Page 141 of Wreckage and Rain

Colt

They don't make you put your hand on a Bible anymore. Just a raised right hand and a question. I say I do. Then I tell them the truth about my father.

It takes most of the afternoon. A court reporter, a woman from the U.S. Attorney's office, two attorneys from the SEC, my own lawyer at my elbow with a legal pad he doesn't need. A camera on a tripod. I tell them about the headhunter email and the salary and the dinners at The Butcher Block. I tell them about the drinks Cheyenne ordered for me, that I drank because I trusted the hand that passed them. I tell them about the hotel room I can't remember and the morning I woke up in it not knowing how I got there. I tell them about the documents I signed without reading, because a Bennet signs what's put in front of him. I give them the dates. I give them the names. I don't soften any of it for the man whose name I'm still carrying around.

When it's done, the woman from the U.S. Attorney's office walks me to the elevator. Off the record, she says, she doesn't think they'll need me at trial.

"He'll plead," I say.

"He will. Not because he thinks he's beaten. Men like your father never lose. They cut losses and call it strategy. He's trapped and he knows it. He'll take the deal and tell himself it was the smart play." She presses the button for me, which feels like a kindness I didn't expect from anyone in this building. "You trapped him."

For as long as I can remember, the test was the same: does he nod. I'd build a pitch and wait for the nod. I brought Summer home and waited to see if the family would allow her. His handon the back of my neck, steering me, deciding what I wanted before I got there.

Today I said all of it out loud, every date of it, to a court reporter and a camera. Somewhere in the middle I noticed I'd stopped waiting for the nod. I didn't go looking for it. I just kept talking.

Summer is in the lobby. She said she'd wait at home. She came anyway. She stands when the elevator opens, takes one look at me, and doesn't ask. She pulls me in. I put my face in her hair and stop pretending I don't need it.

"He's going to plead," I say into her hair. "Cheyenne too. The case is too strong."

She pulls back and looks at me. "Good."

"My mother left a voicemail this morning. Before I went up."

"Did you listen to it?"

"No."

She doesn't tell me I should. She doesn't tell me I shouldn't. She takes my hand. We go out through the revolving door into a January afternoon so cold and bright the whole city looks scrubbed, and she doesn't let go the whole way to the car.

Chapter 41: Wreckage and Rain

Summer

January in Chicago is a different kind of cold than I knew existed.

The wind off the lake comes down Division Street like an insult. The puffer jacket I bought in November is no match for it and I've downgraded my expectations of human dignity accordingly. I leave the apartment in two scarves, mittens, the puffer, and the boots Mama gave me at twenty. I look in the mirror by the door, I look like a small overstuffed couch with eyes, and I don't care. The mittens are non-negotiable. The mittens are how I get through the third week of January in this city.

Colt comes out of the bedroom in jeans and a hoodie, barefoot, and laughs at me.

"Stop."

"What."

"You're laughing."

"I'm admiring."

"You're laughing."

"I can do both."

"You aren't allowed to laugh at me until you've survived a January in this city without crying once."

"I haven't cried once."

"You cried at the Sears Tower last week."

"That was the wind. The wind makes my eyes water."