Read A Case of Redemption for Free Online

and the fact that she was there and I was in the city was the obvious source of her discontent. But I promised her that I’d be coming that afternoon, and that was seemingly enough to change Sarah’s mood.
    â€œAlexa was so funny today,” Sarah said, laughing into the phone. “She’s spent the better part of the day jumping into the waves and then running back to the blanket to look at her feet. I finally askedher what she was doing, and she told me, ‘You said that I should be careful of something under my toe.’ ”
    â€œMommy, Mommy !” I heard Alexa exclaim.
    â€œAlexa, please wait a moment. Can’t you see that Mommy is on the phone? I’m talking to Daddy.”
    â€œLook at these shells I found!” Alexa said, oblivious to what Sarah had just told her. “Which one is your favorite?”
    â€œThey’re all beautiful, sweetie. Do you want to tell your father about them?”
    â€œNo,” Alexa said. I couldn’t help but smirk.
    â€œThen tell him that you love him.”
    â€œ I love you, Daddy! ” Alexa screamed this into the phone, as if she believed she had to raise her voice to be heard because I was so far away.
    An hour later, Sarah pulled out of the beach parking lot, and at the next intersection a black Escalade ran the light and plowed into our car.
    Based on the wreckage, the paramedics presumed both Sarah and Alexa died on impact, even though they were wearing seat belts. The Escalade’s driver was found twenty-five feet from his car, almost completely decapitated.
    I was sitting in my office, stuck on a conference call with no end in sight, when my assistant came in and told me that someone from the East Hampton police was on the line, and that it was urgent. Nearly everything that followed is a blur. Just people dressed in black and platitudes about tragedy and God’s plan, whatever that was.
    One thing that I distinctly recall from that period is my first day back at the office after the funerals. After making an appointment with his assistant, I walked into the office of Taylor Beckett’s managing partner, Benjamin Ethan, closed the door behind me, and told him that I was going to resign my partnership.
    Ethan looked at me like I was completely insane. The only reason a partner ever voluntarily left Taylor Beckett was to run for statewideoffice or to accept a presidential appointment. Bereavement was just something you eventually got over.
    â€œThere’s no need for that, Daniel,” Ethan said in his smooth baritone. “Of course, I cannot begin to understand what you are going through, but I do understand what it is like to be under tremendous strain. What we do here is counsel people under that type of pressure. And even though you have not asked me for my counsel, I’m going to give it to you anyway.” He smiled. “Free of charge, of course.”
    Although he’s not yet sixty, Benjamin Ethan always seemed to me to be a man of an entirely different era. He wears bow ties and calls everyone by his full given name, and everyone calls him Benjamin. Sometimes clients call him Ben, and to Ethan’s credit he never corrects them, or opposing counsel would drop his name to boost their credibility with me— tell Ben Ethan I said hello —but the effort to demonstrate familiarity only proved they didn’t actually know him very well. In this case, his formality required that I give my assent before he provided me with the unsolicited advice he was offering.
    â€œThank you,” I said, even though I knew what he was going to tell me, having said it to myself more than a dozen times already.
    â€œThere’s no need for an official resignation, Daniel. Instead, why don’t you take a leave of absence? It can be open-ended, for as long as you want. When you’re ready to come back, just call me. We’ll still be here. We’ve been here since 1869, and we’ll be