Page 4 of Coram House

We talk for a little while about the city, the restaurants I must try, whether I ski.No, I shake my head. I’d tried a few times with Adam when we first met, when I was still trying to impress him with my gameness. He’d looked so elegant, his poles lightly tapping the snow as he carved turns. While I’d felt like a newly hatched octopus, all these extra limbs I didn’t know what to do with. It’s not an experience I ever looked to repeat.

“So the case,” I say, guiding us away from my personal life, back onto solid ground.

“Yes, the case.”

I’d done a little digging. I knew it had been settled out of court for practically nothing in today’s terms. In 1993, people had still been shocked by the idea of a priest doingthatto a child. The unthinkable was still unbelievable. Then theBoston Globe’s Spotlight article in 2002 cracked the church open and let the light in. If the Coram House case had been ten years later, things might have gone very differently.

Stedsan leans back and folds his long legs in a way that makes methink of a praying mantis. “The case, frankly, was a mess,” he says. “I inherited it from a senior partner who had taken it on pro bono from another lawyer. The plaintiffs couldn’t agree on anything and kept dropping out and starting their own cases. When the publisher approached me about writing this book, I have to say, I was surprised. But the more I thought about my legacy—” He pauses, shrugs. “It’s a story worth telling, and it appears I’m the one to tell it.”

It’s an interesting choice of words from someone who’s hired a ghostwriter. A reminder, perhaps, to stay in my lane. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

“The timeline is aggressive for a book like this,” I say.

He laughs, shrugs. “I’m not getting any younger.”

I smile. It’s probably true. Publishing is slow. But still, I sense something behind the words. A man who likes to control the room. He has a stare that traps you like the glare of two bright-blue headlights. It’s probably very effective in the courtroom.

“You’re not exactly what I expected,” Stedsan says.

No one’s exactly what anyone expects, I want to say.

“What were you expecting?” I ask instead, hoping he can’t hear the quiver in my voice, the way my uncertainty has gone into overdrive.

“Perhaps we should address the elephant in the room?”

I’ve always hated that expression.

Stedsan puts down his coffee. I think he was going for a sense of finality, but the cup makes a tiny clink on the saucer.

“Your last book was problematic,” he says, tone diplomatic. “Your agent mentioned that you had some personal circumstances. A breakdown, I suppose you’d call it, though she didn’t use that word exactly.”

The lump in my throat grows. But I keep my expression neutral. “A breakdown. That sounds very Victorian.”

He studies me, waiting for what he’s owed.

The anger leaks out like someone punched a hole in my gut. What does it matter, really. “My husband died,” I say. “And, for a while, work didn’t matter much. My last book suffered for it.”

I hate myself for offering this up. It’s true and not true. I had loved someone and he had died. After, all the things that used to matter—work, food, friends—became cardboard props. But the book had still mattered. Maybe the only thing that did. But that didn’t stop me from getting everything horribly wrong.

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d ever write another book.”

It feels good to say this out loud.

“You know,” Stedsan says, “my wife died a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He nods, but he’s not really listening. It’s just what you say.

“So why did you hire me?” I ask.

He drums his fingers on the table. “The Islewas a good book,” he says. “And you were cheaper.”

The laugh bursts out of me. I was waiting for a story about second chances. “Yeah,” I say. “I probably was.”

“Anyhow, you’re here now,” he says. “Shall we begin?”

Stedsan leads me down a hallway and into a large office. The room is dominated by a desk large enough to be a dining table. Behind it, a door leads out to the street. It would make me uneasy, having a door at my back while I worked. But I get the sense there’s not much that ruffles Stedsan. He gestures to the corner where stacks of cardboard file boxes surround a brocade love seat.

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