Love Saves the Day

Lately Josh has been listening to Sarah’s black disks while Laura is away at her office, always turning the music off and putting everything back into the Sarah-boxes before she comes home. It’s the sound of Sarah’s music that draws me downstairs after I wake up from my nap. Josh is sitting in the big chair in the living room, and as soon as I round the corner in the stairs I can tell he’s upset about something by the way his shoulders are set. Resting on the coffee table is a thin stack of folded white papers held together with a paper clip.

I settle into my favorite spot on the short side of the big couch and listen to Sarah’s music with Josh. From time to time he looks over at the papers on the table. After the music stops and he’s returned the black disk upstairs, he takes the papers in his hand and looks through them. From the little creases around the edges, it seems like he’s looked through them a few times already.

Even though the days are getting longer now, it’s still dark outside when Laura finally comes home from work. Usually Josh’s face changes as soon as he hears Laura’s key in the lock. He looks the way I probably look when Laura is putting food down for me, and I know it will be one of the best times of the whole day. But now his face doesn’t change at all when Laura calls out her usual greeting and he calls back to say, “I’m in here.”

Laura walks into the room with two glasses of wine, and she hands one to Josh. That’s when she sees the odd look on his face. “Is anything wrong?” When Josh doesn’t say anything, she asks him, “Did something happen?”

Josh is quiet for a long moment while he drinks from the glass Laura handed him. Then he says, “Why didn’t you tell me, Laur?” He picks up the folded stack of papers and hands them to her. “I got my severance agreement today. It’s dated from a week before they let me go. Somebody at your firm must have known what was going on. I thought you worked on contracts.”

Laura’s face gets as red as it did the night of that Pass Over dinner. She takes the papers Josh is holding out to her, but she doesn’t unfold them or try to read them. “Josh, I had no idea.” I know she’s telling the truth, because the black centers of her eyes stay the same size and nothing about her posture stiffens the way it usually does when a human isn’t telling the truth. “I never saw this. Nobody said a word to me.”

It’s odd, because humans don’t normally look this upset when what they’re saying is true. And that’s when I know. Laura is upset because she’s telling the truth. That doesn’t make any sense, and yet I feel sure I’m right.

“Well, maybe you can help me out with a couple of questions I have, your firm being the attorney-of-record.” Josh’s mouth twists into a shape that’s trying to be a smile but isn’t quite. “I’ve looked over the vacation pay and expense-account money they owe me. And I’ll get another three months on my insurance until COBRA kicks in.”

“That’s boilerplate, standard,” Laura tells him. “We just fill in the numbers based on the information the client provides.” The skin of her knuckles curls and tenses around her wineglass until it’s whiter than the rest of her hand. Maybe she’s afraid of the kicking cobras Josh is talking about. Sarah is afraid of snakes, too, which is why I always check newspapers so carefully.

“What about on the third page? It says something about waiving my rights in perpetuity and throughout the universe.” Josh tries again to smile. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“That’s also standard. They’re just trying to cover all their bases to avoid a lawsuit. Which was nothing you were planning to do, anyway. A nice, clean break—that’s all they want.”

Josh winces when Laura says this, although I don’t think she notices. “Everything might be standard, but I’m not going to call it nice or clean,” he tells her. “So I’m okay to sign it? Should you take a couple of minutes and look through the whole thing? You’re my lawyer, after all.”

Laura continues to hold the papers without unfolding them. She takes a long swallow from her wineglass. “I can’t do that,” she finally says.

“Really?” Josh sounds like he thinks Laura is saying something not-true. “Really?”

“Your company is my client, Josh. Forget all the ethical issues and conflicts of interest. The people at my firm had to go pretty far out of their way to keep me from knowing about this. There were meetings and memos that I didn’t know anything about—about one of my clients—and nothing ever crossed my desk. And you really don’t have to worry,” she adds quickly, seeing how Josh’s eyebrows come together to make an angry line across his forehead. “These severance agreements are—”

“Yeah, I know. Standard.” His voice gets louder. “And I guess I don’t meet the standards to get some legal advice from my wife. Maybe I should call your buddy Perry—he seems like a nice guy.”