Free Escape by Barbara Delinsky Page B

wild and unchained, like the coyote. How not to envy that, when my life is the opposite? Particularly now. I had a decision to make. It wouldn’t wait much longer.
    I needed another sign. A sign would tell me which way to go without my having to make the decision myself.
    So I waited, keeping to myself as I vegged the afternoon away. Was I bored? Surprisingly not. Into my third day of escape, my limbs were starting to relax on their own. I sat, I walked, I read a magazine. I worked on the communal jigsaw puzzle in the living room, and when Charlotte wandered in, I coaxed her onto my lap and guided her hand to fit in a piece.
    This was what people did with leisure time. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, partly because it lacked direction, partly because, much as I pushed it to the back of my mind, the weight of decision was there. Stay or go? It wasn’t a simple choice. There would be consequences either way.
    As the afternoon stretched on, the air grew warmer. A dog barked, a robin hopped across the lawn. I watched guests return for tea. Not a one held a cell phone to his ear.
    By the time Charlotte was in bed, the backyard was alive with a chorus of crickets. Charmed, I ate dinner on the back porch with Vicki while Rob mingled in the parlor with guests. She wanted to talk about Jude, grilling me about his letter until I finally brought it down from my room and let her read it herself. We talked about sobering experiences in life—Vicki’s dad’s death when she was sixteen, my grandmother’s when I was twelve, Jude’s friend’s when he was forty. We talked about Jude’s conscience having to be newly dreamed up,since he hadn’t had much of a conscience at all when he was here. But if I was hoping for a personal ah-hah moment in which she said something that would shed new light on my dilemma, it didn’t come.
    I went to bed in my room in the clouds, no closer to a decision. Then came the dream. It was late and very dark when it began.
    Have you ever heard a coyote howl? It’s an eerie sound that undulates from high to low in pitch. The sound is often broken by barks or yips, but the howling is what makes you shiver. In some instances, multiple voices join in. Though coyotes mate for life, they often travel with others that help rear their pups. I had used the word “pack” when Jude had first told me this, but he quickly objected. Wolves ran in packs, he explained, and though coyotes were descendants of wolves, they banded more for domesticity than power.
    In the darkness this night, I heard only one. Its howl wasn’t prolonged, but since my dream didn’t usually have a soundtrack, it was enough to jolt me awake.
    I was lying in bed wide-eyed when the sound came again.
    Incredulous, I held my breath. When a third howl pierced the night, I flew to the window and pushed it as high as it would go.
    Vicki swore there had been no coyotes here since Jude, but either she was wrong or one had suddenly returned. More than one? I couldn’t tell. I heard a few yips and another howl, then nothing but the bark of a dog from a house on the green, and the resumption of cricket chirps in the woods.
    I sat back on my heels. Maybe I was grasping at straws, but the coincidence was too great. There had to be some meaning to the fact that the coyotes had returned to Bell Valley just when I had. Could I leave until I knew what that meaning was?
    Here was my sign.
    Now came the tough part.

Chapter 6

 
    I had to tell James what I’d decided. But a basic premise of trial work is that you don’t plea-bargain until you know the strength of your case. So I called Walter first.
    I knew that losing my job was a distinct possibility. Associates were sometimes asked to leave Lane Lavash, usually for lack of productivity but occasionally for crimes as simple as sending an e-mail to another associate criticizing an equity partner. The firing was done nicely, with the associate simply told that he had “no future with the firm”