I’m reaching for the door when Walt Garrity crashes through it, a look of fury in his eye. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he bellows. Then he looks past me, at Quentin. “You’ve got to put me on the stand! That goddamn pilot didn’t tell half the story.”

“Sorry, Captain,” Quentin says. “I don’t need you.”

Incredulous, the old Texas Ranger looks at me, his face almost purple.

“It’s not Quentin’s decision anymore,” I tell Walt, taking hold of his arm. “Or it won’t be in five minutes. I’ll be calling you to the stand myself in about ten minutes.”

“Goddamn right!” Walt throws a glare at Quentin as he leaves the office.

As I follow him, I look back at Doris. “Please answer your cell when I call.”

She nods once, and I go.

Shaken by my confrontation with Quentin, and speeding from adrenaline at the prospect of taking over Dad’s defense, I experience the walk to the upstairs restroom in slow motion. As I pick my way through the crowd, an old filmstrip of images flashes like a Super 8 movie projected onto my retinas. I see my father as a younger man, wearing sunglasses and a short-sleeve no-iron shirt in glaring sunlight, looking down at my outstretched hands as I beg him to come into the pool with me. So many summer activities revolved around water in Mississippi, but Dad rarely ever went into pools or ponds, or even the ocean. I can still hear my mother telling me, “Daddy doesn’t like to swim,” or “Daddy doesn’t like the sun.” In my mind, this explained why he was always pale, why he never took his shirt off, even when the other dads waded in to lift us onto their shoulders to fight battles in the shallow end.

But a few times, on vacation, Dad did go swimming. Maybe five times in my entire childhood. The time that remains indelible is the summer our parents took us to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a medical conference. Dad had bought me a toy submarine, a sleek gray plastic model that could actually submerge by means of a dissolvable tablet that trailed bubbles behind the sub. I was having so much fun that I repeatedly begged him to come in, and to my amazement, he finally relented and went back to the room to change into a bathing suit.