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sun and said, “Now I think I’d like to spend a little more time getting to know my granddaughter.”
    ~ ~ ~
    The rest of our welcome home party went equally well. My father was charming, reminding me of Teddy in his prime. He’d talked in a steady stream to Tamara and Jeanie, making them laugh, putting them at ease. He’d paid the small gestures of affection that he owed to Dot, and she’d spent a few moments in conversation with Jeanie and even held the baby, though it appeared that she and Teddy still weren’t speaking. I couldn’t help seeing them both from the point of view of Jeanie, who watched my father with barely hidden skepticism, no doubt searching for telltale signs of the master manipulator presenting himself as he wished to be seen. He held the baby for nearly an hour more, charming Carly, too.
    As the afternoon sun declined, we gathered in the front yard to see them off, like a wedding party watching newlyweds embark. Lawrence, having been persuaded to accept Dot as a driver, fit the helmet she’d brought him onto his head and swung his leg over the saddle. As Dot kicked the bike to life he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. Dot pumped her fist, sounded the horn, and bore him away.

Chapter 5
    I hadn’t been quite straight with Lawrence when I praised the public defender’s office before his release. In fact, I’d known it was unlikely that an attorney from there would be appointed. A man named Keith Locke was in prison after having pleaded guilty to attempting to murder my brother. Locke had been defended by the San Francisco public defender’s office. That was enough of a conflict of interest to keep the PD from also representing my father, so it was no surprise to me when later that week they filed a notice of conflict. This resulted in so-called conflict counsel being appointed for Lawrence. What it meant was that a private attorney from the court’s panel would be paid on an hourly basis to juggle Lawrence’s case along with those clients who’d chosen her to be their lawyer.
    Wednesday morning, Teddy and I caught the BART into the city for our first meeting with the new lawyer. Her name was Nina Schuyler, and her office was on Sixth Street south of Market, not far from Teddy’s old building. Lawrence and Dot arrived soon after we did, Dot parking her bike on the sidewalk. A bored-seeming security guard looked the four of us over, took a peek inside the file box I’d lugged with me on the train, then summoned the elevator to take us up.
    I hadn’t seen my father since he rode off with Dot after our welcome home party last week. He seemed harried. Dot was short with him. Maybe they were just nervous. They’d never been allowed to touch, and now they were living together. Neither would look me in the eye.
    Four of the five chairs in the third-floor waiting room were occupied. The lone woman, white, wore short short cutoffs and a fringed vest. She sat beside a sprawling man dressed completely in red. There was an empty chair, and on the other side an Asian kid scratching at a bandage. Beside him sat a middle-aged Latino. The office had potted trees and framed prints by Kandinsky, cubist Picasso, and Chagall. The carpeting was aged but clean, and the large windows admitted plenty of light.
    A quick online search had revealed that Nina Schuyler had graduated from law school in 1996, three years before me. She’d worked for the San Francisco public defender’s office for six years, then opened her own practice. She’d tried a few high-profile murder cases and made something of a name for herself. She was just thirty-three, two years older than I was, having graduated from Stanford and begun her studies at Berkeley at the age of twenty-one.
    We didn’t have to wait long before the inner door opened and Nina came out, tall but slight, long limbed but not willowy. She had a piano player’s