9
The opinion in Markell v. Virginia was released on Tuesday, March 13, and it was as bad as Paige had feared it would be. All three judges agreed that Lori Benton had a conflict of interest that she should have disclosed to her client. The judges were not willing to assume that the conflict was harmless error, as Paige had argued. “Instead, given the overriding importance of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to competent legal counsel free from bias, and given the flaws in defense counsel’s handling of this case, we hold that the conviction is tainted and the defendant is entitled to a new trial.”
Paige stewed about the opinion for an hour before she called commonwealth’s attorney Destiny Brown. “You did everything you could,” Destiny said unconvincingly. “But there won’t be another trial. The victim is not willing to go through this again, particularly with Wyatt Jackson as the defense lawyer.”
The call, along with the opinion, made Paige sick. The attorney general’s office was in Richmond, two hours from where Paige lived, so they allowed her to work from home. She normally loved the arrangement because if she wasn’t in court, she could dress casual, work on briefs, go for a run in the middle of the day, and never have to worry about office politics. But on a day like today, she needed the companionship. Instead, she fumed in isolation.
That night, she was supposed to go with Patrick to dinner at his friend’s house. Patrick talked a lot about Beef Anderson and his family, and now he was taking Paige to meet them. Under normal circumstances, Paige would have been excited to go. But after reading the opinion, she didn’t really feel like putting on a happy face for Beef, Kristen, and their two little boys. On the other hand, it was just a few days before Patrick’s deployment, and she knew she would regret not spending the evening with him.
In midafternoon, she texted him to let him know that she wasn’t feeling great.
He replied quickly.
She stared at the text for a long time. The thought of spending time alone with Patrick was tempting. But it would mean a lot to him for her to meet his friends. She had heard that the SEAL community was a tough group to crack.
By seven thirty that evening, Paige was glad she had decided to go. The Andersons lived in a crowded neighborhood on a nondescript cul-de-sac in Virginia Beach. Their two boys, four-year-old Justin and three-year-old Caleb, had pretty much taken over the small house. There were toys and shoes and plastic guns scattered around, the walls and shelves crammed with pictures. The Andersons had a big German shepherd named Tiny, and he was a licker.
“That’s why Patrick brought you here,” Kristen Anderson told Paige. “To make sure you passed muster with Tiny.”
Paige liked Kristen from the moment she met her. Kristen was a little shorter and frumpier than Paige had imagined she would be. The word on the street was that SEALs’ wives were all “government issue,” beautiful and athletic. But Kristen didn’t fit the mold. She was plain, easygoing, down-to-earth, and very welcoming of Paige. She wore a fitted T-shirt, Bermuda shorts, and sandals despite the chilly weather. Paige liked the fact that Kristen couldn’t cook, or so she claimed. Beef and Patrick spent the first twenty minutes manning the grill.
“How many deployments have you been through?” Paige asked as the two women stood at the kitchen counter making a salad.
“Probably ten or fifteen,” Kristen said. She tossed a slice of cucumber to Tiny, who was sitting obediently at her side. “But some of them were pretty short.”
“What’s the hardest part?”
“Three days after he comes home. The first two days—and nights—are awesome.” Kristen smiled at the thought of it. “But then Troy starts messing up the routine I’ve established while he’s gone. He wants to fly back in and take over the house, and I’m thinking, we’ve done pretty well while you were gone, thank you. Plus, the first few days he’s back, he lets the boys get away with murder. So yeah, by day three we always have our knock-down, drag-out. Once I win that, we’re good again.”
A few seconds later, Kristen was mediating an argument between the boys, and Paige was working on the salad solo. She tried to picture herself like this. Was it even possible to be married to a SEAL and still have a normal family and career? Somehow the warmth of this home and the sheer normalcy of it—right down to the boys competing with each other for her attention—were oddly comforting.
Dinner could only be described as high energy, the boys relentless with their questions. Justin had jagged blond hair that looked like Kristen had cut it while the kid squirmed. He was wide-eyed and polite with a Dennis-the-Menace smile and mischievous blue eyes. Little brother Caleb was nearly the same size, though where Justin was all sinew and bone, Caleb was roly-poly. Caleb was also more sensitive than Justin, looked like his mom, and had already hugged Paige three times by the time they started dinner.
Much of the conversation centered around Beef’s exploits, which Kristen described in coded PG terms so that little ears wouldn’t pick up any ideas. There were more than a few barroom brawls and a couple of pranks that had gotten out of hand. Patrick grinned sheepishly as Kristen exposed some of his shenanigans as well.
The real entertainment started after the meal. It came at the insistence of four-year-old Justin, though at first Patrick and Beef politely declined. “Please, Daddy! Please, Uncle Q!”
When little Caleb started chiming in, Paige knew it was over. The men would be deployed soon, and she could tell that they didn’t have the heart to say no.
“Sorry about this,” Beef said, and Paige knew she was in for a treat.
Kristen just shook her head. “Miss Paige is going to think we’re all nuts.” But her two little boys were already scurrying off down the hallway.
Beef followed them, and Patrick just leaned against the counter, arms crossed, a smirk on his face.
“Where are they going?” Paige asked.
“You’ll find out.”
While the boys got ready, Patrick moved into the family room and started pushing the furniture up against the walls, pulling a coffee table out of the way. A few minutes later, Beef’s deep voice came booming down the hallway that led back to the bedrooms in the single-story ranch.
“And now, weighing in at a svelte 185 pounds!”
Kristen almost spit out the water she was drinking. “Add another forty!” she shouted.
“A nuclear physicist hailing from Transylvania, Pennsylvania, the Incredible Hulk!”
Following the introduction, Beef Anderson sauntered into the living room, posing and flexing his muscles. He was quite a sight—shirtless and wearing a tight pair of green sweatpants he had cut off at the knees. He had a huge tattoo of an American eagle on his chest, wings spread across his impressive pecs. His face was painted green, and the man could strike a pose.
“Booo!” Kristen shouted. “Throw the bum out!”
But Beef just went on posing, undeterred. He was used to being the villain. “Hulk’s partner, from a dairy farm in upstate New York,” he announced, gesturing toward Patrick. “The American doughboy, soft and pudgy and cuddly, also known as Patrick ‘Q’ Quillen!”
Patrick glanced at Paige, giving her a quick roll of the eyes. Then he moved to the center of the room and bounced around, shaking out his limbs like a true wrestler. He might have been a little embarrassed, but she could tell he loved it.
“And now, weighing in at forty-three pounds wringing wet, Captain America!”
Justin Anderson came running down the hall in his Captain America outfit, missing only the trademark shield. He pointed at his dad and started trash-talking. He yelled back to his brother. “Hurry up, Caleb!”
A few seconds later a chubby little Spider-Man came running down the hallway, his mask skewed to one side, and the fight was on. Patrick and Beef dropped to their knees and rolled around with the boys while Kristen and Paige watched, smiling. The boys liked to jump from the arms of the couch onto the backs of the big men, and the big men liked to twirl the boys around until they got them dizzy and then lie on top of them. Tiny barked and circled the melee and darted in and out of the action. There was a lot of roughhousing and laughing and tickling. At one point, Caleb got kicked in the face and came running to Kristen, crying. Kristen healed him with the magic of a mother’s kiss and sent him back into the fray.
After a spectacular fifteen-minute cage match, the little boys finally pinned the Navy SEALs, and Beef called the festivities to an end.
That night did something to Paige that she couldn’t quite describe. She had been at war with her own father since he left when she was in middle school, and she had always felt a little jealous of friends who could turn to their dads for advice. But something about the way Beef was not just a father but also a friend to his little guys made her think that maybe someday she could rise above her own past and experience something like this in her family too. Especially with a guy like Patrick, someone who would not cut and run when things got tough.