Trial by Fire

Chapter 9

After she struggled out of bed in the morning, turned on the TV to watch the news, and had a cup of coffee and some toast, Dahlia called housekeeping for a garbage bag to wrap her leg, so she could take a shower. The news of the fire was depressing. It seemed to be roaming freely, devouring homes and small towns all over Napa County. Most vineyards didn’t burn, but everything else did. Thousands of acres of the beautiful Napa Valley had been destroyed. It had looked so perfect the first time she saw it on the first of July, and now only a week later, everything was charred black and unrecognizable. The tragedy worsened day by day, and so far nothing had stopped it.

She tackled the shower, which proved to be more complicated than anticipated, balancing on one leg, and getting out on the marble floor. She nearly fell once, and sat down on a chair breathless afterward, with her ribs aching, and put on one of the terrycloth robes the hotel provided with her initials on it. She felt victorious when she got her underwear on and brushed her hair. Nothing was easy with the cast, unable to put her weight on it, and her head felt better but she still had a mild headache. She kept reminding herself that she was lucky to be alive. Mark called her right after she put a ruffled white skirt on and was buttoning her blouse. She felt as though she had climbed Mount Everest since breakfast.

“Good morning,” he said, with a deep cheerful voice. He sounded like a man of action who had everything in full control, which was the exact opposite of how she was feeling. She felt as though she had been in a free fall since the night of the accident, with the ground rushing toward her at full speed, and her parachute refusing to open. “How do you feel today?”

“Like I lost a heavyweight championship two days ago. I’m still a little punchy, but my headache is better. I watched the fires this morning on the news. It looks just terrible.” The wind had shifted and they’d gotten worse during the night. Four more important wineries had been burned to the ground.

“It happens nearly every year now, but these are the worst we’ve had yet.” They were called complex fires, because they started as separate fires, which eventually joined up with greater force than ever. “I’m afraid you’re not seeing San Francisco at its best. Our investigator started at eight o’clock this morning, and he has an update on the Nicasios. They’ve both been released by the hospital. The mother has more injuries than the daughter. It sounds like all of the daughter’s were from the airbag. But none of their injuries are permanent or liable to cause lasting damage,” which was Dahlia’s situation too. “There were a lot of accidents on the road that night. The insurance company must be swamped. You may not hear from them for a few days. The investigator is going to do some background checking on Marilyn Nicasio, to give us an idea of what kind of person she is. Criminal record, credit rating, where they live, what kind of tenant she is, things like that. It should give us an idea of what we have in store for us.” He was fully on her side, and made it sound as though they were a team, and Dahlia was touched.

“I’m sorry to cause you all this trouble.”

“I’m happy to help.” She was a woman alone and he had the feeling that she needed protection. Her success and her career didn’t suggest that, but he had gotten that sense when he spoke to her the night before, and even when he met her in Napa. She seemed so strong, but he sensed that behind the facade she was fragile, more than just from a broken leg, and he wasn’t wrong. She felt out of her element, disoriented by the accident, and far from home. She was used to dealing from strength in a familiar world, on home turf, and suddenly she felt lost in the woods, which was entirely foreign to her. “What are you doing today?” he asked her. He wanted to invite her to lunch, but doubted she was up to it, although she sounded strong and upbeat when she talked to him. His self-assurance and optimistic outlook were contagious.

“I don’t know yet. I just took a shower, which was like qualifying for an Olympic event, on one leg, with a marble floor. Being in a cast is humbling,” she commented.

“Be careful with the marble floor. Maybe you should have one of the maids help you.”

“I was going to, but I decided I could do it myself. I’ll do better next time.” She wasn’t easily daunted.

“You should take it easy, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Do you want a nurse?” he asked her.

“God, no. It’s just a broken leg, like a skiing accident. And the doctor said I’d feel better in a few days. I already do feel better than yesterday.”

“Good. And if I can do anything to help, just call me. My office isn’t far from the hotel,” he offered, and she smiled.

“You’re already doing more than enough, for a total stranger. I’d be lost without you right now.” They hung up a few minutes later. She looked out the windows. There was still a heavy haze over the city, and she couldn’t see the bridge or the bay. She checked her computer and saw that she had an email from the insurance company for the rental car agency. They wanted to see her that afternoon. She called Mark back immediately.

“They want to see me today, at my earliest convenience. Is that okay? Should I just see them?”

“Not without legal counsel present. In the long run your interests may be counter to theirs. I have a meeting I can’t cancel at two this afternoon. Why don’t you see if they can do it at four, and I could be there with you,” he said.

“Are you sure you have time?”

“I do, and I don’t want you seeing them alone. They may want to put pressure on you to see how you’ll react. They want to know how good a case Nicasio has before they start making settlement offers. It’s standard stuff. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it’s all proceeding normally so far. We just want to be sure it doesn’t go off the rails later, so what you say now is important. It could all go against you if we’re not careful or the police decide you’re responsible. That’s what we need to be prepared for, and where the private investigator could be useful. And your position as CEO of a highly successful company could complicate things if Nicasio is after big money.”

“I can’t even wear decent clothes for the meeting,” Dahlia lamented. “I brought mostly pantsuits and slacks I can’t get over my cast,” but fortunately she’d brought a few summer dresses for L.A.

“They’re just insurance appraisers. Keep it simple.”

“I’ll let you know what they say about the meeting.” She sent them a short email after they spoke, and they responded within minutes. Four o’clock at her hotel was fine for them. And at least they could see that she wasn’t trying to avoid them. She had nothing to hide and had told the police the truth right from the beginning, when she saw them in the hospital.

Mark sent her an email as soon as he got hers and said that he’d be there a few minutes before four to prep her, and was looking forward to seeing her then.

He sat thoughtfully at his desk for a minute after he sent it to her. He was questioning his own motives and had to admit that offering his help wasn’t entirely altruistic. Every time he saw her, he wanted to get to know her better. Jeff Allen had been right. She was a very unusual woman, and he liked her modesty and discretion as well as her fine mind and beauty. She had everything going for her except geography. He was intrigued by a woman who lived six thousand miles away in a world entirely different from his. And anything he wanted to develop or pursue with her had no future to it. But it didn’t seem to stop him, although he knew better. Dahlia intrigued him, and he had never met anyone like her. She was as much a mother as a CEO, she was internationally known and yet seemed to live well below the radar of celebrity. He knew she must run her company with a hand of iron, but she seemed like a gentle person. She was strong and feminine, probably rich but didn’t show off. She was willing to work at a shelter rescuing injured animals when she could have been getting a manicure and her hair done. She was beautiful but didn’t make a big deal of it. She could have been a snob, and even had reason to be, and instead she was warm and gracious to everyone. In so many ways, she seemed like an ideal woman to him, after dating so many others who weren’t, others who were fraudulent in some way, and one of her qualities he liked best was that she was real. There was nothing phony or boastful about her. She wasn’t a show-off, wasn’t in competition with him, and didn’t have an agenda. He hadn’t met anyone he was as eager to spend time with in years, and because of who she was, he didn’t know how to do it, or approach her.

Helping her avoid a lawsuit was enough for the moment. The worst part was that no matter what he did, once the problem was solved she would go back to Paris. He couldn’t even pretend to himself that there was a future to it. He hadn’t dared be close to any woman in years and didn’t want to be, but Dahlia de Beaumont had gotten under his skin. He felt bewitched by her, and he knew he couldn’t show it. She didn’t even suspect it, which was what he wanted for now. They had work to do together, and complicating things would only make it harder.

—

Dahlia was wearing a light blue summer dress when she opened the door to him at three forty-five. She looked pretty and fresh and young, like one of her own daughters. She was using her crutches and not the wheelchair. The wheelchair only made sense if someone pushed it.

He walked in looking busy and purposeful and like a man in command of his surroundings and any situation he confronted. He was wearing a dark gray summer-weight business suit with a white shirt she recognized as Hermès and a dark blue tie. He looked like a successful businessman from New York, with the stylish air of men of power in that city. He was no small-town boy or ordinary lawyer.

She offered him a glass of wine, which he declined.

“I’m working, remember,” he reminded her gently with a smile. “If I represent you while falling down drunk, it may not make a great impression.”

He briefed her before the insurance people arrived and told her to try to relax and be herself, and to answer them honestly, and if she didn’t remember something, just say it. He had been preparing witnesses to take the stand for three decades, and he assured her that honesty was always best, and would reassure the insurance people that she would be a solid witness if it came to that. And they’d be meeting with Marilyn Nicasio too, if they hadn’t already. They’d want to see if their stories matched up, or if there was any divergence.

Dahlia seemed very calm to him by the time the doorbell of the suite rang. He went to the door for her so she didn’t have to get up and do it on crutches. Two men and a woman walked in, wearing proper business attire, looking very serious. Dahlia stood up to greet them to show them some respect. She didn’t want them to think her haughty because she hadn’t gotten off the couch.

She offered them coffee or tea, which they declined, and after a few minimal polite words, they got down to business, while Mark watched them carefully. He could tell two things right at the beginning of the meeting, in the first few minutes. They were impressed with Dahlia, and they knew who she was. They asked her to describe the circumstances of the accident, and precisely how it happened, if she remembered. She did as she was asked and told them in minute detail what had happened. She described each moment like a film on pause as she went from one memory, fact, and impression to the next. The woman looked particularly touched by her, and the men looked moved by her recital too.

“You’re absolutely sure that the first impact was from the truck behind you?” one of the men asked her pointedly when she was finished. And Mark was impressed too by how clearly and calmly she had described it.

“Completely,” she said without wavering. “He hit me so hard, I thought I was going to fly through the windshield, but my seatbelt kept that from happening. I still managed to hit my head on something. The sun visor, I think. The car I was driving wasn’t very big.” It was a compact SUV, and the interior hadn’t been large. “He hit me with incredible force, and I felt like my car was lifted off the ground and thrown forward more than just pushed into the car in front of me. I hit the car in front pretty hard, but not as hard as he hit me, I think.” It had been a truck after all, a very big one. “And as soon as I felt the impact of hitting the other car, I passed out, and I didn’t wake up until I was in the hospital. But I remember both moments of impact distinctly, the one behind me, and seconds later, the one in front. I must have hit my head when I hit her, so I passed out then. But I was wide awake when he hit me, and when I hit her.”

“The police think it’s possible that he was going faster than he should have in the heavy smoke. The visibility was almost nonexistent in the smoke, and he probably didn’t see you, and when he did, it was too late. He hit the brakes as hard as he could, so he jackknifed and flipped over after he hit you, but he couldn’t avoid hitting you,” one of the men said. “It’s amazing you survived it, given the size of the vehicle,” he added. “We can see from the car you were driving how hard the impact was, which is why you hit the car in front of you. You couldn’t avoid it.”

The female insurance appraiser then interjected, “Ms. Nicasio says you hit her first, and she heard the truck hit you after you ran into her. We saw her this morning, and she’s very definite about it.” All three of the insurance appraisers were expressionless when she said it.

“That’s not how I remember it,” Dahlia said simply. “And I know I didn’t hit my head when he hit me. I hit my head when my car impacted the one in front of me. And then I passed out.”

“According to the paramedics’ report, your car caught fire after both impacts, one of the firefighters told them. You were unconscious when they pulled you out of the car. They just managed to get you out without needing heavy machinery to do it, and laid you down on the side of the road, far enough from the burning car in case it blew up. Their report says you remained unconscious throughout the procedure and didn’t regain consciousness until after they air-lifted you to Zuckerberg in the city.” Dahlia looked shaken after they explained it to her, and glanced at Mark. He looked stricken by the report too. She could easily have died at any point during the accident or after.

“I don’t think it’s a negligible detail,” Mark said to them, “that the other driver is not going to get the kind of settlement from the insurer of the truck,” which was an unknown local company with low rates for trucks, “that she can hope to get from you, from an internationally known rental car company. If Ms. Nicasio can claim that Ms. de Beaumont was the initiator of the accident, making you responsible for it as world-class insurers, it will be a lot better for her financially than if the truck was initially responsible—from a small supermarket chain, carrying tomatoes from L.A., insured by a much smaller insurer. Let’s be honest, you have the deep pockets here, and so does Ms. de Beaumont, if Ms. Nicasio sees that as an opportunity.” Their faces looked pinched for a minute before they answered. They were well aware of it too, and Mark knew it and shone a bright light on it immediately. It was the key issue here, or one of them.

“The truck’s insurer is answerable for the death of the driver, and we don’t know yet what kind of condition the truck was in mechanically, like how good the brakes were. We’re investigating that now, and we may have a suit against them, but we think the policy may have been limited. It’s a small company. And we are prepared to make a sizable settlement to Ms. Nicasio, dependent on the medical reports. She told us that her daughter has been deeply affected by the trauma and won’t be able to go to school for several months, possibly not even in September after the vacation, with both arms broken, and Ms. Nicasio can’t go to work either. And she has to stay home now to care for her daughter.”

“They should have been wearing seatbelts, especially in the existing conditions with that kind of poor visibility from the smoke,” Mark said coldly, and Dahlia was surprised by his tone. It didn’t sound like him, even as little as she knew him. She was getting an advance look at Mark Hamilton, the famous litigator. It wasn’t lost on the insurers either.

“A number of factors will weigh in on the settlement we offer. We still have the court hearing to get through to determine who was in fact responsible, and if there was criminal negligence involved on anyone’s part. And we’re waiting for medical reports on the deceased truck driver.” There could have been drugs involved, or medical issues, or a number of other factors, if he’d been driving for too long and could have fallen asleep at the wheel. Mark knew that anything was possible, and so did they.

They stood up then, satisfied that they had heard Dahlia’s version of the story. It was in direct conflict with what Marilyn Nicasio had told them, and none of them knew if she was an honest woman or had her eye on a prize she might never have a chance at otherwise.

“There are likely to be civil suits resulting from this as well,” the lead insurance appraiser said as they stood up.

“We’re well aware of that,” Mark responded.

“She got Ms. de Beaumont’s name from the police,” the appraiser said, looking uncomfortable, “and we believe she’s done some research.” It was what Mark had feared for Dahlia, but there was nothing they could do about it. Dahlia was who she was, and she was a big target. If the Nicasio woman was greedy and dishonest, she was going to have a field day.

“Thank you for the warning,” Mark said quietly. They all shook hands and the three insurers left a minute later. Dahlia had walked them to the door on her crutches, and she and Mark went back to the sitting area after they left and looked at each other.

“Well,” she asked him, “what do you think?”

“I think you were terrific, and everything you say is solid and rings true.”

“Because it is,” she said quietly, and he nodded.

“But I smell trouble from the Nicasio woman. I think she’s going to give it a shot, and I’m sure she’ll find some sleazy contingency lawyer to help her do it. You’re an irresistible target,” he told her, and she understood that too. It was why she was worried. “We have to take this one step at a time. First the hearing, to determine if there are criminal implications. It could be that the truck driver was on substances, or guilty of something illegal. But we need to determine if he was responsible, or you are. The Nicasio woman wants you to be, so she can go after you. The trucker’s side of it won’t be nearly as lucrative for her as going after the rental car company, and you civilly. She won’t have a shot at it, if the courts decide, or a jury, that you’re not responsible. That’s the key here.” The hearing was set for a month away, and Mark was using all his connections to get it moved earlier. The whole thing could be deemed an accident, and there would be no criminal implications. Mark wanted to know that as soon as possible. Or it could go all the way to the end, with Marilyn Nicasio sticking to her story, and it would wind up as a civil jury trial, at her insistence, which would be long, painful, and expensive for Dahlia. He wanted to spare her that if he could, and he had made several calls that morning about the hearing date but hadn’t heard back yet.

“You did very well,” he told Dahlia again. “You’ll make a fantastic witness. I just hope we don’t have to demonstrate that.”

“Do you think they believed me?”

“To a point. They may think that you’re trying to protect yourself financially. They probably don’t know who to believe right now. And Ms. Nicasio is probably very convincing. She has a lot riding on it. Maybe she’s an honest woman, but if she’s done ‘research’ on you, as he put it, I strongly doubt that she’s honest. I believe you, Dahlia, now we just have to convince everyone else. It will all fall into place. But it will take time.”

“I have to be back in Paris in three weeks,” she said, looking desperate, “for my daughter’s wedding.”

“Let’s see if we can get the whole thing dismissed at the hearing, but with one man dead, and three people injured, dismissal may not be possible. I want to be honest with you.” She nodded. She was sure he was doing his best, in difficult circumstances, and she fully realized how lucky she was to have met him, and that he was helping her.

He left shortly after the insurers. He said he had a lot of work to do, and promised to be in touch if he had any news. And she thanked him again for his support.

Dahlia slept a lot for the next two days, which helped her head and ribs feel better. The headache was almost gone, but getting around with the cast was annoying. Mark called her two days after she’d last seen him, and he sounded pleased. A judge he knew had helped him get the initial hearing moved, to determine if the matter would be dismissed as an accident or if there was any question of negligence. In either case, Marilyn Nicasio could still sue Dahlia civilly and accuse her of negligence and demand a civil jury trial, which would be lengthy and costly. The attorneys would try to negotiate a settlement, up until the trial date. But Dahlia’s life would return to normal for a while. Right now, everything was hanging, waiting for the hearing. And the police had told her not to leave town.

“Who ever said that golf wasn’t a useful game? I play golf with two Superior Court judges once a month, and one of them just gave us a hand. He beat me last week, so I think was sorry for me.” Mark had actually told the judge the truth, and was sorry for Dahlia. “He spoke to the judge assigned to our hearing, and he agreed to move it up by three weeks. It’s set now for next Monday. Everyone’s been notified. I hope we have a decent chance to get it dismissed. We need to get that hearing behind us so we know where we stand.”

Dahlia was relieved to hear it and nervous too. If it went badly, the implications were serious, she could be stuck in San Francisco for a long time, pending trial. The ramifications of going to trial would be considerable, not to mention Alex’s wedding, which would have to be postponed, or Alex would have to get married without her, which would upset Dahlia profoundly, and the bride. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. So the early hearing was great news.

She thanked Mark profusely, and he called her back the next day. He said he had more good news. Their investigator had some early reports on Marilyn Nicasio, and they confirmed Mark’s suspicions that she might not be an innocent. The investigator had discovered that she was a receptionist at a low salary, living in a seedy apartment building on the fringes of the Tenderloin, an unwholesome area filled with drug addicts and alcoholics lying on the street, and not a pleasant place to live, but the rent was low. Ms. Nicasio had no criminal record, but her credit rating was a disaster. She was in credit card debt up to her ears. And she had previously sued both a landlord and a boss. She didn’t win against the landlord, and owed him a year’s back rent, but she had successfully sued an employer for sexual discrimination because she was a woman and was passed over for a promotion. She had been awarded twenty-five thousand dollars and had been unemployed for six months afterward because no one would hire her after the suit.

None of it proved that she was dishonest, but she certainly hadn’t had an easy life, and anything she could get in a settlement now would be a windfall for her. It was the kind of opportunity that would be hard to turn down, particularly if she wasn’t honest. And she was sticking to her story, which Dahlia knew wasn’t true, that she had hit the car in front first, before the truck hit her. That technicality made Dahlia responsible for any damage to Marilyn Nicasio and her daughter.

What the investigator had unearthed about Ms. Nicasio gave them some information about her that suggested a profile of someone in need who didn’t hesitate to go after others to improve her situation. Dahlia felt sorry for her, for her hard life and her injuries, but she wasn’t willing to be a sacrificial lamb for her. If it had been her fault, Dahlia would have paid damages willingly. But it wasn’t—they had all suffered injuries, and the truck driver death, as the result of forces they couldn’t control and had all been the victims of, with no one person to blame.

When Mark called her about the new hearing date, and information about Marilyn Nicasio, he surprised her with an invitation.

“Jeff Allen is back in business again. The winds shifted and they set up the rescue tent in the same place. We’re giving him another check from the ASPCA, and I prefer to deliver them hand to hand. I’m going up on Saturday to give it to him. Would you like to come? I don’t know if you’d be comfortable riding in the car, and there’s a different route we can take to get there, through the East Bay, so you won’t have to go past where the accident happened.” He didn’t want to traumatize her for the sake of a Saturday afternoon drive.

With the smoke still in the air, and Dahlia still adjusting to crutches, with some residual pain, he knew she was staying in the hotel most of the time. It was smoky in Napa too, but for now the wind was from a different direction, and when Mark had spoken to him, Jeff had said you could actually breathe up there, for now.

Dahlia hesitated for a moment, thinking about it. She liked the idea of seeing Mark, and Jeff again, and Mahala and the others she had volunteered with briefly. She was just passing time, waiting for the hearing. Agnes was sending materials for her to work on by email, but she was lonely at the hotel. The rep had come by to have tea with her once, but for the most part, she was alone, and liked the idea of going to Napa with Mark. She wondered if the little black dog with the white patch was still there. She was sure that either his owners had come for him by now, or he had been adopted. He was too cute to stay there long.

“Actually, I’d like that,” she said to Mark. “And taking a different route sounds like a good idea,” she said gratefully. It was thoughtful of him to suggest it, and even consider it. He was a compassionate person. And she didn’t want to have flashbacks of the accident. She’d had nightmares at night ever since, but her headache lessened every day. She only noticed it now when she was tired at the end of the day. “It’ll be fun to see them all. I wish I could volunteer again, but I think I’d be more of a burden than an asset with my cast.”

He promised to pick her up at ten o’clock on Saturday morning. They could have lunch with Jeff if he had time and wasn’t too busy. She was looking forward to it. And in the interim, she kept in close touch with her office, spoke to Agnes every day for messages, and talked to Delphine regularly. She had another big project in mind that she wanted to discuss with her mother when she got home. They were busy in Paris.

Charles called her a few times too, about financial matters. He was concerned about her accident, but more so about a potential lawsuit, although they could afford it, but he wasn’t pleased at the prospect, nor was Dahlia.

—

The day before her plan to go to Napa with Mark, the police visited her, in preparation of the hearing. They asked her to go over her version of the accident again, and her story was consistent, because it was the truth. They asked her if there was anything she would like to change, and she said there wasn’t. It was her precise recollection of the event. She didn’t remember anything more or less now than she did the day after it happened. They hadn’t warned her of their visit, and she called Mark when they left.

“You did the right thing seeing them. They’re looking for inconsistencies, or to see if you changed your mind about what you told them before.”

“I didn’t. I don’t remember anything differently. And I was unconscious almost the minute I hit her car. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up on a gurney in a hallway at Zuckerberg. I don’t remember the helicopter ride at all.” He was glad she didn’t. She would have been in excruciating pain with the broken leg, cracked ribs, and head injury. It was a mercy that she had passed out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, sounding upbeat. He knew she was nervous about the hearing on Monday, he wanted to distract her and knew they’d be happy to see her at the animal rescue tent. Everyone who had met her liked her and said she was a pleasure to work with.

“Do you think it’ll be smoky up there? Should I take my mask?”

“Probably. It doesn’t hurt to take it. Jeff says the air is better up there right now, but that could change in minutes.” Living with the fires nearby was becoming a way of life. And seeing the devastation on the news every night was like watching the reportage of a war, with the death toll mounting, as exhausted firefighters took greater risks, desperate to put out the fires that instead spread farther every day. They were in three counties now, with Napa at the hub of it, and the fires only four percent contained. It felt like Armageddon. The end of the world. Paris had never seemed farther away.

—

For no particular reason, she called Philippe on Friday night. She was tired and homesick. She missed her children, and him. She felt useless sitting in San Francisco, unable to go to her office in Paris every day, and waiting for hearings, for the other shoe to fall, for a lawsuit or charges against her, or a settlement of some kind.

She called Philippe at one in the morning for her on Friday night, ten a.m. for him on Saturday morning, on a glorious sunny day in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Riviera.

“Are you busy?” she asked him.

“No, I’m sitting in the sun, having breakfast. It’s a gorgeous day.” She could hear the birds chirping in the background to prove it. “Why did you call?”

“I just missed you,” she said simply. It was true. She hadn’t seen him in almost three weeks, and she was due back soon. But she couldn’t go now, at least not until after the hearing. The police had reminded her again not to leave town. But a day trip to Napa didn’t count. It was an hour from the city.

“You know it’s not a good idea to call here. She’s out, so it doesn’t matter this time. She went to some farmer’s market she heard about. When are you coming home?”

“Soon. There’s a hearing about the accident on Monday, where a judge will decide if there was negligence involved. I can’t leave before that.”

“That’s absurd. They’re treating you like a criminal. You should just get on a plane and come home. There’s no extradition from France. Once you’re in France, they can’t touch you. Use your French passport to come home.” It was a clever idea but with long-term consequences, she knew, if she fled the country before the hearing. And it would make her seem guilty.

“If I do that, I can never come back to the States.”

“That’s ridiculous, over an accident that’s not your fault.”

“They’re not sure if it’s my fault or not. That’s what the hearing is for. And the woman is lying, which is what makes it so difficult. We have two different stories, so the judge may send it to trial.” She’d gone over it again and again with Mark. He kept reminding her that she was innocent. She hoped the judge agreed with him.

“I think you should just leave,” Philippe sounded bored. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Better. The cast is a nuisance though.”

“I’m playing golf today. We’re going to a big party in Monaco Friday night, at Jimmy’z.” It was a popular disco in Monte-Carlo. She went there sometimes too in the summer with her kids. It felt like a lifetime away. He was having a fun summer, while hers was a nightmare.

“It sounds like everything is going smoothly there,” Dahlia said, more jealous than she wanted to be.

“We’re civilized people, and it’s good for Julien to have both his parents here. He says he loves it.” It didn’t sound like an adequate reason to her, to stay married to a woman he admitted he had never loved.

“I’m going back to Napa tomorrow, to the animal rescue,” she said, to have something to say.

“It sounds like a deadly dull town.”

“It is, but it’s very pretty and geographically spectacular, with mountains and beaches nearby.”

“I’d rather be here,” Philippe said. He sounded cold. He thought she should just come home and leave the mess to the lawyers to work out. He wasn’t warm or reassuring.

“So would I,” she responded. “I always feel like a fish out of water in America. I’ve been gone for too long to feel any connection to it. And I never really felt American.”

“You aren’t. There’s nothing American about you. They take everything too seriously. Look at the fuss they’re making. It’s a car accident, for God’s sake. You didn’t shoot the president. And they’re treating you like a criminal.” She couldn’t disagree, but she almost forgave them for it. It was a serious matter after all, with injuries and a man’s death.

“Hopefully not, after Monday,” she said, missing him, and not even sure why. He wasn’t being affectionate, and he hadn’t been overly sympathetic about the accident. He kept their time together on a regular schedule, and he was careful never to get too close. It was all very regulated and controlled on his terms. By now, it would have been nice to have more, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready for it either. They each had their freedom and separate lives, and their time together twice a week, and went to big events together, while Jacqueline turned a blind eye, like a good French wife. At fifty-six, Dahlia wanted more out of life, but she didn’t want to take the risk to have it, and neither did he. Their relationship suited him, and by default it suited her. They had sacrificed passion for an “arrangement” that originally suited both of them, and now seemed more to his advantage than hers. It was tailor-made for him. And in the summer, he could still go on vacation with his family. He was risking nothing for her and had never pretended that he would. And she wasn’t risking anything either. They were playing it safe, keeping love at a distance, and one day, it would be over when they were too old to bother or care, when twice-a-week sex by appointment was no longer of interest. There would be no companionship in her old age, no hand to hold in the dark, no comfort for their final years together. They would never have more than they did now. She had finally understood that. And when she was alone in her old age, he would still be married to Jacqueline and spending summers with her in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, out of habit, if nothing else.

He wished her luck at the hearing when they hung up. He didn’t tell her he loved her, in case someone overheard. He only said that in bed after they made love, if he was feeling tender. He didn’t sound tender now, he seemed very remote. She didn’t know why she’d called him, except that she had no one else to call. It hadn’t brought her comfort, it had just made her sad, and reminded her of the inadequacies in their “arrangement.” A situation like hers at the moment made them stand out in sharp relief. She was injured and in a bad situation far from home, and Philippe was keeping his distance, and on vacation with his wife. The realization wasn’t lost on her.