Judgment

12

She lay in bed in the dark next to Duncan for a long while that night.

She’d waited for his breathing to even out and wondered if she was keeping him awake with her periodic sighs, the way she was flopping around in the bed, trying to get the sheets around her just right. He’d buried his head in his pillow, bracketed by his bent arm.

They hadn’t made love in a while now, partly because she felt guilty about Chicago. They’d usually read in bed, kiss each other goodnight, flick off the light. Or Duncan would come in late from working in his home office, after she’d fallen asleep. She was still attracted to him — in some ways more than when they first met — and she wondered if he still felt the same way about her. She worried that maybe he didn’t — and what happened three years ago didn’t exactly reassure her.

She tried to blank out her mind, to blot out all vexing thoughts, to turn her mind into a large white screen that would allow her to slip off to sleep. Instead, she thought about Jake and his marijuana vape pen and how negative she’d been toward him and even toward Duncan. She didn’t want to be that kind of parent, constantly harping on the criticisms.

And she thought about that night with Matías, which now seemed so long ago, and she felt ill. She’d stepped right into their trap without thinking. She had jeopardized her career, was on the verge of destroying her family.

She was frozen in place. If she didn’t rule in favor of Wheelz on their protective-order motion by Monday, the world would see her having sex with a man who was not her husband. An item about her would appear in one of those judicial gossip sites, like UnderneathTheirRobes.com. Then it would spread from there. She didn’t know how, but it would. That was how things worked these days.

Yet if she did rule in their favor because of the blackmail, she’d be betraying everything she believed in.

And what would happen once she did rule in favor of Wheelz? Would there be more orders? Maybe this was just the beginning of a long series of extortionate demands. She was a prisoner, all because of one awful mistake. She hadn’t been able to resist Matías, and not just because of his looks, his handsomeness, and his lithe body. The way he’d talked with her, his apparent sensitivity, which had turned out to be well-rehearsed psychological tricks. And she’d fallen for them.

And what if she recused? Her mind reeled at the thought of what would happen. She didn’t think her marriage would survive it. And obviously her career as a judge would be over. She’d have to resign from the bench. She’d be unhireable. Everything she had worked all her life for, at work and at home, would vanish in an instant. That federal judgeship? A soap bubble.

She couldn’t imagine what she would say to Duncan, whom she loved so much. How it would slice into him. How devastated Ashley would be when she found out. And what it would do to her already fraught relationship with Jacob.

How she’d ruined everything.

It was funny, almost: she desperately wanted to talk to Duncan about what happened, to get his advice on what to do. But of course she couldn’t. He could never know what she’d done.

She looked at her watch, noted the date. Her friend Martha Connolly, who’d been out of town for a few days visiting relatives, was back by now.

Martha Connolly had recently retired as the chief justice of the state’s highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court. Now she was of counsel to a big Boston law firm and extremely well connected. Martie had been an important mentor to her. If anyone would know what to do, it was Martie.