Breach of Trust

2

I reached over with bleary eyes and took a good whack at my alarm clock. My head sank back into the pillow until I got a nudge in my rib cage.

“It’s five, babe.”

I rolled over and peeked up at my wife, Talia, who was sitting up in bed, wide awake.

“Can’t sleep?” I moaned. “Your back still?” I nestled up against her warm body and moved my hand onto the hump of her belly. Technically, the due date was ten days away, but Doctor Waite said it could be anytime. “Hurry up, Emily Jane. Daddy’s big trial is starting soon. I want to see you as much as possible before-She kicked.” I popped up in bed. “I felt her.”

Emily Jane-we’d already named her-had made an art of kicking for her mommy but never for me.

“She’s been doing that for over an hour.” Talia ran her hand through my hair. “Did you sleep at all?” she asked.

“A few hours.” I was trying to get as much done for the Almundo trial as I could before I had to take some time off for the arrival of Emily Jane. Her due date was five days before jury selection.

There were all sorts of reasons for me not to work as second chair on the Almundo trial, given Emily’s impending arrival. But there were even more reasons for me to take the assignment. Starting with this: Every single associate at Shaker, Riley and Flemming would give a major organ to be in my position. This case could make my career if it went well. And it was the chance to work alongside Paul Riley, our senior partner and, by most people’s accounts, the best trial lawyer in the city. I was new to Shaker, Riley and to private practice in general when Hector Almundo walked through the door and hired Paul to defend him in one of the biggest public corruption cases the city had ever seen. I don’t know what I did to catch Paul’s attention. I’d handled a few projects for him but nothing huge. Maybe he’d asked about me at the county attorney’s office, where I’d cut my teeth before landing at the firm. I didn’t know and didn’t care. I said “yes” to this assignment before it was out of Paul’s mouth. I couldn’t have known at the time that my wife and I would be expecting our first child just as the trial opened.

I warmed up a couple of breakfast sandwiches in the microwave and brought them up to Talia before I left for work. Last week, these sausage-and-egg biscuits would have made her gag; this week she couldn’t live without them. “I miss coffee,” she told me. She’d forsworn it, even though her doctor told her she could have a little caffeine now and then. This was our first, and Talia was taking no chances.

Even sleep-deprived and uncomfortable, my wife was a classic Italian beauty. I wiped her flattened bangs off her forehead and kissed her there, then her nose and cheeks and soft, warm mouth. “I miss sex,” I told her. “Unless-”

“Sorry, mate. If you touch my boobs, I’ll scream.” She pulled on my tie. “Get home early, okay?” By early, she meant some time before she went to bed.

“And keep that cell phone handy,” she added.