LITMIR.BIZ

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for driving her own car,” she reminded me.

      “It was in his name.”

      “But she’d had exclusive use of it since they’d purchased it,” she said. “And he’d never told her she couldn’t continue to drive it after they separated. Sending his deputy after her was clearly a misuse of power.”

      Which didn’t matter at the moment. What mattered was that Bailey’s mother was on life support, lying in a hospital bed a few doors away, because she’d attempted suicide earlier that evening.

      “He’s going to pay for what he did.” I offered her what I could.

      “He’s a judge, Kor,” she said again. “He doesn’t just know how to work the system. He is the system. And he’s connected to everyone else who’s part of it, too.” Bailey’s voice sounded dead. But at least she was talking.

      “By law he’s held to a higher standard, not a lower one,” I said.

      Bailey sat up, the expression in her eyes bleak. “And who’s going to prosecute him? An attorney who’ll have to appear before him? An attorney whose paying clients will be facing him at some point in the future? Because it’s damn sure that my mother, a five-time-divorced paralegal who has a history of problems with alcohol abuse and has had numerous affairs, including one with this very same judge, hasn’t got a chance.”

      “It was the right thing to do, to report his misuse of power. To report the contracting debacle.” I clung to the one time Bailey’s mother had had enough backbone to stand up for herself.

      Because Bailey had stood behind her and guided her all the way, and I wasn’t going to have my friend beating herself up about it.

      I clung to what I knew was right. What Bailey believed was right. And I clung to my friend, giving her every ounce of strength I had.

      “Anyway, when I said the judge was going to pay, I wasn’t talking about paying in a court of law,” I added softly as the silence ticked slowly by. “The one thing he’ll never be able to escape is his own karma. Somehow or other, he’ll pay for this....”

      An hour passed with no sight of the doctor. No further word. We were waiting for them to stabilize her so we could see her. Bailey and I walked down the hall for cups of weak, machine-dispensed coffee. At half past midnight, we were the only nonemployee, nonpatient people in the waiting room.

      “Danny probably wants you home.” Bailey’s voice sounded loud in the corridor as we walked back to our seats for the umpteenth time.

      Hard to believe I’d been married for over five years. Seemed like five weeks. And forever, too. Danny was my life. Danny and Bailey.

      “He wants me right where I am,” I told her. He’d offered to come to the hospital with me, but I knew Bailey needed me there alone. And he’d been fine with that. Bailey had been in my life longer than he had.

      Danny might not be close to Bailey, but he didn’t ever get in the way of our connection. He respected its sacredness. Half an hour later, our coffee cups empty, we moved from chairs to the couch farther back in the room. Bailey’s shoulders were drooping, her long dark curls falling limply around her face. Putting my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her against me. Danny had already called the sub line for me, requesting a substitute teacher the next morning.

      “We’ll get through this,” I assured her. “You and me. Together.”

      “I know.”

      “I love you, Bail.”

      “Love you, too.”

      * * *

      With her head on Koralynn’s shoulder, Bailey contemplated sleep—the same kind of sleep her mother had embarked on when she’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills eight hours earlier.

      The kind where you didn’t have to worry about waking up.

      And there was the difference between her and Mom. She thought about it. Mom did it.

      “I should’ve been with her,” she said. Mom had called. Wanted to meet for dinner. Bailey had a moot court competition in the morning and had put her mother off in favor of preparing to win the case. She wasn’t just vying for grades; a win could give her the positioning she’d need to get on with a reputable firm as soon as she graduated.

      Or could have given her. There was no way she was going to the competition now.

      “You were with her all the time, Bail.” Koralynn’s voice wafted over her. And Bailey listened. After two years of law school, she trusted people less now than she ever had, except for Koralynn. But she still believed in Koralynn. Believed Koralynn.

      Her best friend, and maybe Mama Di and Papa Bill, seemed like the only people left on earth who still honored the truth.

      “I could tell by her tone of voice that she was struggling.”

      “She was always struggling. You held off going to law school right after college because she’d just found out the judge was having an affair and she thought she was getting divorced. You took money from him for your first year of law school because she begged you to—so she could prove you were all one big happy family. Then last year when they separated you took her to live with you. You’ve spent every weekend with her for months. And some evenings, too. You’re in your last year of law school, with more on your plate than most of us could manage, and you think you haven’t done enough? She should be giving to you, Bail. Maybe that would take her out of herself a little. She’s your mom—you should be able to expect help from her, not constantly feel guilty for not giving her more!”

      “I should never have encouraged her to file that complaint against him.”

      “She did the right thing. It’s the judicial commission’s mistake that they ruled unethically. Besides, that was six months ago.”

      “Yeah, but she never got over it.”

      “Which is why you helped her write a request for reconsideration. And she could talk to the reporter from Political Times. Or go to Channel Six, since they do exposés. She has a lot of options.”

      Like moving away from Pittsburgh, for one.

      “I should’ve known tonight was different.”

      “How was it different, Bailey? She’s been at the end of her rope for more than a year. For most of our lives, it seems. I’m sorry to sound harsh, especially now, but it kills me to see you try so hard and then lose so much of yourself because she doesn’t come through. Her journey is hers, and she probably does her best, Bail, but what I see is that you do everything for her, ask nothing for yourself, and then feel like you don’t do enough.”

      Bailey told herself she should sit up. Hold the weight of her own head.

      “I want you to promise me something, Bail.” Koralynn’s voice sounded more serious than usual.

      “Of course. Anything.” She could give Koralynn everything she had for the rest of her days and never be even.

      “Promise me that if you ever need anything, you’ll come to me. Promise me you’ll ask me for it.”

      “Of course.” She always had. Didn’t Koralynn know that?

      “Because I promise you, from the depths of my soul, that if there’s anything I have that you need, no matter what it is, I will give it to you.”

      “You know that’s how I feel about you, too. Right?” Bailey asked, although she couldn’t imagine that Koralynn would ever need her in such an elemental way.

      “Yes.”

      “I’d give you a kidney,” Bailey said into her friend’s shoulder—something they’d started saying back in high school, when a classmate of theirs had donated one of his kidneys to save his father’s life. They’d spent long hours talking about the gruesome details of the sacrifice, the pain and inconvenience, the

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