Guilt

He didn't often torture himself with whether any of his clients had done what they'd been accused of. He generally preferred to ask them about the evidence against them and how they might explain it. Sometimes, if he liked his clients, he'd provide two or three explanations and ask if any of them had a particularly nice ring.

He never asked directly if a client were guilty. That was a conclusion for the jury. Similarly, he tried not to ask any open-ended questions about what someone had or hadn't done because he might get an answer he didn't like, and then be stuck with it. And there was always the very real possibility that his client would lie to him anyway. This was in the very nature of people, he believed, and hence understandable, human, acceptable.

But his adult pragmatism was a far cry from the idealism that had drawn him to the law in the first place. It was a rationalization, as so much of his life had become. You did what you had to. And that was okay.

Most of the time.

He'd been trying to convince himself of all this now for the last decade or so. It was the recurring topic in his 'retreats' with Mark Dooher, who would always argue the opposite – you didn't do what you had to do, you did what you believed in.

Before these troubles, Farrell thought that had been easy for Dooher to say. He'd never had to struggle in his career, in his life. He could afford the luxury of idealism, of believing he was always on the side of the angels. He was Job before the curses.

But Dooher was right about one thing. The accommodation ate at you. It made you cynical. Sometimes it seemed to Wes that the endless litany of 'good enough', 'good enough', 'good enough' was a prescription for failure. That there really wasn't any such thing as good enough. There was your best, and then there was everything else.

And, in his darkest moments, Wes sometimes believed that his marriage had failed, his business had never really prospered, he'd never achieved all he'd set out to do – in law school, he'd dreamed of being appointed to the Supreme Court! – because he'd burned himself, his best self, out on the altar of 'good enough'. Lord knew, it had been hard enough, raising the kids, getting and keeping clients, making time for Lydia. He'd put in all the energy he thought he could spare, instead of all he had, on just about everything he put his mind to. What had he been saving the rest for?

Was this the source of his mediocrity? The secret of the nonentity he'd become?

He knew the reason for his nervousness after di

And now there was Christina Carrera, his own albatross. Why couldn't she just go away?

Farrell, too, had caught a glimpse of them together for a moment on Mark's lawn this afternoon. Witnessing first-hand the almost embarrassing co

Which was that Mark had wanted her from the first moment he laid his eyes upon her.

But what did that mean? Nothing, he told himself. It was merely one of those late-night chimeras that tantalize or frighten, and then in the morning turn out to have been a shadow falling on an uneven surface, a wisp of white fabric blowing lonely in a faraway tree.

'Wes?'

Sam's quiet whisper from the bedroom. Worried, obviously caring. Was he all right? Did he need her?

Petting Bart a last time, he pushed himself up. The doubt, the ghost, the mirage – whatever it was – would be gone in the morning.

He was sure of it.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

The next day, Glitsky was at Marine World with Nat and the three boys.

He still hadn't found a na

At the amusement park, the sun was out and although there was a steady breeze, it didn't have that Arctic intensity you got off the ocean out in the Avenues where they lived.

Now he was sitting high in the grandstands, watching the killer whale show. Isaac and Jacob had gone down to the seats by the water with their grandfather, all of them, including Nat, deciding that they really needed to get soaked. But O.J., ten years old, didn't want to do that and didn't want to leave his dad, either.

In fact, after the older boys had gone down, O.J. asked Abe if he minded if he sat in his lap. Which was where he was now.

The huge mammals entered the pool, but O.J. couldn't have cared less. 'Dad,' he said, 'can I ask you something?'

Ever since Flo had first gotten sick, O.J. had preceded nearly every remark with this question. Glitsky thought it was because he was such a sensitive little kid, so aware of the pressure everybody was under. He didn't want to add to it by asking any question that someone would have to answer. He didn't want to be a bother.

This sometimes translated to Glitsky as though his youngest son didn't want to exist, and that drove him crazy. But he kept his voice modulated and answered the way he always did.

'You can always ask me about anything, O.J. You don't have to ask permission to ask.'

O.J., as always, then said, 'But can I ask you something?'

Patience, Glitsky told himself. Patience. 'Yes, you can ask me something.'

'Okay. What if all the sudden, you know Merlin?'

'Merlin?'

'Yeah, Merlin, King Arthur's musician.'

'Magician. But yeah, okay, I know. Merlin.'

'Right. So what if Merlin came back to life and he decided all the unicorns were going to be down on earth from now on?'

O.J. had also been playing with variations on the coming-back-to-life idea for the past few months. What if Robin Hood came back to life and got disguised as one of the Power Rangers? What if George Washington really didn't die, but was just waiting to see if he could live to be 300 and then he could be President again? What if Bambi's mother…?

'Things don't come back to life,' Abe said, gently but as firmly as he could. 'Dead means you're gone forever. That's what dead is.'

'I know that, Dad, but Merlin was a musician and he could come back if he wanted to, and then he could decide the unicorns could live on the earth.'

He wanted to tell him there were no unicorns, either. The boy was ten years old, closing in on puberty, and he really ought to stop seeking comfort in these fantasies.

But somehow his energy failed him. He let out a long breath. 'Instead of where? Where do they live now?'

O.J. couldn't believe his father's ignorance. 'Well, now they live in the clouds, in Unicorn Land.'

'Okay.'

'And then they could come down and be here on the earth and we could ride them, and maybe even have one as a pet. What if that happened?'

Glitsky tightened his arms around his gangly son, came up with the answer he always wound up with. 'If that happened, O.J., that'd be really neat.'

Isaac was still very wet. He exceeded by several years the twelve-year-old limit for the playground, but dripping as he was, he didn't look it. And even though he was a cop, pledged to enforcing the laws, Abe wasn't going to call him on it.

He and Nat had left their food – French fries and corn dogs – on one of the picnic tables behind them, where the ravenous seagulls had spirited it away and scarfed it all down.

Now the two men stood at the fence that kept the adults in their place. All three of the boys were clustered together, up high in a corner of a climbing structure made of rigging rope. Hanging together.