I’ve been looking for an opportunity to break the news to him, but our initial conversation is dominated by how Judge Paulson’s decision is going to change his trial strategy regarding the Garkov case. When he takes a moment to peruse the menu, I seize the opportunity.

“I have something to tell you.”

My father lifts his eyes away from the page to look at me with concern. “Everything okay?”

“No. No, it’s not. I heard this morning that my former boss, Lauren Wright, was murdered.”

He grimaces as if to convey that he disagrees with anyone being murdered. “I’m so sorry, Ella,” he says in the tone I’d use if he told me that his barber died. Someone you’ve known for a long time, but with whom you share no real intimacy. I can’t blame him for not knowing how important Lauren was to me. Through the years I’ve probably downplayed it, fearful that he might take personally my efforts to find a surrogate for my mother.

“Lauren and I were very close. She wasn’t just a boss to me but . . . well, much more than that. A really good friend and a mentor. I saw her just last night. Gabriel and I had dinner with her and her husband.”

My father doesn’t say anything; even though he is more facile with language than anyone I’ve ever met, heartfelt discussions with his daughter have never been his forte. Still, I know that he, more than anyone else, knows this pain. He does his best to always wear a smile in my presence and to allow me to lean on him with my grief—without burdening me with his own sorrow—but I’m well aware he hasn’t recovered from Charlotte’s murder either.

“I feel . . . I feel like I’m cursed,” I say.

My father is shaking his head in disagreement. “No, of course you’re not. It’s not you. These things happen sometimes.”

“Do they? I mean, Charlotte is murdered and now Lauren? Within six months of each other? Do ‘these things’ really just happen?”

My tone is sharp, like I’m trying to pick a fight. It’s misdirected, of course. I’m not mad at my father. My beef’s with God, or the universe, or maybe life in general.

“I think you know the answer to that,” my father says soothingly. “Because it has happened.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“Don’t I know it,” he says.