Page 11 of On the Edge

“I sent you three postcards just so you wouldn’t forget,” I say, scanning the room because I’m sure she has them somewhere. Sure enough, they’re taped along the bottom edge of the mirror that hangs over the dresser.

“Hmph. My dementia isn’tthatbad.”

“I’ll start worrying about your dementia when you forget to tell me about it,” I say. She’s got a mind as sharp as someone half her age, though according to her own self-diagnosis her memory is failing. Granted, she was a legal scholar back in the day, a trailblazing career woman who was the first Latina judge in her county and retired after nearly two decades on an appellate court in Texas. So I’m sure her ninety-four-year-old memory is not as exceptional as it once was.

“So, was Italy with Prince Charming everything you hoped it would be?” she asks, her tone flat with an undercurrent of bitterness. She’s still looking out the window rather than at me, and her frail hand now clutches the blanket that’s draped around her shoulders with such force that her hand is shaking.

I never claimed Marco was Prince Charming or set any expectations about this trip, so I know that this isn’t about me. Her propensity to lash out when she’s hurt or scared makes her so human that I can almost feel her pain. It’s her one vulnerability, and I think it’s this commonality that’s kept me coming back and visiting her weekly for years now.

“Have you ever been to Italy?” I ask, rather than answer her question.

“I was supposed to go once, more than sixty years ago, but it didn’t work out.”

“You never wanted to visit since then?”

“I never wanted to be reminded of Jack.” She says his name the way you’d talk about a restaurant that gave you food poisoning.

“I don’t think you’ve mentioned Jack before,” I say, wondering why she doesn’t want to be reminded of him, and why going to Italy would make her think of him.

Her head snaps back as she glances over at me, and I can feel a Ms. Juarez-style story coming. She doesn’t tell stories so much as she spews them, rarely pausing for breath.

“I’ve never told you about Jack? Jack Wilder was the last man I ever loved, and the only man I ever loved to hate.” She pauses, choosing her words. “We were working on a case together in the summer sometime in the early sixties. It was long hours in the sweltering city, but I didn’t mind it because I was in love and engaged. We were busy daydreaming about honeymooning in Italy the following summer just to escape another Houston summer. I assume you know what Houston is like in July? The air can feel like walking through a steam bath of piss.” She sighs.

“Anyway, I knew this was the case that was going to make my career, and Jack made the long hours of depositions and combing through evidence a bit more bearable. He was the first man who ever really appreciated me for my brain, not just my body—because back then, wooo, did I have a body,” she says, smacking her lips together. “I guess I was naïve, thinking we could all find our own Martin Ginsburg. The man who will love you even when you’re more successful than him, cook for you because you can’t be bothered with trivial shit like that; someone who was looking to celebrate my successes, who knew that my light would amplify his, rather than dim it. Maybe Ruth Bader got the only guy like that.”

It’s impossible for me not to think of Nate and how he was that person for me. How he was my biggest supporter, how my successes brought him as much happiness as if they were his own, how for years he lived for me and my racing career. And how I was secretly ready to walk away from racing forever so that he could finally get back into it if he wanted. I just wanted that one crystal globe first, just wanted to say that for one year I was the best in the world, and then I’d tell him I was retiring. As it turned out, I never got the chance.

“What’s wrong?” Ms. Juarez asks, carefully assessing my face with her narrowed eyes as I shake my head trying to sweep the memories out of my brain.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“You look like you saw a ghost. You’re not thinking about that cad who left you years ago, are you?”

It’s funny how old memories can still feel so fresh, so painful. I wonder if that’s how she feels when she thinks about Jack Wilder after all this time?

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “So what happened with Jack? He wasn’t your Martin Ginsburg, I take it?”

“Lord, no. It was a Friday night in early August. I was sifting through boxes of paperwork and evidence looking for something, anything, that would confirm something our client had told us in a deposition a week before. And lo and behold, I found it. I was ecstatic, jumping around that conference room with a receipt from a gas station in my hand. And Jack was jumping right along with me before he kissed me, telling me how brilliant and beautiful I was. I knew that this was my shot for partner. I’d thrown everything I had into that job ... I did not make it to thirty-two, still unmarried, to not make partner. Jack and I agreed that since it was late on a Friday night after everyone else was gone, we’d meet with the partners on Monday morning and tell them what I’d found. I spent all weekend planning what I was going to say. And you know what happened when I walked into that conference room again Monday morning?”

I shook my head, already prepared for the punch in the gut that I knew was coming for thirty-two-year-old Ms. Juarez.

“They’d made Jack partner. He’d gone behind my back over the weekend, sharedhisbig break in the case, and they were so busy passing around cigars when I walked into the conference room that they didn’t even notice I was there.”

“Why would he do that?” My heart breaks for her, having her triumph stolen away from her like that.

“Because he could. Claiming success without merit—it’s the oldest story in the book. He told me he did it for us, because he couldn’t possibly marry me if I was both Latinaandtechnically his boss.”

The hiss that escapes my lips is filled with the anger I feel on her behalf.

“You know what? He should have thought about that before he proposed. I went to a different firm and my career took off, eventually I became a judge, and you know the rest. I bested him in every possible aspect of our field, while he was forced to retire early because it turns out he was an even worse partner than he was a junior lawyer.”

“So in the end you got your revenge,” I say.

“Yes, but ...” She pauses, giving me time to lean in. Ms. Juarez likes to know her audience is hanging on her every word. “It was a hollow victory. I would have been better off if I’d forgiven him.”

“What?” My whole body leans back involuntarily. “You’d have wanted to marry someone who could do something like that to you?”

“Marry him? No. But you can forgive someone without giving your heart back to them,” she says, and the truth of that statement hits me like a ton of bricks. Just as I suspect she wanted it to.

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