Sophie knew her daughter was right. If she was in this for good, if she wanted Avalon to be her home, she was going to need to deepen her ties here. She had come to this town as some sort of penance, expecting to endure it for the sake of her children. Instead, she’d found the unexpected—a new chance to remake her life, to fill it with the rich textures of real connections. It was true that she’d grown closer to her children in the past weeks than she’d been in years. That alone was enough to hold her and make her grateful to be alive.
It was also true that whatever was going on with Noah Shepherd—she didn’t want to label it—became more important to her with each passing day. She wasn’t sure this was such a good thing, though. It had never been her aim to come here and meet someone special. Her children and grandson were special enough, thank you very much.
Still, as Daisy had pointed out, Sophie had room in her life for more. She used to be defined by her job; her identity revolved around the sense of purpose and validation of working for an ideal. She understood now that matters of justice existed on many levels. They could involve whole nations—or a lone military wife like Gayle Wright.
The prod from Daisy was all the motivation Sophie needed. Today she had a meeting with Philip Bellamy, her former brother-in-law. He wanted to introduce her to Melinda Lee Parkington, a local attorney who was about to go on maternity leave and needed a part-time associate.
Sophie arrived early at Blanchard Park, where Philip was working with a team of chamber of commerce volunteers. She passed a group of people installing a temporary stage for the upcoming Winter Carnival. Noah’s band would be performing in one of the time slots. Sophie had become a fan of their music. They were better than they had to be, and hugely fun to hang out with. In the past, she’d never done much hanging out. Noah and his friends had shown her there was an art to it, a way of attending to rhythm and melody that was unexpectedly fulfilling. Did that make her a band groupie? How odd to think of herself in that way.
Philip was supervising a crew of college students in the construction of a life-size ice castle. This was the centerpiece of the upcoming festival. It was made of giant blocks of ice by people working around the clock to get everything ready.
“I’m amazed,” she said, surveying the glittering walls. “I didn’t quite know what to expect.”
“It’s a marvel of engineering.” He took off his hard hat. “You ready to meet Melinda?”
“I really appreciate this,” she said.
“It’s no trouble.” They started walking together toward the town center, a few blocks from the park. She could feel a peculiar tension pulsing between them. “Is this completely awkward?” she asked. “Because of Greg and me, I mean—”
“It’s not awkward,” he assured her. “I know what it’s like after a divorce. It happened to me twenty years ago, and I still remember the pain and uncertainty. The sense of freedom, too.”
She nodded. “Sounds very familiar. Just tell me it gets easier.”
“You go on. And I hope like hell you do a better job of that than I did. For years—during and after my marriage to Pamela—I thought about a girl from my past, someone who didn’t even exist.”
He was referring to a local girl he’d known decades ago when he was in college. She had been his first love, but she’d abruptly disappeared from his life, never telling him that she had borne his child. “She existed for you, right?”
Philip stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yes, and when you’re pining for someone who’s long gone, you can turn her into anyone you want. No wonder I had no luck dating and moving on. I already had the perfect woman in my mind and no one else could measure up.”
The conversation felt surreal to Sophie. Here she was talking to her former brother-in-law, whom she’d known for years, and this was probably the most honest conversation she’d ever had with him.
“Well. There’s no danger of me pining away for some mystery man.” There was nothing mysterious about Noah Shepherd. Except perhaps her desire to keep him secret.
“Everything’s so good now,” he said, “it’s almost scary. Both my daughters are married, and Laura and I just set a date. First Saturday in May.”
Sophie admired him for taking a leap of faith after so many years of being by himself, and for never giving up on love. “That’s fantastic. I’m so happy for you, Philip.”
He grinned. “She and I are proof that love takes its own time. Someone we’ve known for years suddenly becomes the center of our world.”
They cut across the bustling town square. The law office was located in an old brick building with three stories and a figured concrete facade, with a bookstore and coffee shop at street level. Sophie was surprised to feel a tug of apprehension. What if this M. L. Parkington was friends with the Romano sisters? As the thought tried to settle in, she realized it was the old-Sophie way of thinking—to assume the worst and run away. She wasn’t that person anymore. All right, she was trying not to be that person anymore.
“You all right?” Philip asked. “You got quiet all of a sudden.”
“Just taking it in. I know you and Laura are going to be great together.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to be fine.”
Melinda Parkington went by “Mel.” She was Asian, with a law degree from a place Sophie had never heard of, a thousand-watt smile and an air of total confidence as she greeted her visitors. She was eight months’ pregnant with her third child. She had a law practice that, very soon, was going to have to do without her for a while.
“Don’t get up,” Sophie said, reaching across the desk to shake hands with her.
Mel smiled, propping a file folder on her protruding abdomen. “Thanks. I’ve been looking over your résumé,” she told Sophie after Philip left. She indicated the file folder. “It’s very impressive. I think I’m jealous.”
Sophie scanned the wealth of children’s artwork on one wall of the office—drawings in crayon, a clay impression of two little hands, plenty of snapshots. “Don’t be. Your family is beautiful. Who takes care of your other children?”
“My mother-in-law. I’m very lucky to have her nearby, but I’m planning to stay home six months with the new one.” Mel set aside the folder. “Is there some reason you’re switching from international justice?”
She’d prepared for this question. She’d known it was bound to come up, and her prospective partner deserved to know what had happened. Yet even though she’d expected the question, she hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to answer. Even now, her mouth went dry.
“There was an incident in January, a…violent incident in The Hague, and I found myself caught in the middle of everything.” She passed Melinda a dossier. “Here’s the State Department’s official report. You can read it and let me know if you have any questions.”
Melinda scanned the document. Then she closed the folder, studied Sophie’s face, long and hard.
“I can’t afford to take a full-time family leave,” she admitted. “I need to keep my practice going. Let me show you around.”
The office consisted of Mel, another attorney named Wendell, who wore a bow tie and was so shy he could barely look at Sophie, and the office manager, Daphne, who had bright pink hair and a collection of anime figures on the shelf by her desk, alongside the reference and bookkeeping files.
“Don’t be fooled by Daphne,” Melinda said. “She’s nearly thirty and smart as a whip, but part of her seems to be stuck in junior high.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Daphne pointed out. She lifted the lid from a glass jar of licorice sticks on her desk. “Red vine?”
“No, thanks.”
“This way,” Mel said. “We’re a little short on space, but this office has a view.” The space for the new part-time associate was a tiny enclosure with only the basics—a desk, computer, bookcases and a pair of chairs for clients. A window with Law Office spelled out backward on the glass faced the main street of town which, at the moment, was being festooned with banners announcing the Winter Carnival.
Sophie could barely remember the view outside her window in the angular glass-and-concrete box of the International Criminal Court. Tidal flats, she supposed, wet pavement lined with buildings and the inevitable waterway. Fields of flowers in the springtime. And bridges in the distance, perhaps the very one she’d traveled that night.
“I won’t waste your time,” Mel was saying, and Sophie realized she had allowed her thoughts to drift.
“I’m sorry, what’s that?”
“You’re more than qualified, and I’d love to have you,” Mel said. “I’ll show you what we bill and what you can expect, and then you can let me know if—”
“I’m letting you know now,” Sophie said. “This arrangement will work very well for me.”
She understood Mel’s expression. “In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you—I consider myself a very good lawyer, but I’ve never worked in a small town. There’s some…baggage, I guess you’d call it, that might affect clients’ comfort level with me. Did Philip explain that I used to be married to his brother Greg?”
“Is that what you’re concerned about?”
“In a place like this, it could have an impact on business.”
Mel laughed. “In a place like this, everybody is somebody’s ex. Right, Daphne?” She addressed the office manager, who stepped in to deliver a dossier.
“Absolutely,” Daphne said. “Mel used to date one of the county prosecutors.”
“It never affected our job performance. Honestly, Sophie, don’t worry about it.” Together, Melinda and Sophie ironed out the details. Two days a week, Sophie looked after Charlie. The other three days, she would come in to the law office.
“We’re not specialists,” Melinda explained. “I take whatever comes through the door.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“Good. It keeps things interesting.”
Rather quickly, Sophie found out how interesting. Her first case involved a man bringing suit against an exotic dancer in Lake Katrine. He claimed that, during a lap dance at a bachelor party, she kicked him in the head with a stiletto heel. Dancing in “a reckless and negligent manner,” as Sophie was forced to write in a brief, was hardly a crime against humanity. But the man’s injuries were real.
She also met with a woman, married for forty-seven years, who wanted to sue her husband for opening her mail, a poodle breeder seeking damages from a vet for docking a puppy’s tail too short (she was relieved to know Noah Shepherd was not the culprit) and a boy who wanted to force a teacher to give him an A instead of a B+, to keep his perfect GPA intact.
All right, she thought, so we’re not saving the world here. But then she’d come across someone like Mr. and Mrs. Fleischman, a long-married couple who became victims of a mortgage scam. Or a young couple whose insurance company was denying coverage of their baby, newly adopted from overseas.
There were several family law cases still pending when Mel left. Sophie found herself in the odd position of sitting across the desk from a man named Alfie Garner, who was divorcing his wife. The consultation felt odd to her, because the sense of déjà vu was jarring. She had nothing in common with this man. He drove a truck for a living and his wife was a stay-at-home mom, yet every word he spoke, the defeated expression on his face and the sadness in his eyes—it was all familiar to her. Familiar, but…distant. Yes, she’d been there to that dark place, but she was able to look Alfie in the eye and say with complete honesty, “It gets better.”
She quickly realized that, to be good at family law, she had to have a solid understanding of family—how it worked and all the ways it could fail, and the very delicate balance between the two. She found herself flip-flopping between the former Sophie—sharp, judgmental, always in control, and the woman she was trying to be now—understanding, flexible, compassionate. Interestingly, she discovered some combination of the two styles seemed to benefit her clients. She still didn’t trust the new Sophie, didn’t like being that vulnerable.