s something about it that feels incredibly good, incredibly right.
It feels like Kiah: a new beginning.