A Certain Justice

'How many boys do you have?' she asked.

'Three.'

'Has it been a long time?'

'Sixty-four weeks Saturday.' He looked at her. 'I don't know why, I just remember it in weeks, like I don't want to admit it's been months, or a year. I mean, you can handle a week. A week isn't that long. How it feels is even less than that. Sometimes I… it seems like an hour ago, she was here. She's just gone an hour and she'll be right back. It's stupid really. Denial. Just a way to handle it.'

'Not so stupid.'

His shoulders moved. 'The only thing is, you run up against real time, against how nothing is the same, it's all changed. That's how you know how long it's been. Everything about your kids, how things work with them, that's all different. How you work with yourself.' Winding down, stopping. 'Sorry. Ru

'Hardly that.'

'Well…'

After a beat, she rose from the couch and walked over to him. 'I was luckier with Dana. He died when Elaine was almost seventeen. And he was so much older. He'd lived his life.' She looked up at him. 'And still it took me a couple of years. You do whatever works.' She touched his arm. 'Would you mind driving me home, Abraham? I truly am exhausted.'

He'd been driven down to the Hall by a squad car, so he had to check out another city-issued vehicle, the same model car Loretta had been driving with Chris Locke earlier in the night. They didn't do any more talking as Abe filled out the requisition form for the car or on the walk down the outside staircase so they would avoid the media clustered still and always in the lobby of the Hall of Justice.

Now as they pulled out of the city lot she sat all the way across the seat from him, against the window, still silent, the intimate discussion upstairs now a barrier between them.

Glitsky was all eyes on the road. The previous driver of the vehicle had left the radio on and some bright-voiced deejay was telling whatever audience might remain in the traumatized city that it was exactly midnight, the first hour of Thursday, June 30. One more day until the official start of the Fourth of July long weekend and Happy Birthday America. It was sure going to be fun if we just make sure we load up on the beer and hot dogs and…

Abe reached over and snapped it off. 'That guy broadcasting from Mars or what?'

"They all do,' Loretta said.

Thursday, June 30

30

They were in her circular brick driveway in front of the colo

The ride had continued quiet, tense, laden with all that was unspoken. Glitsky was angry at himself for what he considered self-indulgence. And, unreasonably, at her for giving him the opening. Then seeing where Loretta lived – the involuntary comparison with his own physical setting, his cramped duplex – seemed to ratchet everything up another notch.

Between the fatigue and the unfamiliar rush of emotion, he knew he was in a dangerous mood – he should just open her door, help her out and say goodnight. But he didn't, he wanted to settle something. He'd waited long enough. 'Well, you married the right man after all, didn't you?'

She shot a look across the seat. 'Do you want to hear about Dana?' Glitsky didn't trust himself to say anything. 'Because I know you didn't understand. I don't know if I did.'

The words spilled out. 'What was to understand? You went with him, it's all right. If you hadn't I wouldn't have met Flo, so it all worked out. It was long ago, it doesn't matter now.'

'It does, Abe, I think it does.'

Suddenly, he slapped the steering wheel. 'Jesus, what was he then, forty-five? What could he have…? That's what I guess I never understood.'

She nodded her head, understanding the question. It was the crux of it. Her voice, like Abe's had earlier, remained flat. 'He had money, Abe. He had prestige and power and he was there. He wasn't working for it like we were. He wasn't hoping. It was all there, already part of the package. And I could be part of it. He wanted me to be part of it.'

'Everybody wanted you back then, Loretta. Probably still do. Why do you think you get elected? People respond to you, close up or far away. As you said, that's just who you are. I just thought, you and me, back then…'

He trailed off and the time lengthened in the car. 'I loved you, Abe, I really did.'

His hands gripped the steering wheel, something to hold onto. 'You left me, Loretta. You couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye.'

She couldn't deny it – it was true. She herself had avoided it for twenty-five years. 'I… I couldn't decide. I asked you, don't you remember?'

'You asked me what?'

'If you were ready, if you could commit…'

'And I said I needed a little time, I didn't say no. Hell, I wasn't yet twenty years old, not even out of school. It wasn't you, it was the idea. Marriage? A few more months, maybe. I would have been-'

'But I didn't have a few months.' She paused, cornered, her eyes flashing. 'Dana was ready right now. Don't you understand that? He was asking and he was going to leave if I didn't decide.'

'You could have decided not to.'

'No, I couldn't. Not without you. Not if you wouldn't be there. I couldn't give up what Dana had, not if I wasn't going to have you either.'

'We might have-'

'Might have wasn't good enough. Dana was my chance and I had to take it. He had what it would have taken me years to get on my own.'

So that was the answer. But there was one more question, maybe the most important one.

'Did you love him?'

'I came to…'

Glitsky slammed the steering wheel again, harder, biting out the words. 'Did you love him then, damn it? Were you stringing us both at the same time…?'

'Stringing you…?'

'You know what I mean, Loretta. Sleeping with us both at the same time.'

The question seemed to rock her. 'No, Abe. I never did that. I left you before… oh, my God, is that what you've thought all this time? I never would have done that.'

'It wouldn't have mattered. Leaving was what mattered.'

'I know,' she said. 'I don't know if I was wrong. I was young. I just didn't feel like I had a choice.'

'You did and you made one. You can't make a choice if you don't have one.'

'I wasn't smart or wise enough to see that then,' she said. 'I thought everything was easy back then, would be easy. That whatever I did would work out and Dana was a way to guarantee it.'

'And it's worked, see?'

She didn't answer, staring at him. So much bitterness there, so much anger. Where had it all come from? Could she have caused all of it? Avoided all of it?

He looked at her and could almost see the question written across her face.

She nodded. 'Yes, it's worked, but at what cost?' She reached for his hand and took it in hers, squeezed it tightly, then moved over and held it in her lap.

They'd gone from Dana to Elaine. Twenty-five minutes, maybe more. There was no time. His hand was in her lap. The cold was creeping into their bones. Now someone had moved to Kevin Shea, Loretta's plan to calm the city.

Glitsky thought he should bring up some of his reservations, not so much about Shea's guilt as the whole issue of due process and how once you started screwing with that you compromised the whole idea of keeping the law, which was his passion and his job.