CHAPTER 70

Marsh filed the motion about the contact window on a Thursday. It was exactly what Alex had predicted. Thin documentation, improper pre-deposition contact, violation of witness handling protocols.Soren called immediately. He was still controlled but the quality of the control had changed. It was the control of someone managing something that was worse than expected."Tell me the scope," Alex said.We were both on the call. Alex had put it on speaker without being asked."The motion is technically sound," Soren said. "The contact occurred. It was by the book procedurally but the documentation does not fully support that. A judge will look at thin documentation and give the defense the benefit of the doubt.""So Nolan's testimony is in question.""His testimony itself is intact. The question is its admissibility given the contact window. The judge may limit what he can testify to. In the worst case, his testimony on the Morrison-specific arrangement could be excluded.""And the payment

CHAPTER 71

Cole Marsh filed an application to introduce new evidence at 8:52am on Thursday. The trial was scheduled to resume at 10am.Alex called me from the courthouse at 9:05."There's a document," he said. "Marsh says it's a communication between me and Harold Fenn. The Lindfield client. Dated eight years ago. He's claiming it shows I actively advised Fenn on how to suppress the information he was withholding, not just that I was aware and withdrew."I sat down. "Do you know what document it is.""Marsh won't show it until the judge rules on admissibility. He filed the application under seal." Alex's voice was completely controlled. "It doesn't exist, Luke. I never advised Fenn to suppress anything. I withdrew and I documented the disagreement. If there is a document with my name on it, it is either fabricated or it is something that has been taken so far out of context as to be unrecognizable.""Who would have fabricated it.""Morrison has had Nolan's access to the firm's historical files.

CHAPTER 72

The six weeks between the verdict and sentencing were quiet in a way that felt different from the quiet before. Not the quiet of waiting for the next crisis. The quiet of a chapter genuinely ending.Morrison was sentenced to twenty-two months and ordered to pay significant restitution. She served the first phase at a facility two states over. Her assets in the civil recovery were unfrozen as a condition of the sentence, which meant the clients' remaining recovery was accelerated. The Ashbourne operation was dissolved and Reeves's permanent disbarment was confirmed. Nolan received a reduced sentence in his own case in exchange for cooperation.Alex came home from the sentencing and sat at the kitchen table and that was all. Just sat. Not processing. Not working. Just still.I sat across from him. Neither of us said anything for a while."Neil cried," Alex said eventually."At the sentencing.""After. When we were outside. He turned away and I could see his shoulders." He paused. "He ha

CHAPTER 73

July was hot and the firm was busy and the adoption process moved through its initial stages with the bureaucratic patience of something that operated entirely on its own timeline.We had a home study scheduled for August. A social worker would come to the apartment, review our life, interview us separately and together, and produce a report that would be the foundation of our approval or rejection.Alex treated the home study the way he treated depositions. He prepared.This meant he read everything the agency had provided. He read accounts of home studies written by other prospective parents. He made a list of likely questions. He made a list of things to have ready in the apartment. He bought two new plants for the living room."We don't need plants," I said."We have no plants.""We've never had plants.""The apartment should look like people live in it.""We live in it. It looks like we live in it.""It looks like two professionals live in it." He looked at the living room with a

CHAPTER 74

October brought a call from the agency that was not the call.Not a match. A request for additional documentation. Two forms that had not been fully completed in the initial submission. The agency was thorough in the way agencies are when they are responsible for the most consequential decisions in other people's lives.Alex completed the forms the same evening the call came in. Of course he did.What October also brought was Jonah bringing his family to the city for Ada's birthday weekend. They stayed in a hotel three blocks from us and we spent two full days with them, which was more time than we had managed in a single stretch before.Ada turned four in a restaurant where the staff brought a small cake with a candle and she blew it out with impressive force and looked at the extinguished candle with the specific satisfaction of someone who had done exactly what they intended.She had decided, at some point in the preceding months, that I was her person. Not Alex, who she called Ax

CHAPTER 75

The next three months were the process. The bureaucratic, procedural, emotionally weighty process that stood between the photograph of a boy looking at something off-camera and the boy in our apartment.There were visits. First a supervised visit at the foster placement, where we met Benjamin in a room with toys and a case worker present and he looked at us with the serious concentrated expression from the photograph and did not come close for forty minutes.Then, in the last ten minutes, he came and sat near Alex. Not next to him. Near him. Within arm's reach. And looked at the block Alex was holding without reaching for it. Alex held the block out. Benjamin looked at it for a long moment. Then he took it.That was the first visit.On the second visit he came to us faster. On the third visit he climbed into my lap without being invited and sat there looking at the room from the elevated position with the satisfaction of someone who had made a decision.The case worker made notes. We