Chapter Text
Before Hillary had even reached the end of the corridor, she could smell the cigar smoke.
Fucking cigars in the office again.
The conference room door was half open. Richard Cohen’s voice drifted out.
“...which is why she’s the right person for it. Women dealing with women’s problems.”
Hillary pushed the door open. Six pairs of eyes turned toward her. All men. The smoke hung in the air like a basement on fire. On the wall was an abstract painting, red and black churned together in a way that was trying very hard to look profound, strange, and impossible to read.
“Hillary. Sit.” Cohen did not get up. He rolled the cigar between his fingers. “We have a case for you.”
James Whitman slid a folder across the table. The folder was pink, with a greasy smear of old adhesive stuck to the cover, as if someone had meant it as an insult.
“Divorce case,” Whitman said. He smiled, showing the yellow coffee stains between his teeth. “The wife’s pregnant. Claims he hit her. Tears, hysteria, the usual routine.”
Hillary did not touch the folder. She did not look at Whitman either.
“I have three mergers closing next week.”
“Give them to Tom Reed.” Under Hillary’s openly fixed stare, Cohen lowered his head and tapped ash from his cigar. “His father just referred two pharmaceutical clients to us. Tom needs good cases.”
“They’re my cases.”
“Not anymore.” Cohen looked at her. “This divorce case requires... delicacy. You’re suited to it. You know how it is. Being competitive isn’t always useful. We need to put people where they’re best used.”
The conference room fell silent for a few seconds. The air-conditioning was too cold. Goosebumps rose along Hillary’s arms.
She knew what “delicacy” meant.
Women’s work. The rotten case no one wanted. Last year, the firm had taken on the Weiner family’s trust work. Now the son was making a mess of his divorce, and someone had to wipe his ass — but not too hard, not hard enough to scare off the money.
“She asked for you by name,” Whitman added, tapping the end of his pen against the table. “Insisted on you. Wouldn’t have anyone else. What was her name again... Huma Abedin Weiner. Sounds like curry.”
Someone gave a low laugh.
Hillary stared at the little pile of ash on the table and remembered the first time she had walked into this conference room. Eighteen years ago. A second-hand suit. A brand-name handbag bought with pieced-together savings. A pair of painfully provincial shoes on her feet. Cohen had asked her a few careless questions and was already preparing to send her away.
She had not left.
That day, Cohen had said, “We don’t usually hire women lawyers, but you have a kind of... ruthlessness.”
Now her ruthlessness was only good enough for a pink folder.
“I’ll take the materials.” Hillary stood. She swallowed something that felt like lava. When her fingertips touched the folder, it seemed to burn.
“Hillary,” Cohen called after her. “Handle it gently. The Weiners pay us eight hundred thousand a year. That Indian girl... give her a little hope, that’s all. Don’t take it too seriously.”
“She’s an American citizen.”
“Suit yourself.” Cohen waved a hand. “Close the door on your way out.”
The deep blue carpet in the hallway absorbed every sound. Hillary walked back to her office and locked the door behind her.
The pink folder lay on her desk like a pool of blood.
She opened it.
The first page was a photograph: a black-haired woman, brown-skinned, twenty-two years old, eighteen weeks pregnant. She looked straight into the camera and did not smile. Her résumé said she had been born in Michigan, raised in Saudi Arabia until she was eighteen, studied journalism at George Washington University, and now worked as an assistant editor at Fashion magazine. Annual salary: thirty-two thousand dollars. Not enough to cover one month’s rent on Hillary’s office.
She was very thin, very beautiful, and because she looked so worn down, her belly stood out all the more sharply.
The second page was Andrew Weiner’s file: thirty-five years old, investment adviser at Morgan Stanley, father in banking. In the photograph, he was smiling on a yacht, his teeth almost painfully white.
The third page was a handwritten note, the letters small and tense.
“Ms. Rodham,
My name is Huma Abedin. My boss, Natalia Romanoff, said you might be able to take my case. I am pregnant. My husband hits me. I have evidence. I will come to your office at ten o’clock Monday morning whether or not you agree. I cannot wait any longer.”
There was a coffee stain at the bottom of the note, blurring the word “hits.”
Hillary poured herself a glass of red wine. It was three in the afternoon, but she needed it. Outside the window was a gray Manhattan. September 1995. The city was starting to forget the word recession, but it had not forgotten how to trample the weak.
She thought of her own case. David’s lawyer had said in court, “Ms. Hillary Rodham clearly loves her career more than her marriage. That choice deserves respect, but it should not be rewarded.”
The judge had been a woman in her fifties. She had looked at Hillary for a long time, and in the end she gave Hillary what she deserved.
But as Hillary left the courtroom, the judge said quietly, “Next time, don’t let them smell blood.”
Now the smell of blood was back.
At nine-fifty on Monday morning, Hillary waited in the conference room. She wore a gray suit — not provocative, not weak. The pink folder lay on the table. She had not opened it.
At exactly ten o’clock, the door opened.
Huma Abedin was even thinner than she had looked in the photograph. Her pregnant belly under her loose dress seemed like something borrowed. Her black hair was tied in a low ponytail, a few loose strands stuck to her neck. She carried a canvas bag, the corners slightly worn.
“I’m sorry, I...” She was breathless. “The elevator was broken. I walked up.”
Seventeen floors.
Hillary looked at her flushed face.
“Please sit. Would you like some water?”
“No, thank you.” Huma sat down, holding the canvas bag on her lap like a shield. But there was nothing shy about the way she went straight to the point. “Will you take my case?”
“That depends on what you have.” Hillary folded her hands and looked at her calmly.
Huma took a Sony Walkman out of the bag. Her fingers were shaking. She pressed play. The machine rustled for a few seconds. Then a man’s voice came through.
“—you think you can leave? Take my kid and leave?”
His voice was lazy, as if he were talking about the weather. Then came the sound of something being smashed. A woman inhaled sharply.
“This was March fourteenth,” Huma said, eyes fixed on the tabletop. “He smashed my computer. Because I took a call from my editor. At nine at night.”
Hillary said nothing. The recording continued.
“You should be grateful I married you. What other white man would want some brown-skinned—”
Huma pressed stop.
The conference room went abruptly quiet. Only the ventilation system breathed. The room was as cold as winter. Hillary turned and switched off the air-conditioning.
“Anything else?” Hillary asked, turning back around.
Something bleak appeared on Huma’s face.
“Medical records. Two emergency room visits. Bruising on my back. These are the photographs.”
Huma took an envelope from her bag and shook out a stack of photographs. The bruises were purple and green. The patches of exposed skin looked like rotting fruit.
“And this.”
A sheet of fax paper. Printed on it were the words:
“Have the baby and get out. You won’t see a cent.”
“Why me?” Hillary asked. “There are plenty of lawyers who specialize in divorce.”
Huma raised her head. Her eyes were dark brown, but near the pupils there were flecks of gold, like amber wrapped around fire.
“Because... the person who recommended you — my, um, my boss — said you don’t lose. She said someone once called you ‘as cold as a refrigerator.’” Huma’s voice was very soft. “She said you made him lose.”
Hillary felt her left eyelid twitch.
Her case had been five years ago. The details should never have reached the ears of a fashion magazine editor. But this was New York. All secrets traveled through the pipes of money and power.
“So what do you want me to do?” Hillary asked.
“Help me leave him,” Huma said. “With my child. Safely.”
“Safety costs money. Your income—”
“I have twelve thousand dollars in savings. I... my mother can lend me twenty thousand. If that isn’t enough...” Huma bit her lip. “I can sell things. I have some jewelry. From my mother.”
Hillary looked at the photographs on the table. Chest, back, and several of the head and face. Dark green and purple marks crawled over the woman’s body like mold. Marriage had fallen on her like a season of endless rain, and the mildew marks vanished and returned, again and again.
“Your husband’s father,” she said slowly, “is a client of this firm.”
Huma’s face went white. Her trembling hand tightened around the strap of the canvas bag. She swallowed.
“So you won’t take it.”
“I didn’t say that.” Hillary collected the photographs one by one, aligned the edges, and slipped them back into the envelope. “But I need you to understand. They will tell me to handle this gently. What that means is they will drag you out, wear you down, until you accept very little money and unfair terms.”
“Then why take it?”
Hillary felt her eyes go dry. She rolled them slightly and pressed one hand down on the pink folder in front of her.
She did not answer the question.
Instead, she stood up neatly.
“Nine o’clock Wednesday morning. Bring the originals of everything. Medical records, photographs, the original recordings. And your husband’s financial information. Bring as much as you can find.”
Huma stared at her as if trying to decode a foreign language.
“You... you mean it?”
Color slowly returned to her face.
“Nine o’clock Wednesday.” Hillary picked up the case file and walked toward the door. “Don’t be late.”
Huma left with her canvas book bag clutched to her chest, as if she had been granted a reprieve. Her steps were miraculously quick.
Following standard filing procedure, Hillary went to the records room. On the innermost row of shelves, boxes labeled PERSONAL CASES had gathered dust. She found the label for 1990 and pulled out her own divorce file.
More than three hundred pages, documenting how she had divided property, argued, and won.
The last page was a photocopy of David’s testimony.
“Hillary Rodham is incapable of providing emotional support... She cares more about her professional achievements...”
In the margin beside the testimony, she had written two words:
Bullshit.
She had pressed so hard the pen had torn through the paper.
There was movement behind her. Tom Reed stood in the doorway, coffee cup in hand.
“Looking up old cases for reference? I hear you took on a lively little divorce case.”
Hillary slid the file back into the box.
“What do you want?”
“Cohen asked me to check on the progress.” Tom came closer and lowered his voice. “Listen, I know this case is garbage. If you need help, say so. After all, it involves the Weiner family. If it’s handled badly, it affects everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“The firm.” Tom smiled. “You know what I mean.”
He left.
Hillary stood in the records room for a long time, breathing in the smell of old paper and dust. Then she returned to her office and took the old tin box from the back of a drawer.
Inside the tin box were the things she had collected after her own case: copies of court summonses, and a pharmacy receipt. On the day of the divorce judgment, she had bought sleeping pills.
She had not taken them.
She put Huma’s photograph into the tin box. A twenty-two-year-old face, dark eyes, bruised and swollen with grief.
The phone rang.
Cohen’s voice.
“You met her?”
“I did.”
“Be gentle. Remember, she’s a foreigner. Emotional. Don’t let her get unrealistic hopes.”
“She’s an American citizen.”
“You know what I mean.”
Cohen hung up.
Hillary looked out the window. Dusk was coming down. The city lights were coming on one by one. The giant beast of the city never stopped charging forward. She stayed by the lamp like an inflamed wound.
She picked up the tape recorder Huma had left behind and pressed play.
The man’s voice poured out again.
“...brown-skinned...”
Then she heard the background noise — the hum of a refrigerator, a television commercial somewhere in the distance. An ordinary domestic evening. A husband smokes, and therefore he is happy; he gambles, therefore he drinks; he drinks, therefore there must be laughter to go with the slap. That is the duty of wives and children.
Near the end of the recording, Huma said softly, “Enough. Please.”
Then came the sound of a door closing.
Hillary switched off the recorder. She slowly turned the knob of the desk lamp until the office was completely dark. Only the glow of the computer screen reflected in the window.
She saw her own reflection.
The blonde hair was fake. The suit looked like a costume.
She turned the lamp back on and pulled out a sheet of stationery.
“Your Honor...” she wrote.
Then crossed it out.
She took another sheet.
“This is an emergency motion concerning domestic violence...”
Crossed out again.
On the third sheet, she wrote only one line:
“Help me.”
It was not for the judge. It was not for anyone. Just three words, staring back at her from the page.
She crumpled the paper and threw it into the trash.
Then she opened the computer and began drafting the complaint properly. Legal language sprang out, gathered, hardened, and locked together like armor. Word by word, it wrapped itself around her until she became Hillary Rodham again.
A woman.
A lawyer.
An undefeated lawyer.
As she passed the dark conference room, she heard the echo of her own heels striking the floor.
Lonely.
Stubborn.
Somewhere else in the city, a pregnant woman was sitting by the telephone, waiting for Wednesday to come.
Waiting for someone to truly see those bruises, to hear the words “brown-skinned,” and then say:
This is wrong.
This cannot be the end of it.
tbc.