Mary looked absently out the window as she set her phone aside. He realized that there’d been no notifications barking from her phone all day. She hadn’t texted anyone or taken any calls. He wondered if she was still searching for the right dating app. He’d been with her every night of the last week, but maybe she was waiting until things died down with her shop before she got back on the dating horse.

“You’ve been so sweet, John,” she told him, breaking his reverie as she accepted the beer he held out to her. “Coming over here after work. Helping me with all this. So sweet.”

He frowned. She’d never called him sweet before. Honestly, no one but Estrella had ever called him sweet in his entire life. He thought back to the brunch with his father that she’d endured last weekend. She’d said he had a huge, bleeding heart. She’d said it with absolute certainty, like she’d bushwhacked into the land where John’s heart reigned and seen it with her own two eyes. He’d been mulling it over ever since then.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he said, clearing his throat.

“I know you do.” She seemed almost sad about that, looking out the window. After a minute, she looked back at him. “So, why did you choose to become a public defender?”

His eyebrows rose when he realized that she too had been thinking about that brunch with his dad. He lowered his eyes to his beer, took a long, thoughtful drink and leaned back in his chair. “Because the people who can’t afford their own lawyers are disproportionately charged, sentenced and imprisoned.” He paused. “I saw a map once, of New York City, and it marked areas based on wealth disparity and rate of incarceration. Lot of big old red zones in Brooklyn.” He sighed. “I was in high school when I saw that. And, of course, I knew who my father was, even if he wasn’t acknowledging me yet. He was already the DA of Manhattan at that point. The only interactions I had with him were watching him on the television giving half answers to reporters outside of courthouses about the black and brown people he’d just put behind bars.”

Her eyebrows were the ones rising now. “So, he was right? You did become a public defender to spite him?”