Free Galveston by Suzanne Morris

The offer gets a little better each time, and I’ll admit it’s tempting, especially in terms of money.”
    â€œWhy don’t you do it? When McBride retires, you’ll have an easy out, won’t you?”
    â€œYes, but to tell you the truth I’d rather stay where I am and be able to pick my own cases. It isn’t the easiest way, because there’s no one but myself to keep track of whether or not a client pays his fee; and I can’t send some underling across town or across the state to deliver papers for me. All the same, I want to be sought out to handle cases on my own merit. That is, for me, the challenge that keeps it interesting.”
    I didn’t pursue the conversation any further, and we rode in silence back home from the beach. Charles had always made his own choices about his career—it was the one area where he stood fast against any interference from me—so it seemed pointless to carry on the discussion when I didn’t really care that day what he did about Pete Marlowe’s offer. All I could ponder was the bitter fact that, while other people seemed to have options open to them on all aspects of their lives, I was a person whose wishes carried no more weight than a feather fluttering in the wind.

Chapter 8
    The truth of my assessment that day was brought home to me when we arrived at the Garrets later that evening for music and light refreshment (thank heaven Rubin did not insist Janet cook dinner for the small group). A singing quartet visiting St. Christopher’s from their home parish in Houston had participated in Rubin’s morning service, and he in turn had invited them to come to his home that night to lead a sing-song. Janet seemed in good spirits, had seemed so for a couple of weeks, and worked hard to put a high polish on the piano in their front room. She’d even had the instrument tuned up too, just for the occasion.
    I was not feeling well, having eaten something at the Marlowes’ which was not setting well with me. I was uncomfortable sitting in the hard-backed chair, listening to the people gathered around the piano go through the heartier and more joyful songs in the Episcopal hymnal, most of which were unfamilar to me. I decided to make myself useful by combining the finger sandwiches now only half covering four silver trays onto one tray. It would make for a neater table and I could wash the other trays and get them put away. I didn’t notice, as I rearranged the crusty sandwiches, that Janet and Rubin were not among the guests around the piano. Charles was there, following along in the hymnal, apparently enjoying himself enormously.
    I stacked the three empty trays, gathered a few used napkins and a glass or two, and, without a free hand, turned and backed into the swinging kitchen door. As I turned around I saw them together, Rubin enclosing his wife in his big arms and kissing her full on the lips. They looked at me in surprise. I lowered my eyes, left the trays on the kitchen table, and excused myself.
    Could there have been a better demonstration that I had been wrong about the way Rubin had been looking at me? It didn’t seem so that night, nor many nights following, as I began to realize I was about to get caught again in a web of wanting someone I couldn’t have, and for the most obvious of reasons: however ill suited was Janet as the wife of a clergyman (or any man, actually), Rubin Garret loved her.
    I knew I must throw my energies elsewhere, and get my mind off Rubin, and in the long run we’d all be far better off. Yet the way of doing this eluded me for a few weeks, until Charles, inadvertently, gave me the answer.
    One night in early February, he came home from the office and said, “By the way, I had lunch downtown today with several people, among them Pete Marlowe. He told me to be sure and remember him to you. He thought you were ‘right charmin’ and a ‘real lady’—you