Her hand pivoted between his palms and her fingers laced with his. Suddenly, John wasn’t just riding the train with Mary. He was speeding underground, every one of his fingers touching every one of Mary’s with his other hand cupped over top, protecting this moment from the rest of the world.

“But they were coming up to my apartment, John. They kicked open the door right as the police got there. Were they—” She cut off for a second. “Were they coming for me?”

She was asking him if she was the something beautiful that was next on their list of things to destroy.

“Mary,” he said carefully, turning on his seat so that he held her eyes as well as her hand. “I thank God that I don’t ever have to know the answer to that question. Because the cops came, and you’re safe here now. If they catch the people who did this, if they see their day in court, you might get some of your answers. But I really think it’s important to concentrate on all the things that did happen instead of all the things that could’ve.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you responded correctly. You called the police, the police came and protected you and your shop. And now the cops do their job and you do yours. We move forward, get things back on track. That’s what we can control.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “And if they catch the guys, then some defense attorney will do their job. Maybe even a public defender like you.”

He fought off a wince. The system, all societal systems really, was so broken that oftentimes John felt his clients to be as much victims of circumstance as were the victims of the crimes in question. But there Mary sat, her store a smashed ornament on Court Street. “Mary.”

She shook her sunny head of hair. “And that’s the way it should be, I suppose.” She sighed. “If they weren’t defended, I might always worry they were wrongly convicted. And that’s even more unfair than having your shop destroyed for no reason. I just want the right thing to happen. But nobody knows what the right thing is, do they?”

John blinked at her. She didn’t want vengeance, he realized, the way so many victims of crimes wanted. No. She wanted justice.

She fell quiet and leaned her head back against the metal wall of the train, her eyes closed. She tightened her grip on his hand and John did the same. How could he make this woman feel safe again? How? A new door would help logistically, but he knew that this was so much more complicated than just getting a new security system installed. This was about Mary having faced something very ugly and trying to fit it into how she understood the world.