Page 7 of A Legal Affair
“Didn’t know if you’d be coming today.” Crandall spoke without glancing over his shoulder.
Caleb crossed the stained-concrete patio to claim the chair next to his father. “Might be the only chance I’ll get this week, now that the semester has started.”
Crandall nodded slowly. His profile displayed craggy brows sprinkled with salt and pepper to match the full thatch of hair on his head. Eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate revealed the shrewdness of a man who missed nothing and had seen just about everything in his lifetime, a shrewdness that had served him well both in and out of the courtroom. His nose was strong, almost aristocratic, and a neatly trimmed mustache framed firm, no-nonsense lips. Whether seated at the head of a boardroom or lounging on his patio, Crandall Thorne exuded an innate confidence and power that was hard to reckon with. Few tried.
Caleb had always been the exception.
“How many classes are you teaching this semester?” his father asked. A thick throw blanket was draped across his lap to ward off the evening chill, a concession he’d made only to keep the women of his household—the housekeeper, cook and a private nurse—off his back while he enjoyed the outdoors.
“Three,” answered Caleb, stretching out his long, booted legs. “Two civil procedure classes three days a week, and a two-hour advanced criminal law course on Tuesdays.”
“I see. And what do you do with the rest of your time?”
Caleb slanted his father an amused look, knowing where this particular line of questioning would lead. “I’ve been teaching at Northbridge for five years. You know damn well what I do with the rest of my time.”
A grim smile lifted one corner of Crandall’s mouth. “You don’t belong in academia, son. You belong in the courtroom, challenging the system and taking no prisoners. Academicians don’t have killer instincts.Youdo.”
Caleb shook his head, chuckling softly. “I know you still find this hard to believe, Dad, but I actually enjoy teaching.”
“You enjoy playing God,” Crandall corrected. “You enjoy dispensing your knowledge and wisdom and holding the fate of those kids’ futures in your hand.”
“And where wouldyoube without the law professors who shared their ‘knowledge and wisdom’ with you?”
“Touché,” the old man said with grudging admiration. He turned his head and studied Caleb’s face in the lengthening shadows of twilight. “I’m still getting used to that beard.”
“Still?” Caleb grinned, absently stroking a hand down his chin. A lifetime ago when he’d worked at his father’s law firm, he’d prided himself on his impeccable, clean-cut appearance.ThatCaleb, with the knife-blade creases in his trousers and professionally pressed shirts, never would’ve gone a full day without shaving—much less grown a beard—because his dad had drilled into him the importance of setting a tone from the moment he stepped foot in the courtroom.
“You only get one shot at making a good first impression,”Crandall had lectured on numerous occasions.“You’d be surprised how much damage an untucked shirt or a cheap pair of shoes can do. Don’t do your clients a disservice by showing up to court looking any ol’ kind of way. Dress for success, and others will sit up and take notice and know that you mean business.”
Caleb’s walk-in closet was filled with bespoke Italian suits he hadn’t worn in years. Five years, to be exact. That was when he’d walked away from the firm, a lucrative career, and the only way of life he’d ever known.
His father sighed. “Never thought I’d live to see the day I would be reduced to running the firm from afar. Not now, not at the age of sixty-two.” His voice was laced with the bitterness that had plagued him since being diagnosed with acute renal failurethree months ago. The severity of his condition had necessitated a complete lifestyle change. The first “casualty” had been his workaholic schedule. In virulent denial, he’d sought second, third and fourth opinions, consulting the best physicians money could buy in the vain hope of receiving a different verdict. But each time he was given the same prognosis: either scale back on the workload or face the very real possibility of developing end-stage renal disease, which, in most cases, led to death.
Crandall had grudgingly submitted to his doctor’s decree, as well as the prescribed dialysis treatments, but not a day passed that he didn’t bemoan the cruel blow fate had dealt him.
“My father worked until he was eighty-five,” Crandall sullenly continued. “Never missed a day of work in his life. What would he say if he could see me now, reduced to running board meetings through a video monitor and conducting business from the confines of my own home?”
“Where I come from,” Caleb drawled sardonically, “what you’ve just described is called videoconferencing and telecommuting. Some people actually appreciate the modern conveniences made possible by living in the twenty-first century.”
“Well, I ain’t one of ’em.” A large fist clenched on the arm of the cypress chair, as Crandall’s familiar anger and frustration thrummed in the air around him.
Caleb said nothing, knowing better than to offer any words of solace that would only make his father feel coddled or patronized—two things he would never tolerate.
Silence lingered between father and son as daylight eased into night. From a treetop somewhere above, an eagle took flight, its piercing cry cutting across the fabric of the evening like a razor. From somewhere else, another bird of prey responded.
Crandall finally spoke again. “I don’t have to tell you how much it would mean to me if you considered returning to thefirm,” he said quietly. “Your mother would want the same thing, too.”
A muscle tightened in Caleb’s jaw. “Don’t go there, Dad,” he warned in a low voice. “We both know that was the last thing she would have wanted.”
Crandall turned his profile to Caleb once again and stared off into the distance at the rugged, rolling terrain that surrounded them from their high perch on the hill. His impassive expression gave nothing away and at the same time hinted at many deeper truths than those on the surface of his next words.
“You’re right,” he said simply.
Caleb made no reply, instead steering his thoughts away from the painful memories that threatened to shatter the peaceful calm of the evening.
After a few more minutes, he rose from the chair, stomping dirt and gravel from his scuffed leather boots. “I’m going inside to say hello to everyone. I know you have them under strict orders not to disturb you while you’re out here, but they won’t appreciate finding out that I was here for an entire hour without greeting them.”
“You’re right about that.” Crandall gazed up at his only son with an imploring expression he didn’t bother to disguise. “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you? Gloria made enough food to feed an army. I think she was hoping you’d stop by.”
