“No, and you don’t try. When was the last time you had a date?”

“In the stone age. I think people were carrying clubs and wearing fur.” Alexa looked ruefully at her mother. Muriel always brought it up.

“That’s not funny. You need to get out more, and at least have dinner with friends.” Alexa worked, went home to her daughter, and that was it. Her mother worried about her.

“I’m not going to have time to go out for a while now. I have to prepare this case.”

“You always have some excuse,” Muriel chided her. “I hate your having cases like this. Why don’t you get a decent job?” her mother teased. “Like tax law or estate planning, or animal rights or something. I don’t love the idea of you prosecuting serial killers.”

“I’ll be fine,” Alexa said. She didn’t need to ask who her mother’s date was. She knew. She and Judge Schwartzman had been dating for years, since Alexa was in college. Her mother hadn’t gone out much before that. She was too busy with her own work, and raising her daughter. Now she and Stanley Schwartzman went to dinner and movies, and sneaked away for the occasional weekend. Alexa knew that he usually spent the night on Saturdays. Neither of them wanted to get married, and the arrangement had worked for years. He was a lovely man, five years older than her mother and approaching retirement, but he was lively and in good shape. He had two daughters and a son older than Alexa, and sometimes they all got together over the holidays.

Her mother put her coat on, and they walked out of the courthouse together. It was just starting to snow, and they shared a cab uptown. Alexa dropped her mother off and went farther uptown to her apartment. She was looking forward to seeing Savannah at the end of a long day and was disappointed when she wasn’t home. For a minute, a chill ran up her spine, thinking of men like Luke Quentin loose in the world, and Savannah was still so innocent at her age.