She gave him a funny look, kind of like the one she’d given him when he’d first seen her that morning. Nervous, a little confused. “You don’t care about that, do you, John?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “It’s important to me that I look presentable. But no, I’m not reading Men’s Vogue in my spare time.”

She laughed. “Men’s Vogue is not a thing. And you always look very nice. Presentable. Your haircut isn’t trendy, but it’s classic. Never goes out of style.”

He cut a look at her colorful dress, looking like it was just seconds from having been unwrapped from a department store bag. “You’d tell me if I start to look out of style or out of date?”

She cut a look back at him. “If you want me to.”

“I want you to. How I look is important in that it’s one of the main things that a jury assesses about me. At least at first. I have to strike a balance.”

“You want to look like you take the whole thing seriously, but you also want to look like you’re on their level. Not above anyone.”

“Exactly.”

They jogged down to the train and rode in companionable quiet. When she started fiddling with the zipper of her overnight bag, John had to fight the urge to take her hand in his. “You all right?”

She sighed. “I’m just sick over my shop. It took me so long to get it all fixed up just the way I liked it.”

“We’ll get it back to the way it was, Mary.” And as soon as he said it, he knew he wasn’t spinning a false hope. If he had to come by the shop after work every day for six months, he’d help her restore things.

“It’s not that, really.” She fiddled with the zipper more. “It’s more that I’m trying to figure out why it happened. It doesn’t even seem like anything was stolen. It’s just this meaningless destruction.”

She was zipping her bag an inch open and then closed over and over, and John just gave in to gravity. He reached over and took her nervous hand, sandwiched it between his two palms.

“I don’t know what happened with your shop, Mary, but as a lawyer, I’ve had the opportunity to get into the minds of a lot of people who’ve done a lot of things.” He sighed. “Have you ever seen a little kid stomp on a tulip? Or kick over someone else’s sandcastle? Or have you ever seen someone smash a glass when they were angry? Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Again, we don’t know anything yet about what happened or who did it, but I know that you might never have an adequate answer for why. Sometimes people just need to destroy something.”