The Laws of Gravity (17 page)

“Okay, Jay, but at some point you’re going to need to move on.”

“Move on?” He lifted the remote and clicked off the TV. The screen went grayish black. “Listen to me, Nicole. If anything happens to you—and I do not believe that it will, we’re going to win this case and get you the cord blood you need and then you’re going to be back on track—but if anything should happen, don’t expect heroics. If you go anywhere without me, I’m going to cry like a dog. That’s it. Like a goddamn dog.”

Sarah phoned the judge from Los Angeles to say that their connecting flight had been delayed, and they were still having trouble locating the baggage. Sol should plan on coming to the airport at least four hours later than he’d intended. “And by this,” she said, “I do not mean that I want you to get there six hours
early
.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said—but Sarah was right, as usual. He always worried that some road would be closed, the expressway would be backed up, he’d be sent to the Van Wyck or some other crazy route, and find himself driving around in circles. He hated rushing to get to airports and train stations. He had planned to leave several hours early, just in case.

“I promise not to leave till after noon,” he said.

“Two o’clock would be better, but okay,” she said. “If there are any further delays, I can still reach you there at the house. I wish to heaven you’d get a cell phone. You must be the last man on earth without one.”

“Call if there are any problems,” he said. “I’ll wait here by the phone.”

“It’ll take an extra hour to get through customs,” she said. “So don’t panic. They’re being very careful these days coming into the United States.”

“Well, that’s one dangerous-looking baby you’ve got there.” He’d seen the photos on the computer, e-mailed by Sarah with subject labels like “First bath!” “Beautiful in red dress!” “Clapping hands!” Being a grandparent apparently brought on the exclamation points. Sol wished he could feel as excited. What he saw in the photos was a hopelessly scrawny little being with a solemn expression, often worried, with one eyebrow curved in a fishhook. She looked undernourished and possibly ill—though that might have been the effect of the bilious green shade of the umbrella stroller they had purchased in Thailand. A top-of-the-line Maclaren awaited her in America—the judge had already loaded it into the back of his Volvo.

“I can’t wait to see you,” Sarah said. “And Abigail sends her love.”

“Good,” he said.

“You’re going to adore Iris,” Sarah said. “You’ll surprise yourself.”

“Mm,” said Sol, unwilling to perjure himself. “Travel safe.”

He could hear Abigail in the background, calling “Love you, Dad!”

“Okay,” he said. He was famous within the family for never responding to an “I love you” with one of his own. But there they were, still three thousand miles away, an entire continent between them, about to climb into a piece of steel machinery that was supposed to fly them home. “I love you, too,” he said.

What if Sarah was wrong about him as a grandfather? he thought. What if he didn’t adore his granddaughter? What if he didn’t even like her? It
was like adopting a young dog from the pound instead of a puppy. They’d missed the first year of her life—first smile, first step. Some things were hardwired. But they would never know with this baby what that hardwiring might be. Possible genetic defects. Personality disorders, disease, psychological history. Who knew what led a mother to abandon her child?

And then there was the matter of foreignness. Iris looked nothing like any of them. Her skin was a dark yellowish color, her eyes unreadable slits in all the photos Sarah sent. In the orphanage she wore a plain off-white nightdress that hung straight to the floor; her hair had been close-cropped, the front cut into a severe V. She looked like a little Buddhist monk. It took Sol a long time to warm up to people. What if he never warmed up to this girl at all? What if he felt like a stranger holding her, taking her out in public, giving her a bath?

He instructed himself to get a grip. He had a cup of tea and a bowl of oatmeal, steel-cut, cooked from scratch. Yet once the oatmeal was cooked and in the bowl, covered with a dollop of yogurt, he barely touched it. He drank his tea plain, without cream, without sugar. He remembered his grandmother holding a sugar cube between her teeth, sipping hot bitter tea from a glass. He had fond memories of her, though she had been a tough
balabust
, a force to contend with. He remembered her running her rough hands through his hair. She would let him roll out his own batch of noodles and bake them, though somehow they never ate those noodles—grimy from the dirt of his hands. They were too special to eat, she told him. Once, a wasp had been flying around his head in the Bucks County boardinghouse, and she killed it with her own forefinger, jabbing it down on the windowsill. That was courage, he thought. That was a true grandparent.

He read the
New York Times
and
Newsday
cover to cover. It was a Thursday. He did the crosswords in pen. Then, still at a loss for a way to kill some time, he took out the book Arthur had given him for his birthday,
Swallows and Amazons
. It was as enchanting as he remembered. Only the illustrations seemed different—they had once loomed so large, and now he found tiny figures, some of them barely more than sketches. He fell asleep in the middle of chapter four, the book hanging from his hand, and was awakened by the sound of the doorbell. He marked his place in the book with a scrap of the
New York Times
and went to open the door.

No one was there. At least, that was his first impression. He looked out into a blue morning, milder than one had any right to expect in late November, the sun climbing. Then he looked down. Sitting in a vivid green stroller, all by herself, was an Asian baby girl with the most exquisite face he had ever seen, the color of gold, with a pair of sparkling eyes so dark they looked almost black.

“Oh, God,” Sol said. “Oh, my God.”

Abigail and Sarah, laughing, popped out of their hiding places, but his eyes were riveted on Iris. He never would have believed this. It was love at first sight.

Let the Games Begin

DeNunzio had been correct. Sol’s extension glided through the Office of Court Administration without a hitch, more quickly than things usually moved in judicial administrative affairs. The letter came stamped with a dark blue OCA seal on the letterhead, and Albert Pescatori’s signature at the bottom. Solomon Richter’s tenure as Supreme Court judge was extended till the end of
Greene vs. Wiesenthal
, with a deadline generously set at two years in the future. Sol could have seen it as a new lease on his working life, but he was surprisingly depressed by the whole thing—the case itself, the ease with which this exception had gone through by the hand of his former adversary, a man he did not admire.

The initial meeting took place in chambers with the judge and lawyers only. Sol was old-fashioned that way. He’d found that even lawyers tended to be on their best behavior in his chambers.

The lawyer for Nicole Greene, the plaintiff, was Peter Allister, a man he did not know. Sol was surprised that that the plaintiff hadn’t hired a larger law firm for the case, with a specialist in medical malpractice or contract law. As far as he could tell, this lawyer worked alone. He was soft-spoken,
his sandy hair touched with gray. He presented the case simply—almost too simply, Sol thought, not trying to tug on the judge’s heartstrings as most lawyers would have done, but simply pressing the urgency of moving forward quickly, and emphasizing the contractual nature of the letter that the cousin, Ari Wiesenthal, had signed.

The defendant’s lawyer, Sol did unfortunately know quite well. She was famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view. A few jurists admired her; many did not. Katrina Turock was a junior partner at Singular and Prescott, a large prestigious law firm located in Great Neck, with branches in two of the Five Towns. Turock was in her early thirties but had already made her name with a few well-publicized cases. Her client was always the big guy, the five-hundred-pound canary. Her beauty tended toward the showy side, with long, wavy blonde hair. It was said she was a bodybuilder, but she was too muscular, almost bulky-looking, and, he noticed, her hair was starting to thin. She was also high-strung, smart, ruthless, sarcastic to her opponents, and had had numerous affairs with older men in high places. None of these ended well for the men.

As he’d expected, the first thing she did was reargue the motion to dismiss. She called the case “ludicrous, based on old-fashioned notions of gallantry that have nothing to do with law.” She did not shake Flannery’s hand when introduced, and spoke insultingly in front of Peter Allister about “little firms that had nothing better to do with their time than to waste it.” Peter bared his teeth in a smile.

“The court has already decided to keep the case,” Sol said. “So let’s move on to scheduling.”

Katrina rolled her eyes and took out her BlackBerry. “I’m not free till March or April, at the earliest,” she said.

“That’s unfortunate,” said the judge, “as the case will commence in two weeks, time being a key factor. Perhaps another lawyer in your firm can take your place.” He hoped that this was true.

Her pale eyes flashed. “It’s
my
case,” she said. “I’ll rearrange my schedule.” She was wearing a low-slung belt with many brass studs over a short skirt, over a pair of leggings. Over this she wore a jacket that he supposed was stylish, but the whole effect was vaguely military. If Arnold Schwarzenegger became a woman and a lawyer, this was what he’d be wearing.

“Thank you,” said Peter Allister, gathering up his papers. “I’d better mosey on back to my little office.”

“Let the games begin,” said Katrina Turock.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sarah said one morning at breakfast. Sol knew from experience that this was never a good sign. “I did some thinking while I was in Thailand, and I realized…” She bit into her bagel and chewed it in thoughtful silence.

As usual, she made him ask her. “Realized what?” When he was younger and newly married, he would begin to panic inwardly.
I just realized that I want a divorce. I realized that I hate this house. I realized that we should move to Alaska.
In reality it was likely to be,
I realized no one in my family was ever a Republican
. Sol had learned not to guess. So he laid down his morning paper and waited.