I get to the bar early and find a booth. She arrives on time as always, but with a pleasant look on her face. Judith is not a pleasant person and doesn’t smile much. Most lawyers battle stress, but most lawyers don’t work in a firm with nine other women, all known to be ball-squeezing litigators looking for a fight. Her office is a pressure cooker, and I suspect her home life is not that much fun. The older Starcher gets, the more he talks about all the yelling between Judith and Ava. I, of course, pump the kid for all the dirt I can get.

“How was your week?” I ask, the standard opening.

“The same. Looks like you’re on a roll. Another picture in the paper.”

The waiter takes our orders, always the same: chardonnay for her, whiskey sour for me. Whatever pleasant thought she brought into the bar has now vanished.

“A bit premature,” I say. “I don’t represent the guy anymore. He couldn’t handle the fee.”

“Gee, think of all the publicity you’ll miss.”

“I’ll find some more.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

“I’m not in the mood to swap insults. I get Starcher tomorrow for my thirty-six hours. Any problems with that?”

“What are your plans?”

“So I have to submit my plans to you for approval? When did the court order this?”

“Just curious, that’s all. You need a drink.”

We stare at the table for a few minutes, waiting for the alcohol. When it arrives, we grab the glasses. After the third gulp, I say, “My mother is in town. We’ll take Starcher to the mall for the usual ritual whereby the noncustodial parent kills a few hours drinking coffee while the kid rides the carousel and bangs around the playground. Then we’ll have bad pizza and bad ice cream in the food court and watch the clowns turn flips and pass out balloons. After that we’ll drive down to the river and take a walk by the boats in the harbor. What else would you like to know?”

“You plan to keep him tomorrow night?”

“I get thirty-six hours, once a month. That’s 9:00 a.m. tomorrow until 9:00 p.m. Sunday. Do the math. It’s not that complicated.”

The waiter pops in to ask how we’re doing. I order another round, even though our glasses are not yet half-empty. Over the past year, I have almost managed to look forward to these brief meetings with Judith. We’re both lawyers and occasionally we’ve found common ground. I once loved her, though I’m not so sure she felt the same. We share a child. I have entertained the fantasy that we could possibly develop a friendship, one that I need because I have so few friends. Right now, though, I can’t stand the sight of her.

We drink in silence, two brooding ex-lovers who would really like to strangle one another. She breaks the tension with “What kind of person is Arch Swanger?”

We talk about him for a few minutes, then about the abduction and the nightmare the Kemp family is enduring. A lawyer she knows once handled a DUI for Jiliana’s last boyfriend, which is supposed to somehow be enlightening.

The drinks are finished in thirty minutes, a record, and we part ways without even the obligatory peck on the cheek.

15.

It’s a challenge each month to plan an activity that keeps Starcher entertained. He’s already told me he’s tired of the mall, the zoo, the fire station, miniature golf, and the children’s theater. What he really wants to do is watch more cage fighting, but that’s not going to happen. So, I buy him a boat.

We meet my mother at a place called the Landing, a contrived boathouse in the middle of City Park. She and I drink coffee while Starcher slurps his hot cocoa. My mother is worried about his upbringing. The kid has no table manners and never utters the words “sir,” “ma’am,” “please,” and “thank you.” I’ve pushed him on this and gotten nowhere.

The boat is a remote-controlled model racer with an engine that whines like a muffled chain saw. The pond is a large man-made circle of water with a gushing fountain in the center. It’s a magnet for model boats of all varieties, and for all ages. Starcher and I fiddle with the remote controls for half an hour before everything makes sense. When he’s comfortable, I turn him loose and take a seat next to my mother on a bench under a tree.

It’s a beautiful day, with crisp light air and a brilliant blue sky. The park is crawling with people—families strolling about eating ice cream, new moms with massive strollers, young lovers rolling in the leaves. And no shortage of divorced fathers exercising their rights of visitation.

My mother and I chat about nothing of any importance as we watch her only grandson in the distance. She lives two hours away and does not get our local news. She’s heard nothing of the Swanger affair and I’m not about to bring it up. She has a lot of opinions and does not approve my career. Her first husband, my father, was a lawyer who made a nice living in real estate. He died when I was ten. Her second husband made a fortune in rubber bullets and died at the age of sixty-two. She’s been afraid to gamble on a third one.

I fetch us more coffee in paper cups and we resume our conversation. Starcher waves me over, and when I get there he hands me the controls and says he needs to go pee. The restroom is not far away, just on the other side of the pond in a building that houses the concession stands and park offices. I ask him if he needs help and he shoots me a dirty look. He is, after all, now eight years old and gaining confidence. I watch him as he walks to the building and enters the men’s restroom. I stop the boat and wait.

There is a sudden commotion behind me, loud angry voices, then two gunshots crack through the air. People start screaming. About fifty yards away, a black teenager sprints across the park, leaps over a bench, darts between some saplings and into the woods, running as if his life is in danger. Evidently it is. Not far behind him is another young black male, angrier and with the gun. He fires it again, and people hit the ground. All around me, folks who were enjoying the day are now ducking, crawling, clutching children, and scurrying for their lives. It’s a scene from television, something we’ve all witnessed before, and it takes a few seconds to realize that this is not fiction. That’s a real gun!

I think about Starcher, but he’s on the other side of the pond in the restroom, a good distance from the gunfire. As I duck and look wildly around, a man scampering away bumps into me, grunts “Sorry,” and keeps moving.

When both the prey and the hunter are lost in the woods, I wait, afraid to move. Then, two more gunshots in the distance. If the second guy found the first guy, at least we didn’t have to watch it. We pause, wait, then start to move again. My heart is racing as I stand and gawk at the thick trees along with everyone else. When it appears as though the danger has passed, I take a deep breath. People stare at each other, relieved but still stunned. Did we really just see what we just saw? Two policemen on bicycles fly around the corner and disappear into the woods. In the distance a siren can be heard.

I look at my mother, who’s on the phone as if she missed it all. I look at the men’s restroom; Starcher is still inside. I start walking that way, pausing to place the remote control on the bench beside my mother. Several men and boys have come and gone from the restroom.

“What was that?” she asks.

“Life in the big city,” I say as I walk away.

Starcher is not in the restroom. I hurry outside and begin looking around. I grab my mother, tell her he’s disappeared, and tell her to check out the ladies’ restroom. For several long minutes the two of us scour the area, our fear mounting with each second. He’s not the kind of kid who would wander off. No, Starcher would take a pee and head straight back to the pond to continue his boat racing. My heart is pounding and I’m sweating.