Family Law by Gin Phillips (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

had a tattoo on the inside of his wrist—blurry and dark—that I somehow hadn’t noticed before.

“Maxwell was asking where you were,” he said. “I told him you didn’t feel good. I told him that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You better come back with me, though. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Lucia had stepped closer to me, shoulder to shoulder.

“I’m Rachel’s friend,” she said.

She held out her hand, and there was nothing about her tone that could possibly be considered threatening. Only she wasn’t smiling and she never looked away from him, not once, and was that all it took, I wondered? Eye contact and no teeth?

Because Luther wouldn’t look at her. He shook her hand but stared past her shoulder the whole time.

“I didn’t want her to get yelled at,” he said.

Behind him, crossing through a bed of pine straw, I saw a familiar figure in navy blue approaching. Maxwell came to a stop when he reached us, and the look on his face was not grandfatherly.

“Where you been?” he asked me. No one here remembered names.

“I—”

“We distracted her,” said Lucia, holding out a hand again, but this time she was smiling. “I apologize, Officer—”

“Maxwell,” he said. “Just Maxwell.”

“Rachel,” Evan said softly to me, “come get that popcorn with me now, why don’t you?”

I shook my head, stepping away from Evan. Lucia frowned, but she turned back to Maxwell.

“I’m Lucia Gilbert,” she said, and she let her hand hover above his arm. Jedi strategy. “You’re in charge of the community service placements here? I had a little experience with that back when I handled juvenile cases.”

“Lawyer?” said Maxwell.

“I am.”

“I handle the placements all right,” he said, shifting his feet. “Keep them organized, give them a schedule, check to make sure they’re on track. I’ve been doing it, oh, six years now. You got a good, hardworking girl here.”

He assumed, I realized, that she was my mother.

She didn’t correct him.

“Do you know he touched her?” she asked.

Maxwell twitched. “What?”

“A child rapist placed in a park,” she said. “You know what he’s charged with, correct? And he’s assigned to a place that’s swarming with children. It defies explanation. On top of that, he’s paired with a teenager. Who he invites to go camping. Who he touches—her elbows, her thigh. Without her consent.”

Maxwell looked down at me. I could feel Luther watching me, too, but I hadn’t looked at him since Lucia said the work “rapist.” She was moving too fast for me.

“Is that right?” Maxwell said, and he had hairs growing from a mole above his left eyebrow. “You didn’t tell me he touched you.”

“No, sir,” Luther answered. “I never—”

“I think it was an accident,” I said, and Luther nodded, but no one else seemed to hear me.

“This is not acceptable,” Lucia said. “Surely you can fix it. Surely you can move this man to a more appropriate location.”

As uncomfortable as I was, I could appreciate her. She was not accusing Maxwell. She was letting him be the one who could fix things.

“The court people will think I did something wrong,” said Luther, looking only at Maxwell now. Stepping farther away from me, putting the whole pathway between us. “If you make me move. I’ll get more hours or—I don’t know. It’s not right. I didn’t touch her. Not once. I only invited her and her dad—”

“You come on in the office with me,” Maxwell said to Luther. He looked back at Lucia. “Ma’am, we can take care of this quick and easy.”

“I appreciate that,” said Lucia.

Luther ran a hand over the curve of his skull, his T-shirt sleeve pulling up so that I could see his bullet scar, pale and crooked.

“Rachel,” said Evan, stepping closer. He blocked my view of Luther, exchanging a look with Lucia in that mute language they had.

“Popcorn,” Lucia said, and I felt Evan’s hand light on my shoulder blade.

“Come on,” he said.

I let him lead me away, and I could hear Luther murmuring, and I wondered what would happen in that office. Lucia might be a part of it, but I wouldn’t be, apparently, even though I’d made it all happen. I had not meant to make it happen. Lucia had never asked me, and she’d never asked Luther anything, either, and he had never threatened me and never hurt me, and if I’d set some punishment in motion, I wanted to undo it. Lucia would not undo it, I knew. Not when she had won. That was what this was, I supposed. Winning.

Lucia

I.

Natalie Wood died,” said Rachel, toeing off her shoes in the kitchen before following Lucia through the dining room and into the sunroom.

“I saw the headline,” said Lucia.

Rachel stopped in front of the wide window that faced the street. “We never come in here. It’s nice.”

With the sun vanishing behind the trees, the whole room was golden. The light spilled into the dining room, but this space soaked up most of the glow. A dozen cacti decorated the end tables, rounded shapes covered in needles and fangs and fuzz. Lucia climbed onto the futon so she could reach the hook she’d already screwed into the ceiling. It needed a few more turns.

“It gets too hot,” she said. “I just need one more minute with this.”

“Has it ever seemed strange to you,” Rachel said, “that Robert Wagner would be married to someone who wasn’t Stefanie Powers?”

Lucia bent down and picked up the Christmas cactus Marissa had given her, stretching to hang the planter on the hook. “I hate to tell you this, but Robert Wagner is actually a different person than Jonathan Hart. Hart to Hart is not a documentary.”

She let go of the cactus, watching it sway.

“I know that,” said Rachel. “But isn’t it better when it’s real? Like Bogart and Bacall?”

“Maybe,” admitted Lucia.

Rachel flopped onto the futon, feet flying up. Her hair was falling from her ponytail, and she swiped it from her mouth. It was always the hair over the ears,