Free The Testament by John Grisham Page A

to skip Christmas?”
    “Yes.”
    “What about your kids?”
    There were four of them, two by each wife. One in grad school and one in college, two in middle school.
    He stirred his coffee with a small spoon, and said, “Not a word, Josh. Almost four months here, and not a word from anyof them.” His voice ached and his shoulders sagged. He looked quite frail, for a second.
    “I’m sorry,” Josh said.
    Josh had certainly heard from the families. Both wives had lawyers who’d called to sniff around for money. Nate’s oldest child was a grad student at Northwestern who needed tuition money, and he personally had called Josh to inquire not about his father’s well-being or whereabouts but, more important, his father’s share of the firm’s profits last year. He was cocky and rude, and Josh had finally cursed him.
    “I’d like to avoid all the parties and holiday cheer,” Nate said, rallying as he got to his bare feet and walked around the room.
    “So you’ll go?”
    “Is it the Amazon?”
    “No. It’s the Pantanal, the largest wetlands in the world.”
    “Piranhas, anacondas, alligators?”
    “Sure.”
    “Cannibals?”
    “No more than D.C.”
    “Seriously.”
    “I don’t think so. They haven’t lost a missionary in eleven years.”
    “What about a lawyer?”
    “I’m sure they would enjoy filleting one. Come on, Nate. This is not heavy lifting. If I weren’t so busy, I’d love to go. The Pantanal is a great ecological reserve.”
    “I’ve never heard of it.”
    “That’s because you stopped traveling years ago. You went into your office and didn’t come out.”
    “Except for rehab.”
    “Take a vacation. See another part of the world.”
    Nate sipped coffee long enough to redirect the conversation. “And what happens when I get back? Do I have my office? Am I still a partner?”
    “Is that what you want?”
    “Of course,” Nate said, but with a slight hesitation.
    “Are you sure?”
    “What else would I do?”
    “I don’t know, Nate, but this is your fourth rehab in ten years. The crashes are getting worse. If you walked out now, you’d go straight to the office and be the world’s greatest malpractice litigator for six months. You’d ignore the old friends, the old bars, the old neighborhoods. Nothing but work, work, work. Before long you’d have a couple of big verdicts, big trials, big pressure. You’d step it up a notch. After a year, there would be a crack somewhere. An old friend might find you. A girl from another life. Maybe a bad jury gives you a bad verdict. I’d be watching every move, but I can never tell when the slide begins.”
    “No more slides, Josh. I swear.”
    “I’ve heard it before, and I want to believe you. But what if your demons come out again, Nate? You came within minutes of killing yourself last time.”
    “No more crashes.”
    “The next one will be the last, Nate. We’ll have a funeral and say good-bye and watch them lower you into the ground. I don’t want that to happen.”
    “It won’t, I swear.”
    “Then forget about the office. There’s too much pressure there.”
    The thing Nate hated about rehab was the long periods of silence, or meditation, as Sergio called them. The patients were expected to squat like monks in the semidarkness, close their eyes, and find inner peace. Nate could do the squatting and all that, but behind the closed eyes he was retrying lawsuits, and fighting the IRS, and plotting against his ex-wives, and, most important, worrying about the future. This conversation with Josh was one he’d played out many times.
    But his smart retorts and quick comebacks failed him underpressure. Almost four months of virtual solitude had dulled his reflexes. He could manage to look pitiful, and that was all. “Come on, Josh. You can’t just kick me out.”
    “You’ve litigated for over twenty years, Nate. That’s about average. It’s time to move on to something else.”
    “So I’ll become a lobbyist, and do lunch