Miranda Read Free Page B

he never took things seriously, even if that wasn’t true. If I had been an outsider, I would have thought so.
    “Very fucked up, Ethan. Very fucked up.”
    I started crying, then felt relieved that I could do it on a familiar shoulder. He hugged me with one arm for a couple of seconds and that was it. He had never been empathic.
    “What the hell is going on?” he asked as he pushed me away from his shoulder. He had fulfilled his consolation quota. I told him that it wasn’t clear. I repeated the same story the detective told me–that another car was involved and that the driver had not bothered to help Norman–and that filled me with incredible rage. I’m certain that my cheeks were red with fury. I noticed Ethan's eyes when I mentioned the possibility that the other car had run off.
    Nor will they find him
was what I seemed to see in Ethan’s eyes.
    “What’s wrong, Ethan?” I asked.
    As soon as he realized that I had noticed that part of what I was saying didn’t surprise him, he took refuge in his attorney’s mask… in his poker face. I knew that face very well. It had been ten years that I’d known him and worked with him daily. I knew that something in my story had not surprised him, but I could not figure out what. An unexpected cold traveled from my spine to my neck. This must be how it feels to lose trust in someone–a very unpleasant feeling to say the least. I was left staring into his eyes.
    Spontaneously, we began to struggle to see who could stare the longest without blinking–who would blink first. Knowing that Ethan would win wasn’t new to me. He had been trained for it. It ran through his veins with generations of lawyers and prosecutors in his family. I accepted defeat.
    “You must contact his family.”
    “Why?” he asked in a defiant tone.
    “Doctors need permission to perform surgery.”
    “They can proceed without consent,” he exclaimed without me having finished speaking.
    That was very true. He was right, but why not contact the family? If someone could find them, he could, but his interest was absent.
    “What’s wrong, Ethan?” His attitude was now irritating me.
    I crossed my arms.
    “What’s wrong with what, Miranda?” he asked, and then he made a mistake.
    He hid his hands in the pockets of his slacks, a habit he had to hide the involuntary movement of his fingers when he was lying or hiding something. He had forgotten that he had once confessed that weakness to me.
    “Why don’t you want to contact his family?” I insisted, because it seemed he was forgetting that I had been his student, and that he had taught me various tricks and ploys that he had mastered so well.
    I took several steps back.
    “It’s probably not what Norman wants us to do,” he shrugged.
    “What makes you think that?” Tension could be felt in the vacuum created by the pauses between our words.
    Ethan exhaled and grimaced. It seemed as if his chest deflated.
    “Miranda, in all these years, how many times has he mentioned his wife or his son?”
    I didn’t want to admit it, but Ethan had a good point. I allowed my mind to wander to the past. On two occasions, I had heard Norman mention his wife’s name, but his son’s, never. “Eliezer” was the young man’s name. At my continued insistence, Norman’s assistant, Margaret, told me one day, but not without first making me swear that I would never tell anyone.
    Ethan faced me head-on. He came so close that I felt uncomfortable.
    “You’re right about that, but we can’t burden ourselves with something that is not our concern.”
    Although I was very surprised by his behavior, I didn’t show it, nor did I back down. I remained defiant and poker faced.
    “That’s why. It’s not up to us. Let the police do their work.”
    A third voice interrupted the conversation–a wish come true.
    “Sure, that’s our job.”
    Hernandez had approached from behind Ethan, hearing our clumsy challenges. Ethan turned towards Hernandez after