Free Lies of the Heart by Michelle Boyajian

mother, because I have an eye for it.
    In Warwick she pulled in to the sandy parking lot at Sealark Marina, where Nick slipped his skiff. Before she reached the ramp to the dock, she saw him standing on the bow, hosing off the salt water. Three burlap bags overflowing with quahogs sat on the flaking wooden dock, and Katie giggled with happiness; Nick had waited for her before trading them in, knowing that she loved the sunburned old man at the shack, his gruff, bantering ways and how he tried to slip his hand underneath the scale to shortchange Nick. A simple, repetitive game just for Katie’s benefit. Nick waved, and she sprinted down the ramp, across the rickety dock.
    —I have an eye! Katie shouted to him. Nick laughed at her, shaking his head.
    He stuck his thumb over the spout of the hose, pointed it in her direction, and she ran straight into the mist, twirled underneath it on the dock until her clothes were drenched.
    —Get up here, Nick said in a deep voice she understood, and pointed to the bow in front of his feet. Katie scrambled over the side of the skiff, clothes dripping, and fell into him.
    —My professor said—she began, but Nick’s strong arms were crushing her, his mouth stopping her words.
    His fingers teased up under her wet T-shirt, exploring, his tongue licking at the back of her teeth. And then everything else melted away, became distant and unimportant. Inside Nick’s arms it was always the same for Katie, dizzying, like flying in circles when she was standing still.
    A prayer rose up on its own accord, selfish and urgent. Please, God, please let it always be like this.
    —Now, what did this professor say about your eyes? Nick said in mock jealousy.
    But in his arms there was room for only this. Only Nick.
    In bed that night, Nick worked on her with tongue and teeth and nails, until her hair matted against the sweat on her face, until her neck and back muscles started a slow, raw hum. And she watched him above her, behind her, all around her, straining to see his love.
    — Katie.
    Her whispered name like a plea—and Katie’s body rose to meet his. She turned on her back, put her hands on each side of his face to hold him steady above—needing to see it, needing to see herself in him. You have the eye, she told herself . Keep looking.
    Nick, moving inside her, his eyes tracking her face so intently. She felt the lonely spaces within her leaving—finally, gloriously. Not a prayer any longer, not a fervent wish cast at the sky to God, but this: what could be, the hope of coming together in this world.

6
    S he’s waiting for Dana outside the women’s bathroom, across the hall from the courtroom. Dana’s probably perched at the edge of the toilet at this very moment, Katie thinks, taking two or three furtive puffs from a Merit 100; Katie can picture her sister perfectly, cigarette dangling out of her mouth, one hand waving away smoke while the other one mists the air around her with the slender tube of peach- or melon-burst spray she always keeps in her purse.
    After Carly was finally calmed and order restored, Judge Hwang had called for a fifteen-minute recess; she dismissed the jurors, barely waiting for the door to shut behind them before leveling her gavel at Richard, then Donna. She tossed it onto the bench, gathered up her robes, and stormed through the door at the back of the courtroom to her chambers.
    “Meet me on the second floor, conference room three,” Richard said to Katie, his face impossible to read. He snapped his briefcase shut, followed Donna to chambers. Across the room Jerry sat hunched over the defense table as Daniel Quinlin, the Warwick Center’s recreation assistant, sat beside him talking quietly. The bailiffs stood close by, trading glances and eyeing Jerry.
    “C’mon, Dana,” Katie whispers under her breath now, seeing exactly what she hoped to avoid: the Warwick Center people emerging from the courtroom, one after the other. Oh, great, Katie thinks, but is