“Well, I’d like to put an attorney on retainer as a birthday gift to my husband.” The woman laughed. “My name is Frances Trowbridge. I know it may sound strange to give your husband a lawyer as a present, and of course he has legal representatives for his business, but this is different.”
“Is it a personal problem?” asked A.P., still puzzled.
“It certainly is! He’s driving me crazy. My husband is a born complainer, you see, and he’s always fuming about something-wanting to know if it’s legal. Suppose we’re out in the car, for instance, and he sees a policeman drive by in a patrol car. If the policeman has a cigarette in his hand, Calvin will want to know if it’s legal for policemen to smoke while on duty. Or he’ll wonder if the taxpayers will have to pay for repairs to the seat covers if the policeman burns holes in the car’s upholstery. Well, there’s no use asking me things like that. I’m no more of a lawyer than Calvin is, but that doesn’t stop him from droning on about it until I could scream. So finally-I mean, I have put up with this for years-I hit upon a possible solution. I want to hire an attorney for one year to look up every one of Calvin’s stupid questions.”
“So, as I understand it, you wish to put us on retainer to research legal questions for Mr. Trowbridge.” A. P. Hill was making notes on a yellow legal pad.
“Exactly! So if Calvin suddenly wants to know if he can make a citizen’s arrest of someone taking up two parking spaces at the mall, he can call you, instead of boring me with it. You can look it up for him, give him a precise legal answer, and he’ll be happy. Can you do that for a yearly flat fee?”
It wasn’t as if there were any other cases demanding their undivided attention. “Well,” said A.P., “what if we gave you fifty questions a year for a flat fee, and then billed you for anything over that amount?”
Mrs. Trowbridge considered the offer. “That ought to be about right,” she declared. “Once a week is about as often as he gets a real bee in his bonnet. The rest of his quibbles are things he’ll forget five minutes later. And some of them probably won’t take you any research at all. Can you do it for $2,500?”
Visions of rent receipts danced in her head. “Yes, Mrs. Trowbridge,” said A. P. Hill. “My partner Bill-er, Mr. MacPherson-will be delighted to handle the matter for you. Why don’t you come in later to work out the details? We can type up a document for you to give Mr. Trowbridge on his birthday.”
She was still tinkering with the rough draft of the Trowbridge agreement when Bill MacPherson walked in, looking like a clairvoyant on the deck of the Titanic.
“Has your mother gone already?” A.P. asked him, still intent upon her work. When there was no reply, she looked up. “What’s the matter, Bill?”
“Got my first case,” he said woodenly. “I tried to talk her out of it, of course, but she insisted.”
“What is it?”
Bill managed a bitter smile. “Apparently,” he said, “I am handling my mother’s divorce proceedings.”
A.P. set the pen down and stared at his stricken face. “Not an example of your family’s bizarre sense of humor?” she ventured.
“I thought of that. ‘A little lawyer humor to brighten up the old office-warming?’ I said cheerily to Mother. But she gave me that look that I haven’t seen since Elizabeth and I used Miss Clairol on the cat, so I think we can assume that she is not joking. Imagine the surprise of the only son, yours truly. I mean, they’ve been married nearly thirty years. You’d think they’d be resigned to one another by now.”
“I’ve heard that men get strange once they pass fifty,” said A.P. thoughtfully. “They seem to want loud plaid jackets and sports cars the size of roller skates. I suppose that the old wife doesn’t fit the new image.”
“Mother was rather vague about that,” said Bill. “I gather that something pretty disastrous has transpired at home. Lipstick on the collar, perhaps. Anyway, the old girl’s gone ballistic. She wants me to file the papers right away, ask for alimony, and generally take poor Dad to the cleaners.”
“I don’t think that handling divorces within one’s own family is such a good idea, Bill.”
“I know! And I said so like a shot! But then she misted up on me, said she supposed one couldn’t trust any man if her own son wouldn’t even come to her defense in her time of need. She went on in that vein until I was ready to disembowel myself with the tape dispenser. Finally I just said I would represent her. I’d have said anything by that time. Probably have chipped in for a hit man if she’d asked me to.”
A. P. Hill shook her head. “You must learn to be firm with people, Bill. Besides, didn’t it occur to you to recommend counseling before they break up a decades-old marriage?”
“She wouldn’t hear of it. Said something like, ‘I’m not the one who needs professional help!’ ” He groaned. “I suppose I’d better review the stuff we have on divorce procedures.”
“You have a client coming in this afternoon. I was just drafting the agreement.” Briefly she told him about Mrs. Trowbridge and her querulous husband.
“She’s putting us on retainer?” said Bill. “Let me get this straight. Mr. Trowbridge asks whatever silly questions he wants and I root around in the law books and come up with an answer for him.”
“Right.”
“And he doesn’t want to sue or press charges against offenders or anything like that? He just wants to know-for his own satisfaction?”
“Apparently so.”
“And she’s paying us for that?”
“Fifty dollars per question. In advance. Almost the whole year’s rent.” A.P. permitted herself a triumphant smile. “I’ll just go and type this up so that we’ll be ready when she gets here. Don’t forget to write to your sister and thank her for the check.”
“My sister!” cried Bill. “You’d better believe I’m going to write her!”
“Share the bad news, huh?” said A.P. “How do you think she’ll take it?”
“You know that legal phrase in loco parentis?”
“Yes. And that’s not what it means at all.”
“It ought to,” muttered Bill. “It describes her perfectly.”
We don’t know how it started
But they’ve invaded us now and we’re bound to fight
Till every last damn Yankee goes home and quits.
We used to think we could lick them in one hand’s turn.
We don’t think that any more.
– STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT,
John Brown’s Body, Book 4
RICHMOND-APRIL 2, 1865
GABRIEL HAWKS RECKONED he wasn’t in the navy anymore. It was amazing how fast a peaceful afternoon could turn into a foretaste of hell. He still hadn’t taken it all in. After the admiral had given the order to sail the fleet up to the signal station at Drewry’s Bluff, there had been scarcely time to think. The sailors had been like ants scurrying around the ship, almost knocking one another over in their haste to get things done. And there was a strained silence to the work, not like the usual bustle on board when the men chaffed one another and larked about as they worked. Now they communed with their thoughts and hurried through the tasks, tight-lipped and pale. It seemed that the end was coming, and while it hadn’t exactly been a surprise, it was still a shock to find that the inconceivable had come to pass. They were retreating. Richmond would fall.
They brought the provisions out of the hold and began to hand them out in packages, one to each member of the crew. These were rations to last who knew how long as they journeyed to who knew where. Suddenly Gabe had more food than he’d seen in weeks, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. His stomach felt like a bucket of James River water. The men gathered up their few personal possessions, unlashing hammocks and scrounging for canteens and blankets, muttering all the while among themselves about what this might mean.