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  The girl nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’re her daughter?”

  The girl nodded again. “She parked a few blocks away because she wasn’t sure she’d find any closer spots. She said I could stay here while she got the car. Is that okay?”

  Lucia didn’t bother answering that. “What’s your name?”

  “Rachel.” Her eyes fell on Lucia’s key chain, with its pink plastic flamingo nudging against the mace. “You’re going home, aren’t you? I can wait outside on the porch.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Lucia said. “You’re not waiting outside.”

  She stood there, considering. Children rarely came to her office. Occasionally a client didn’t have a babysitter, but the children would linger in the lobby doing dot-to-dots or something, and Marissa would keep an eye on them. Lucia never had conversations with them.

  It was absurd that the woman had left her daughter here without even asking permission.

  “You don’t have any posters of John Wayne,” the girl said. “Have you ever seen Angel and the Badman?”

  Did most twelve-year-old girls discuss Westerns? Lucia considered whether to address the sociopolitical aspects of the Duke and why she did not hang him on her wall.

  “Westerns aren’t my favorite,” she said.

  “I love Westerns,” Rachel said. “And John Wayne. On Sundays they always show old movies on TBS, you know? If you think he’s not a good actor, have you seen him in True Grit? Or Rooster Cogburn with Katharine Hepburn?”

  Lucia smiled. The girl was not like her mother. A negative reaction had not changed her course in the slightest.

  “You’re right,” said Lucia. “He was good in those. Age added some depth.”

  Rachel looked back at the paintings, and Lucia studied them, too. At some stage she had stopped seeing them as she came in and out of the office.

  “Adam’s Rib,” Rachel said, nodding at the sepia-toned versions of Hepburn and Tracy. “It’s about lawyers, so that makes sense.”

  “One of my favorites,” Lucia said.

  Rachel faced her, eyes dark and fixed. “Do you think he means to hit her? Do you think it’s really a slap?”

  Lucia dropped into one of the empty chairs. How were you supposed to talk to girls this age? How to discuss power dynamics and spousal abuse as it pertained to screwball comedies?

  “Yes,” Lucia said. “I do think it’s a slap. I think he meant to slap her, but he can’t admit it to himself, much less to her.”

  Rachel unfolded her legs, and her feet hit the floor softly. She reached an arm up, lifted her hair in one twisting motion that reminded Lucia of twirling cotton candy, then dropped the thick mass of it across one shoulder.

  “You’re wearing a ring,” she said. “How long have you been married?”

  “Two years.”

  “Do you have kids?”

  “No.”

  “Do you and your husband have nicknames for each other?”

  Lucia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been the one answering the questions. It was easier, in some ways. “You mean do we call each other something adorable like Pinkie and Pinky? Like Hepburn and Tracy in the movie?”

  The girl nodded. Lucia cast back her thoughts, letting them arc, ribbonlike, and she was peeking through a doorway in her childhood home, staring at the glossy dining-room table. Her mother and father sat at opposite ends, and two couples from church flanked them, and Lucia was supposed to be in the basement, but she’d tiptoed upstairs under the guise of being thirsty. The grown-ups were using the fancy green glasses, and one of the men—he looked like Abraham Lincoln—was saying, “So what was I wearing when he knocked on the door, Mary? What I always wear when I sleep. Not a darn thing.” It was a revelation to Lucia. Men slept naked. Married people slept naked. Married people talked about being naked. Over dinner. She’d clutched her plastic cup and realized there might be patterns other than the ones inside her own house. The possibilities had unspooled.

  “We don’t have pet names,” she told the girl. “Although my husband’s friends from college call him Bard. He wrote poetry once upon a time. And his middle name is Bartholomew. So—”

  “Bard-olomew?” Rachel sounded out.

  “I think it sounds better if you’ve been drinking heavily,” Lucia said, then realized it was probably not an appropriate comment.

  “What’s his first name?” Rachel asked.

  “Evan.”

  “Is he a lawyer?”

  “Nope.”

  Rachel shifted in the chair again, scanning the lobby. There wasn’t much to see, and her eyes fell on the paintings again. “Tallulah Bankhead,” she said, nodding at Lifeboat. “She’s from Alabama, right? My aunt lives on Bankhead.”

  “Your aunt must live pretty close to me. The street’s named for Tallulah’s family.”

  Rachel kept her eyes on the painting. “Are you going to be Mom’s lawyer?”

  “Your mother may not even need a lawyer.”

  “If she does, will it be you?”

  “She and I would have to have another conversation.”

  “If you had to guess,” the girl prodded, undeterred, “do you think you’ll be her lawyer?”

  Lucia lifted a hair from the edge of her skirt, watching it drift to the carpet. She suspected the girl’s mother would never get around to deciding whether she wanted a divorce.

  “Probably not,” she said.

  “Good.”

  Rachel gave a small smile, eyes veering toward Lucia but missing slightly, settling on the porcelain lamp with its pattern of twining flowers. Her hands flapped once, twice, in her lap before her fingers found one another, interlocking. It was the first trace of uncertainty she’d shown.

  A horn honked outside. Lucia suddenly noticed the patter of rain.

  “That’s Mom,” Rachel said. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

  She was through the front door before Lucia had even finished waving. As the door eased shut, Lucia could see her leaping down the wet stairs two at a time.

  She sat in the stillness, listening to the rain. She missed the sound of the girl talking. After a while she pushed herself to her feet, and she made herself loosen her grip on her briefcase. Whoever had vandalized her car—it had to be a man, surely, because what woman would urinate on a tire?—had wanted to scare her. If she dreaded walking out the door—if she panted and worried and flinched—then he had won.

  She was not panting.

  She was not worried.

  She turned off the lamps. She glanced through the window and watched the steady line of traffic, and then she was opening the door and locking it behind her.

  The rain picked up, typing a fast rhythm against the leaves. She crossed the Spanish tiles, a remnant of her building’s former life as a home for some long-dead lesser Gatsby type. She angled around the side of the building, where the ivy grew thick and the two big oaks turned every hour into twilight. She could not feel a single drop of rain. The air smelled of green and dirt, and here she did grant herself a pause: she had a clear view of the parking lot from this angle. If anyone was waiting, she would see them before they saw her.

  The lot was empty. Only her car and the pit-marked asphalt.

  Still, she waited. She leaned against the still-dry concrete blocks of the building wall, a sign that Gatsby’s vision might have been bigger than his bank account. She ran her hand along one block: the slight curve of it had the same feel as Evan’s shinbone under her fingers. Across the parking lot, the rain ran down her car, streaming over the fender. Puddles underneath.

  She could still smell the urine.

  Cracks spreading across the glass. A rock? A gloved fist? It would take real force to break a windshield so thoroughly.

  The sky had still been tinged pink that night, beautiful. Before she’d gon
e inside to call the police, she’d backed up against her battered car and threaded her keys between her knuckles like her father had taught her.

  Are there any other girls? he’d asked her when she came home after her first month of law school.

  There’s two of us, she’d said.

  But don’t they think—he’d started, and she’d wanted to ask who “they” were and what they might think, but she hadn’t. Instead of finishing his sentence he’d asked for her keys and showed her how to use them as claws.

  III.

  Rain poured over the eaves of the carport. Lucia turned the key in the kitchen door, and before she’d opened it an inch, it slammed shut.

  Every single day.

  She peered through the window, meeting Moxie’s delighted gaze. The Airedale had her massive paws propped against the glass, all fifty-plus pounds of her straining in welcome.

  “We’ve been through this,” Lucia said to the dog through the glass. “You have to get off the door before I can come in. Get down. Get down, Moxie. Moxie. Off.”

  The dog bobbed and panted. She gave a long lick to one of the panes, her tongue sluglike.

  “Honestly, you know how this works,” Lucia said. “Get off the door. Off.”

  The dog tossed her head and lashed her tongue through the air and then, more likely from a loss of focus than actual obedience, dropped to her feet. Lucia pushed open the door, the smell of garlic and rosemary washing over her as she slipped inside. She let her briefcase drop, kicked off her heels, and stripped off her hose, all with Moxie jabbing a dirty snout against her thighs.

  “All right,” Lucia said, hanging her hose on the coatrack next to yesterday’s pair. She knelt, scratching behind the dog’s sharply folded ears. Moxie thumped in ecstasy.

  Lucia swiped at the soil caking the dog’s beard.

  “The ficus again?” she said.

  Moxie darted forward, scoring a solid lick—hints of potting soil—inside Lucia’s mouth. She rested the furry cylinder of her head on Lucia’s shoulder, her tail vibrating them both. She was without a doubt the most loving dog Lucia had ever owned. And the stupidest. She literally ate dirt.

  Giving the dog one more rub, Lucia walked to the kitchen, where she lifted the lid off the crockpot and stirred the pork and white beans. The green chilies eddied, and she was blowing on a spoonful when the phone rang.

  Her best guess was Evan—he should have been home by now.

  “Hello?” she said, settling the crockpot lid with her free hand.

  “How is everything, sweetheart?” asked her mother.

  There was a wiliness to the greeting. It implied that her mother knew of some event and was asking about the aftermath. Occasionally, something actually had happened—her car, for instance—and for just long enough to give herself away, Lucia would be fooled into believing that her mother already knew about it.

  “Everything’s fine, Mother,” Lucia said. Moxie rammed her head softly against her thigh.

  “No more trouble with your car?”

  Lucia liked that phrasing. And, in truth, although she had let slip a mention of her car, she had not been flustered enough to give details. Her mother only knew that her windshield had been cracked.

  “No,” she said. “Only a fluke, I think.”

  “Do you think”—her mother lowered her voice—“that someone might have done it on purpose?”

  Lucia propped her dripping spoon on the edge of the stove. Nudge, went Moxie. Nudge nudge.

  “Why would anyone do that?” Lucia asked. She was genuinely interested in what her mother’s answer might be. Her mother did not like bad things to take form.

  “Well, you know, of course,” her mother said. “There are all kinds of people out there.”

  In a skittering of claws and spray of drool, Moxie bolted across the kitchen tile and flung herself against the door. Eventually, Evan forced his way inside, shirt sleeves rolled up.

  “Down,” he snapped, simultaneously locking the door behind him, rubbing the dog’s neck, and shooting Lucia a roll-eyed look that expressed both a hello and an acknowledgment of the difficulties of this particular dog. She watched him register the phone in her hand and the tone of her voice; he realized she was talking to her mother. His face shifted into a question.

  She shrugged, letting him know everything was fine.

  “I imagine it was teenagers,” she told her mother. “I mean, the office is downtown.”

  This was speaking her mother’s language. In Caroline Roberts’s world, downtown Montgomery was Saigon. Beirut. Times Square.

  Evan looped an arm around her waist, a hand across her belly. She could smell the Juicy Fruit on his breath, and she leaned against him as her mother explained how something had gnawed clean through a package of Ritz Crackers.

  “What do you mean ‘something’?” Lucia asked. “What could it be other than a mouse?”

  “There’s no telling,” said her mother.

  “No telling? Do you think you have a turtle infestation, Mother? Possums, maybe?”

  Her mother laughed. She had a saloon girl’s laugh, low and never ending. It was almost worth these phone calls. In another few minutes, Lucia was off the phone, just as Evan set a gin and tonic in front of her.

  “Moxie’s been in the ficus again,” she said. “I haven’t checked to see if she ate the Saran wrap.”

  Evan dropped the needle into the groove on Elmore James singing about dusting a broom, then he bent to examine the planter by the sliding-glass doors. The shelves blocked her view.

  “I don’t think she ate any,” he said. “Just tore it off. We could duct tape it.”

  “Maybe tin foil would work better.”

  “Chicken wire,” he said, just as the slide guitar kicked in.

  “How would we attach it?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. He crossed the room again, stepping over Moxie, who had sprawled across the kitchen tiles. He leaned into Lucia’s space, reaching for her drink. He always tried her drink, even if he’d made it. Even if they had the same thing.

  “Nothing happened today?” he asked.

  He had been waiting to ask. She had felt him waiting all this time. The music and the drink and the chatter—all diversions.

  “Just work,” she said.

  “Someone walked you to your car?”

  He had asked only two things of her: carry the mace he’d given her and don’t go to the car alone. Both were reasonable, and she agreed entirely with his logic. She considered lying.

  “Don’t you think it’s silly?” she said. “To still be worried about it?”

  “No,” Evan said. “I do not. And neither do you.”

  “I can’t have someone walk me to my car forever.”

  “We’re not talking about forever. We’re talking about tomorrow. Have Marissa or a client walk with you to the car tomorrow. Then we can have a whole separate argument about the day after tomorrow.”

  A laugh slipped out of her. Evan stood there, dark hair falling over his forehead. Hazel eyes serious behind his glasses. Waiting.

  “I’m leaving the office early tomorrow anyway,” she said. “I have the talk at the Prattville Homemakers Association, remember?”

  “You think you should do it?”

  “I obviously do,” she said. “Do you think a Prattville Homemaker is going to attack me with her chicken casserole?”

  “Lucia,” he said.

  “They’ll ask me about some friend who wants to leave her husband,” she said. “Or if I can fix a traffic ticket. I won’t be saying anything that controversial.”

  He wandered back to the stereo, pulling out an album. Hoodoo Man Blues.

  “No?” he said, sliding the record back into its slot. “You’ve said plenty already. Some people take it seriously, Lucia. All the ERA stuff.”<
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  Her speeches had slowed to a trickle, and he knew it. That first year out of law school she’d spoken to any group that would listen. Fifty-two speeches in a year. Cardboard boxes full of mimeographed letters asking Why is the Equal Rights Amendment important? and dining-room tables packed with women stuffing envelopes and paper cuts striping her knuckles.

  Set up the mailing parties inside women’s homes, the organizer from the Women’s Political Caucus had said. If they stay home, their husbands won’t get their hackles up. There had been a long history of hackles. When the courts ruled in 1966 that women in Alabama were allowed to serve on juries, Lucia—still in college—had stared at the editorials warning that females were too delicate to handle lurid details, that they shouldn’t sleep in accommodations with strange men, and that, after all, wouldn’t they be abandoning their children at home with no one to mind them?

  Stay home. Stay home. Stay home.

  “Hell,” Evan was saying. “It hasn’t even been a month since they were snapping pictures of you talking about how the Fifth Circuit nominee list was rigged with white men.”

  “You surely aren’t suggesting that the Democratic Party bashed my car.”

  “I’m suggesting that you’ve said all sorts of things that bring out windshield bashers and urinators. When you give these speeches, they know where you are.”

  He pulled out another album and then another, picking up speed, and she thought of those old-timey switchboard operators, jerking plugs in and out of slots, connecting and disconnecting. He had figured out long ago that if he stayed silent, she would talk. She knew that he had figured this out and yet it still worked.

  “I am not canceling my speech tomorrow,” she said. “But I’ll make sure someone walks with me to my car.”

  He didn’t gloat. He only held up a record.

  “Pencil Thin Mustache?” she suggested, and he shook the record loose.

  IV.

  She’d had a string of late nights in the office, and now a dozen minor chores seemed to flash like dashboard lights as Lucia surveyed the house. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes. The doorknob on the closet was another twist or two from falling off. The dog-food bag was nearly empty, and the milk had expired two days ago, technically.