The chambers of a federal judge are designed to intimidate. Mahogany walls rise to fourteen-foot ceilings, swallowing sound until even breathing feels intrusive. Behind the massive oak desk where I sat reviewing sentencing recommendations, the golden seal of the United States District Court caught afternoon light filtering through tall windows that overlooked the gray December skyline of Washington, D.C.
I’d been appointed to this position at thirty-four, making me one of the youngest federal judges in the circuit, a fact that still surprised me some mornings when I put on my robes and remembered the girl I used to be—the one who’d been abandoned at sixteen with nothing but a grandfather’s love and a scholarship application.
My phone buzzed against the polished wood surface, vibrating with an insistence that suggested the caller had tried multiple times. I glanced at the screen and felt my pen pause mid-signature, hovering over a racketeering case I’d been overseeing for eight months.
The name on the display made my chest tighten in a way I hadn’t experienced in years: Richard Vance. My father, though the term felt grotesque applied to a man who’d contributed half my DNA before disappearing to the French Riviera when I was still learning to drive.
Ten years of silence, and now this call on Christmas Eve.
I let it ring twice more before answering, using those seconds to compose myself, to remember who I was now rather than who I’d been when he left. “Judge Vance,” I said, my voice professional and deliberately distant, the tone I used with attorneys who tried to charm their way through procedural violations. “Evelyn!
Darling!” Richard’s voice boomed through the speaker, smooth and artificially warm, as if we’d spoken yesterday rather than a decade ago.
“Judge? Oh my, that’s right—I heard through the grapevine you were working in the legal field somewhere.
Listen, sweetheart, your mother and I are back in the States! We’ve settled into a beautiful new place in Connecticut.
We miss you terribly and thought it was time to reconnect, bury the hatchet, you know.
Family is everything, especially at Christmas.”
I swiveled my chair to face the window, watching storm clouds gather over the Potomac. The practiced charm in his voice triggered memories I’d spent years processing in therapy—the casual way he’d announced over breakfast one morning that he and my mother Martha were “pursuing new opportunities abroad,” the way they’d dropped me at my grandfather’s house with two suitcases and promises to “send for me soon” that never materialized. “What do you want, Richard?” I asked, dispensing with pretense.
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