Occasional dinners.
Honesty.
Years later, she asked if I had forgiven her.
We were walking beside the Charles River as autumn leaves moved along the path.
I thought for a while.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“Fair.”
“But I don’t wake up angry anymore.”
Her eyes filled.
“That might be more than I deserve.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn guilt into another way of making yourself the center.”
She laughed.
“Ouch.”
“Lawyer.”
“I remember.”
We kept walking.
My parents changed as well.
Slowly.
Imperfectly.
My mother learned to ask about my work without comparing me to Brenda.
My father attended one of my arguments and sat silently in the back.
Afterward, he waited outside the courtroom.
“You were good.”
I looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“You were extraordinary.”
I smiled faintly.
“I’m allowed to be average sometimes too.”
His face tightened.
He understood.
“Yes.”
That answer mattered more than the compliment.
Judge Morland retired five years after the disciplinary hearing.
Her retirement reception filled the courthouse.
Prosecutors.
Defense lawyers.
Clerks.
Judges.
Former defendants.
People whose lives had crossed her courtroom.
When I approached, she smiled.
“Fitzgerald.”
I laughed.
“I’m never escaping that case, am I?”
“No.”
She took my hand.
“Although I remember another hearing rather well.”
My smile faded.
“So do I.”
She studied me.
“How is your family?”
“Complicated.”
“Most evidence is.”
I laughed.
Then she grew serious.
“You know, Claire, I regretted praising you that day.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“For about five minutes.”
“Why?”
“Because I worried they’d hear my praise and suddenly decide you had value.”
The room seemed to quiet.
She squeezed my hand.
“And I didn’t want you confusing their recognition with proof.”
My throat tightened.
“I did that for years.”
“I know.”
“How?”
