Forever Right Now

On the Muni home, I racked my brain for a way to give the Judge what he wanted.

Life.

But my mother was dead. Killed by a drunk driver when I was eight years old.

I gripped the Muni bar hard as the train screeched into a tunnel and the windows went black, as if it were taking me into the dark heart of my worst memories.

Blue and red flashing lights fill the foyer with garish color. Clown colors, from a nightmarish carnival. A knock at the door. I step into the hallway behind my dad. Emmett tugs on my pants. He’s only four, but my little brother’s smart. He knows something’s very, very wrong, and he’s scared.

Like me.

I’m so scared I can’t breathe.

“Mr. Haas?”

My dad’s head bobs. “Yes?”

“I’m very sorry but there’s been an accident.”

Dad staggers back a step then clutches the doorjamb. His knuckles are white. The red and blue lights spin around and around. Their sirens are off, but the sound is deafening. Screaming. Ripping the black of the night, tearing through my father and brother and me like a banshee; shrieking with sinister glee that nothing will ever be the same again.

The Muni train surged into daylight and I blinked the horrible reverie away. The memory retreated slowly, never far from sight and always crystal clear in my perfect memory.

The defendant—my mother’s murderer—had been jailed for alcohol-related incidents twice before, and was driving with a suspended license. But it didn’t matter. The judge used discretion. Discretion. I fucking hated that word. The driver was released and three weeks later, he killed my mother. He was sentenced to twenty-five years but what the fuck did that matter? He’d already put my mother to death and given my father, brother, and I life sentences.

And none of it needed to happen.

My hand on the Muni rail tightened again until my joints ached. The senselessness of it gnawed at my guts whenever I thought of it for too long. I turned my focus on what I could do as a prosecutor, instead. Sought sanctuary, as I always did, in the law.

But Miller’s lecture in his office had me scared shitless. If I didn’t give him what he wanted—life, in a briefing about senseless death—I’d lose everything.

I was still pondering these questions when I walked up to the Victorian. In my flat, Darlene was at the kitchen table, sitting next to Olivia in her high chair, feeding her a snack of cubed cheese and grapes that Darlene had cut in half.

“Hey,” she said brightly. Her beautiful face like a ray of sun I basked in for a moment. “Elena came by. She said Hector did break a bone but it was a clean break, no surgery needed.”

“Good, good,” I said. “Glad to hear it.”

“How was your meeting?”

Catastrophic.

“Fine.”

I leaned over Olivia’s high chair from behind. “Hey, baby. Having a snack?” I plucked a piece of Jack cheese from her tray and ate it.

“Cheece, cheece,” she said, and I watched her tiny fingers pick up the white cube and bring it to her mouth.

I looked up to see Darlene watching me. She quickly averted her eyes.

“She’s got a great vocab,” she said, brushing a curl of Olivia’s hair out of her eyes. “She’s a smarty, aren’t you, sweet pea?”

“Would you mind hanging out for one more minute?” I asked. “I want to change out of this suit.”

“Knock yourself out.”

In my bedroom, I changed into my evening uniform of flannel sleep pants and a white, V-neck undershirt. I grabbed my wallet from my suit on the bed, and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. In the kitchen, Darlene was wiping Olivia’s face with a cloth, and saying something to make my daughter laugh.

Jackson’s words from this morning came back to haunt me. Darlene was beautiful, fun, and great with Olivia.