“Is that what you think I do?” It was a relief for both of them to scream a little bit, but there was truth in her words, and they hit home so hard he slammed out of her house, and she didn't see him for three weeks. It was the longest they'd been apart voluntarily since they'd met, but he didn't call her and she didn't call him. She heard nothing at all from him until his daughter arrived in town for her annual visit, and Tana invited her to stay with her in town. Barb was excited at the idea, and when she arrived at the little house on her own the following afternoon, Tana was stunned by how much she had changed. She had just turned fifteen, and she suddenly looked like a woman now, with long lean lines, and pretty little hips and big blue eyes with her flash of red hair.
“You look great, Barb.”
“Thanks, so do you.” Tana kept her for five days, and even took her to court with her, and it was only toward the end of the week that they finally talked about Jack, and how things had changed with them.
“He yells at me all the time now.” Barbara had noticed it too, and she wasn't having a very good time with him. “My mom says he was always like that, but he never was when you were around, Tan.”
“I think he's probably pretty nervous these days.” She was making excuses for him for Barb's sake, so she didn't think it was her fault, but in truth it was a conglomerate of things: Tana, Harry, pressures in his work. Nothing seemed to be going right for him, and when Tana attempted to have dinner with him after Barbara went back to Detroit, it ended in more bickering again. They were arguing about what Averil should do with the house. He thought she should sell and move into town, and Tana disagreed. “That house means a lot to her; they've been there for years.”
“She needs a change, Tan. You can't hang on to the past.”
“Why the hell are you so desperately afraid to hang on to anything? It's almost as if you're afraid to give a damn.” She had noticed that a lot about him of late. He always wanted to be free and unattached, never tied down. It was a wonder the relationship had lasted as long as it had, but it certainly wasn't in good shape now, and at the end of the summer, fate dealt them another blow. Just as she had been told, when she was offered her seat on the municipal court bench a year before, an opening had come up, and she was being kicked up into superior court. She almost didn't have the heart to tell Jack, but she didn't want him to hear it from someone else first. Gritting her teeth, she dialed him at home one night. She was in her cozy little house, reading some law books she had brought home, to check some remote statutes of the penal code, and she held her breath as he answered the phone.
“Hi, Tan, what's up?” He sounded more relaxed than he had in months, and she hated to spoil his good mood, which she knew her news would. And she was right. He sounded as though someone had punched him in the gut when she told him she was being made a superior court judge.
“That's nice. When?” He sounded as though she had just planted a cobra at his feet.
“In two weeks. Would you come to my induction, or would you rather not be there?”
“That's a hell of a thing to say. I gather you'd just as soon I not come.” He was so sensitive, there was no talking to him.
“I didn't say that. But I know how uptight you get about my work.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh, please, Jack … let's not get into that now.…” She was too tired after a long day, and everything seemed harder and sadder and more difficult now that Harry was gone. And with the relationship with Jack on the rocks, it wasn't the happiest time of her life, to say the least. “I hope you'll come.”
“Does that mean I won't see you till then?”
“Of course not. You can see me whenever you want.”
“How about tomorrow night?” It was almost as if he were testing her.
“Great. Your place or mine?” She laughed but he did not.
“Yours gives me claustrophobia. I'll pick you up outside City Hall at six.”
“Yes, sir.” She put a mock salute in her voice, but he didn't laugh, and when they met the next day, their mood was gray. They both missed Harry terribly and the only difference was that Tana talked about it, and Jack would not. He had taken another attorney into the partnership, and he seemed to like the man. He talked about that a lot, and about how successful the man had been, how much money they were going to make. It was obvious that he still had a chip on his shoulder over Tana's work, and by the next morning, it was a relief when he dropped her off at City Hall again. He was going to Pebble Beach that weekend to play golf with a bunch of guys and he hadn't invited her, and she was relieved as she walked up the steps of City Hall with a sigh. He certainly didn't make her life easy these days, and now and then she thought of what Harry had said to her before he died. But it was hopeless thinking of anything permanent with Jack. He just wasn't that kind of man. And Tana didn't kid herself anymore. She wasn't that kind of girl anyway. It was probably why they had gotten along for as long as they had. Not that that seemed to apply anymore. The friction between them was almost more than she could bear, and she was actually grateful when she discovered that he was going to be in Chicago on a business trip when she was inducted into superior court.
It was a small, simple ceremony this time, presided over by the presiding judge of the superior court. There were half a dozen other judges there, her old friend the D.A., who happily said “I told you so” over her swift move up, and a handful of other people she cared about, and Averil was in Europe with Harrison and the kids. She had decided to winter in London that year, just to get away for a while, and she had put the children in school there. Harrison had talked her into it, and he looked happy when he left with his grandchildren in tow. There had been a heartbreaking moment alone with Tana just before that, when he actually put his face in his hands and cried, wondering if Harry had known how much he had loved him, and she insisted that he had. It helped assuage his sorrow and his guilt over the early years to take care of his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren now. But it wasn't the same without them at Tana's swearing-in and it was odd to look around and not see Jack.
The actual swearing-in was done by a judge of the court of appeals, a man Tana had met once or twice over the years. He had thick black hair, ferocious dark eyes, and a look which would have frightened anyone, as he towered over them all in his dark robes, but he also had quick laughter, a keen mind, and a surprising gentleness. He was particularly well known for some very controversial decisions he had made, which had been played up in the national press, and in particular the New York Times, and the Washington Post, as well as the Chronicle. Tana had read about him a lot, and wondered just how ferocious he was, but she was intrigued to see now that he was less lion and more lamb, or at least he was at her swearing-in. They chatted for a while about his superior court days, and she knew that he had also run the biggest law firm in town, before being made a judge. He had an interesting career behind him, though she suspected that he wasn't more than forty-eight or forty-nine. For a long time, he had been kind of a “wunderkind,” and she liked him very much as he shook her hand, and congratulated her warmly again, before he left.
“I'm impressed.” Her old friend the D.A. smiled at her. “That's the first time I've ever seen Russell Carver at a swearing-in. You're getting to be awfully important, my friend.”
“He probably had to pay his parking tickets downstairs, and someone recruited him.” They both laughed. Actually, he was a close friend of the presiding judge, and had volunteered his services for the swearing-in. He looked the part anyway, with his dark hair and serious face.
“You should have seen him when he was the presiding judge here, Tan. Shit, he threw one of our D.A.'s into the can on contempt of court for three weeks and I couldn't get the poor bastard out.”