Page 39 of The Better Sister

“I want to see the picture,” I insisted.

She reached into her bag and handed it to me.

I immediately saw the problem. The glass from the broken window was on top of the guest bed duvet and inside the open nightstand drawer. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? Because my husband had just been murdered. If I had seen it—if I had known I needed to protect Ethan—I wouldn’t have done the walk-through. I wouldn’t have answered a single question or let them speak to Ethan. They would have nothing.

I pictured Ethan telling Olivia that he had just been confused about carrying those items back to the apartment. It sounded exactly like the story I had fabricated after he took the gun to school. A person could only forget what’s in his bag so many times. No jury would buy it.

And I didn’t want to admit it, but I wasn’t sure I was buying it, either.

“Did he really tell you he was confused?” I wanted to believe there was a rational explanation.

“Like I said, I can’t reveal anything he said to me.”

Nicky paced back and forth in frustration. “This is bullshit. It’s obvious that’s what he told you—hypothetically—and it sounds ridiculous, so it’s not true. Just let me talk to him. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

“This is what I meant about it only being the beginning,” Olivia said. “Even if you thought you had everything sorted out today, there’s nothing procedurally we could do with it right now. I know it’s frustrating to be stuck in a system, but that’s what this is, and I promise that I’ll work the system as well and as fast as I can. But I need to be the one to do it.”

I could tell that Nicky hated her, but Jake had said Olivia was one of, if notthe, best criminal trial lawyers in the state. But she didn’t know my son.

“Here’s what we’re trying to tell you, though, Olivia. Ethan can seem sophisticated—he’s been raised around precocious kids, gone to the right schools, all of that. But he’s insecure at heart. He’s always looking for approval. He’s terrified of abandonment. And these little episodes he’s had—the pot, the gun—he’s just going through a lost phase. Not to sound like the ‘it’s a scary time for men’ crowd, but how many teenage boys are on meds, or isolated, or falling behind in school? But I swear, my only fears about Ethan have ever been about a lack of focus or drive. He would never—ever—hurt anyone, let alone his father. I know Ethan.” I could feel Nicky hovering over me. “Weknow Ethan. I’m telling you he’s innocent, but I’m also telling you that hedesperatelywants to please people. He will tell you what you want to hear, without regard to the consequences down the road. So you must take everything he tells you with a grain of salt, while at the same time trusting us that he did not kill his father.”

The frantic expression on Nicky’s face had been replaced by something else. Sadness. Sadness, and regret. I had just told this lawyer more about Ethan’s real personality than I had ever shared with her.

Olivia thanked me for the insight. “And, although I of course can’t break privilege,” she said with a small smile, “I make it clear to my clients when I don’t think thehypotheticalsthey run past me ring true.”

I wanted to trust this woman, but clearly she had a callousness about her cases that was built upon years of representing guilty people. I needed her to understand that Ethan was different, even if it meant saying something negative about Adam. “Adam could be a very demanding father. He had unrealistic expectations—of everyone, to be honest, but especially his son. But Ethan was always trying to meet them. If I had to guess, Ethan had been smoking pot on Friday night, and that’s why he didn’t remember carrying those things from the house. And Kevin was surely smoking, too, which explains him being malleable about whether Ethan had the backpack with him all night or not. And knowing Ethan, when he found his shoes and stuff in his backpack in the city, he just put them in the closet instead of calling attention to himself by correcting the record.”

For the first time since we’d entered the jury room, Olivia pulled out a notepad from her briefcase and scribbled in it. “This is helpful. Thanks. Both of you.”

Nicky opened her mouth in disbelief. “That’s it? She just totally explained the whole thing to you. Can’t we just go to the police and clear it all up?”

“I wish we could, but no. They’ll never dismiss the case this early in the process. I have investigators. We chip away and chip away, and then we use it all together at trial to create reasonable doubt.”

“So Ethan’s in jail now because he was too afraid to tell the police he was high? For fuck’s sake. I of all people can tell him there’s much greater crimes than smoking a little weed. He’ll tell me. I know it. Let me talk to him.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said, “but I can’t let that happen. Neither of you can speak to Ethan about anything remotely connected to the case.”

As we tried to argue with her, she explained how she had done the legal research already to be absolutely certain. She couldn’t guarantee that the prosecution wouldn’t force either of us to testify against Ethan. “New York has a privilege for parent-child communications, but it’s extremely limited. And I know you’ll find this painful, but it’s not clear that either of you would qualify. Chloe, you’re technically a stepmother because you never formally adopted Ethan. And Nicky, you’re the biological mother, but you haven’t raised him, as I understand it, and the case law focuses on the unique relationship between children and their parents.”

In a few quick, dry, legalistic seconds, she had laid out the dilemma of our new normal, a situation that we were still struggling to process.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky said, “but, no, I can’t handle this. There has to be some other way. I’m not leaving this room until we figure out how to fix this. I’ll chain myself to the courthouse doors if I have to.” She clenched her hands into fists and made a primal sound that resembled a growl.

“Nicky,” I snapped. “You’re going to get arrested, too, and then how is that going to make Ethan look?”

Even when she had come to terms with Adam taking custody of Ethan, I had never seen her this out of control. I found myself feeling resentful about her carrying on. Seeing my son dragged around by police officers made me want to yell and scream, too, but I didn’t have the luxury of an outburst—not now, at least. Olivia needed to focus on Ethan’s defense, not hand-holding the two of us.

“So then what are we supposed to do?” Nicky asked, collapsing into the chair next to me. “Seriously, what the fuck are we supposed to do?”

“Go home,” Olivia said. “Take care of yourselves and each other. And get ready for the next steps.”

Nicky reached across the table and grabbed Olivia’s hand. “I need you to swear to me that you’re going to get Ethan back home. Promise me, or I literally don’t know how I’m going to do this.”

I could see Olivia’s facial muscles tighten. “I’d be lying if I made that promise—”

“No,” Nicky said. “No, no, no. I need to hear you say it. I need to know for certain.”

Olivia shook her head, but then gave Nicky’s hand an extra squeeze. “Here’s the promise Icangive you. Right now, I am a hundred percent confident I can get a jury to send him home, based on what we heard today. Okay?”

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