MARTHA MAYNE, MY FOSTER MOTHER and friend, smiles as she weaves her way through the crowd of oyster chuggers milling around the bar at Earls on Hornby. I wave back. An hour ago, I was deep in Trussardi’s case; now our meeting is just stored memory. Compartmentalize—the criminal lawyer’s key to sanity.
“Happy belated birthday.” I rise to offer a hug. Martha lets me go, and I motion to an icy glass opposite. “I ordered.” Martha likes her drinks cold, dry, and preferably ready when she arrives.
“Thank you, Jilly,” Martha says, her russet hair bobbing as we slide into our seats. “The boys came over to celebrate Sunday. You keep missing our weekend dinners.”
I accept the reproach. “I always seem to be preparing a case Sunday night. Last-minute scramble before court in the morning.”
“Either you’re disorganized or you’re working too hard.” Martha’s green eyes, only a few creases betraying her age, drill down into me. “And I know you’re not disorganized, Jilly.”
“You’re probably right, Martha. But I love my work.” I think of the long days I’m about to put in on a drug trial of stultifying tedium. “Most of the time.”
“I’m glad you have Mike. He seems to be the only one who can tear you away from your beloved criminals. Quite a picture of you two on the front page of the Sun a while back.”
“We’ll get to that.” I pick up my glass for a toast. “Meanwhile, here’s to you. To us.” Our glasses clink. “So, how are you?” I ask after we’ve both taken a sip.
“I’m great. Everybody’s busy, Brock’s immersed in the winery, Mathew’s buried in running his trawler fleet, Mark’s going gang-busters on his latest economic blog, Luke’s got his clinic. John and Tristan—well, John and Tristan are John and Tristan.” She lays her napkin over her lap. “They just bought a house together in Kitsilano. John’s career is taking off. He’s singing Figaro at Covent Garden next month.”
“That’s wonderful. I’ll have to wish him good luck.” My youngest foster brother is an opera singer. After years of struggle, he debuted at the Met last spring to respectable reviews.
“Just like your career, Jilly. You seem to be in the paper every second day with some win or other,” Martha muses. “Remember how you used to agonize in second-year law about whether you’d ever find a job? If you had only known—”
“I would have quit right then,” I laugh. “I wanted to save the world. That’s why I went to law school, right? This life I’ve ended up with would have shocked me—fighting to get guilty people off, not to mention the condo, the extravagant car.”
Martha smiles. “Let’s order, then we can chat.” She waves to the hovering waiter. “Sole and steamed spinach.” Martha is perpetually watching her weight. Hungry from an early-morning run, I order pasta.
“So.” Martha leans forward. “What are you wearing?”
“Wearing to what?”
“To the wedding. Ainsley Martin and Fred Telford. Remember, your old buddies in law school? I saw Ainsley’s mother at the club yesterday. She can’t believe it, after all this time.” Martha frowns. “You mean you haven’t been invited?”
It’s coming back to me now, Mike mentioning it over microgreens at Bishop’s a lifetime ago. Ainsley and Fred, big wedding in July—We’ll be invited, Jilly. They must know we’ve split.
“No, it appears I haven’t.” I take a breath. “You should know, Martha. Mike and I are no longer an item. Awkward to invite both of us in the circumstances. Evidently, they’ve chosen him.”
Martha looks at me with alarm. “Jilly.”
“It’s okay. I’ll survive.”
She covers my hand protectively. “Did Mike drop you? I can’t believe it—”
“No, no, it wasn’t like that,” I protest. “More like a mutual parting of ways. Whatever it is—it’s probably for the best for both of us.”
“ ‘Best for both of us.’ Surely you can do better than that, Jilly.”
“It’s the truth,” I say.
Martha puts her drink aside. “Tell me everything, Jilly.”
So I do. Everything, or almost, like I’ve been doing ever since the Maynes took me in two decades ago.
When I’m finished, Martha leans back in the booth. “That’s sad, so sad. I mean, you and Mike have been there for each other forever. You’ve seen each other through some terrible times. Remember when you quit law school?”
“How could I forget?”
“Brock and I tried to get you back, but it was Mike who did it. You were doing stuff, Jilly—stuff that was stupid and dangerous—and Mike brought you back.”
“I know,” I stare at my fork as it puddles the pasta in rings of pink sludge.
“And in third year, when Mike’s parents died in that car crash in Italy? He went crazy—sold all the furniture, refused to talk to anyone—just lay on the floor in that awful, empty house. It was you who helped him get back on track.”
We sit quietly for a while. “You two were so solid. You were family,” Martha finally says.
“He wants more than I can give him, Martha.” I’m startled by the bile I feel rising. “I tried to get back in touch. Texted, left messages, but not a word.”
“Words aren’t Mike’s thing. You know that.”
“A guy who doesn’t talk and a girl who can’t stop. What a match.”
“Put yourself in his shoes. It probably took him months to work up the courage to do what he did. He put on the whole show, offered you everything—his love, his world. He was careful to mention your freedom, too—and you walked out without so much as a goodbye. You wounded him, Jilly. Humiliated him.”
“No. I mean, I never meant to hurt him.”
“Does this have anything to do with you taking on the Trussardi case? I mean, Laura Trussardi was his cousin . . .”
My foster mother, who knows me better than she knows herself, has zeroed in on the tender truth that kills. I would trade Mike for a case.
“No,” I say.
“Yes. I never met Vincent Trussardi—I think maybe Brock ran into him at some point—but I can tell you this: the Shaughnessy gossip machine has already convicted him.” She looks at me anxiously. “This could be a loser, Jilly. A big loser.”
I sigh. “I’m aware of that, Martha. But guilty or innocent, he’s entitled to a trial and a competent defense. That’s my job.”
The waiter comes to claim our untouched plates. “Everything all right?” he asks nervously.
“Great,” we say in unison. He smiles at our bleak faces and takes away the crockery.