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and laid her head against his chest. She
timed her breathing to match his and relaxed a little.
    On the counter, Bailey held out her arms. “Me, Daddy, me, me,
me.
    “Come ‘ere, Buckaroo.” He held them both easily.
    In college and as a pro, David had a reputation for being a quarterback who stayed cool in the pocket as three-hundred-pound, cornand potato- and pork-fed Nebraska farm boys barreled down on
him with mayhem in their eyes. She had worried about him before
games. He’d told her, “They won’t run me down if we don’t let
them.” A team, he believed, could do anything if it worked together.
    “How’s Moby?” he asked.
    “He’ll be okay. He’s in Emergency.”
    “Shit, that’ll cost-“
    She pressed her palms against his chest. “Please, David, don’t
start with the money.” He would never see the bill; she would pay
off the vet in installments.
    Bailey tugged on David’s earlobe hard enough to make him wince. “The window got broke and the policemens came ‘cause the
s’cream man wrote a bad note. I saw all the letters.” She made a
down-mouth, shook her head, and sighed. “No B. “

    For once Dana was glad that her seven-year-old daughter could
not yet read. She asked her husband, “Did you see it?”
    He nodded. “We’ll talk about this later. You two go upstairs-“
    “I want s’cream.”
    Dana scooped chocolate ice cream into a Babar bowl knowing
that in thirty minutes she would regret giving her daughter sugar,
but she could not face the inevitable screams if she played tough
mommy right now. Choose your fights, or at least postpone, she
thought as she settled Bailey at the counter with a dish towel tied
around her neck.
    “Eat up, Sweet Pea.” She put the ice cream carton back in the
freezer. “What happens next?”
    “I guess I have to talk to the cameras.”
    Oh, you’ll hate that, she thought sarcastically and then felt meantempered and small. The limelight was his natural environment.
    “I wish you wouldn’t encourage them,” she said. “Some ambitious kid reporter’ll be over tomorrow wanting to write a feature
story about the family of the poor beleaguered defense attorney.”
    “I’m going to turn this around, Dana.” He gripped her shoulders. “Whoever threw that rock doesn’t scare me.”
    “But he scared the hell out of me. And what about Bailey?”
    “It’ll take more than a rock and a note to get me off the Filmore
case.
    She wondered if he had even heard her say his daughter’s name.
    “What’s more, we’re going to make this work to our advantage.
Filmore can’t get a fair trial in a city where-“
    “He killed that child,” Dana said, whispering. “You know he
did.”

    “The evidence is lousy, Dana.”
    Bailey banged her heels into the chair leg and clanged her spoon
against the side of her empty dish. David said, “Hey, Bailey, you
want to come outside with me and talk to the cameras?”
    She cheered and lifted her arms, swinging her spoon wildly.
    Dana took it from her. “No, David.”
    “You come too.”
    She shook her head and turned her back on him, staring down
into the stainless-steel sink, where she saw a blurred reflection of
herself and was thankful the image was unclear. “You’re using her.”
    He waited a beat. “If you’re not coming out, make me some
eggs, will you?”
    “At least wipe the ice cream off her face.”
    “And bacon if you’ve got any.”

    ater she regretted everything: the saturated fat in the eggs and
bacon and butter; the floral sheet; going to the emergency veterinary clinic when Dr. Talbot would have served as well and
charged a quarter as much. Worst of all, she had forgotten what
every defense attorney’s spouse must always remember: the client is
never guilty until the verdict is in. And sometimes not even then.
She should have walked onto the front porch with David and
Bailey; they should have stood together like a team.
    As they prepared for bed that night,