As I said, she was the junior associate, so when the judgment came back in Finnegan’s favor, the partners took all the credit. A month later, the week before our wedding, Finnegan paid a visit to the firm. He had been awarded an insane amount of money, far more than he wanted, certainly more than he needed, so he wanted to thank everyone for their work. When he arrived, the partners led him to a conference room, where they regaled him with tales of their incredible strategy. At the end, he thanked them, but then asked if he could meet all the people who had really worked on the case. He cited a couple of the briefs and motions, surprising the partners with the level of attention he had paid to the finer details.
A brief he especially liked was one Alice had written. It was a funny, creative thing—insomuch as a legal brief can be either funny or creative. So the partners invited Alice into the conference room. At some point, someone mentioned that she was getting married that weekend. Finnegan remarked that he loved weddings. Alice, joking, asked, “Would you like to come to mine?” He surprised everyone by saying, “I’d be honored.” Later, as he was leaving, he stopped by Alice’s cubicle and she handed him an invitation.
Two days later, a messenger arrived at our apartment with a box. That week, a number of wedding gifts had been delivered, so it wasn’t really a surprise. The return address said The Finnegans. I opened the envelope; inside was a folded white card with a picture of a cake on the front. Tasteful.
To Alice and Jake, My supreme congratulations on the occasion of your impending nuptials. Respect marriage and it will provide you with much in return. Liam
The gifts we’d received up until that moment had been fairly unsurprising. There was an equation of sorts that allowed me to predict the contents of each gift before it was opened. The total cost of the gift was usually a combination of the net income of the giver multiplied by the years that we had known the person, over pi. Or something like that. Grandma bought us six full place settings of china. My cousin bought us a toaster.
With Finnegan, though, I had no way to calculate. He was a successful businessman, he had just won a substantial judgment, and he had a back catalog of songs that probably didn’t earn much money. The thing was, we hadn’t known him for long. Okay, we didn’t exactly know him at all.
Out of curiosity, I tore right into the package. It was a large, heavy box made of recycled wood, with a label burned into the top. At first, I thought it was a case of some tiny-production, crazy-elite Irish whiskey, which would have made sense. It’s exactly what the gift equation would have predicted.
It made me a little nervous. Alice and I didn’t own any hard alcohol. I should explain. Alice and I first met in a rehab facility north of Sonoma. I’d been practicing therapy for a few years by then, and I jumped at any chance to learn more. I’d been filling in for a friend, gaining work experience. On the second day, I led a therapy group that included Alice. She said she drank too much, and she needed to stop. Not forever, she said, just long enough to complete the changes necessary to stabilize her life. She said she’d never been a big drinker before but that a series of family tragedies had caused her to behave recklessly, and she wanted to get a handle on it. I was struck by her commitment and clarity.
Weeks later, back in the city, I decide to call her. I was running a group for schoolkids with similar issues, and I was hoping she might be willing to come and talk to them. She spoke about her own struggles in a way that cut to the heart of things, direct but engaging. I wanted to connect with the kids and I knew they would listen to her. It didn’t hurt that Alice was a musician. With her beat-up biker jacket, chopped black hair, and stories of life on the road, she looked and sounded cool.
Short story: She agreed to talk to my group, it went well, I took her to lunch, we became friends, months passed, we started dating, we bought a place together, and then, as you know, I proposed.
So, anyway, when Finnegan’s package arrived, I tensed up when I thought it was a bottle of some incredibly rare liquor. During the first few months I knew Alice, she never had a drink. But then sometime after that, she began to enjoy the occasional bottle of beer or a glass of wine with dinner. It isn’t the traditional path for people with issues related to alcohol. Still, it seemed to work for Alice. Only beer and wine, though. Hard liquor, she always joked, “ends up with someone in jail.” That was hard to picture, as Alice was more in control than anyone I knew.
I set the gift on the table. A substantial, elegant wood box.
The label on the front, though, seemed off.
THE PACT.
What kind of Irish whiskey is named The Pact?
I opened the box to find another wooden box inside, set in blue velvet. On each side, nestled into the fabric, was an extremely expensive-looking pen—silver, white gold, or maybe even platinum. I picked one up and was surprised by the heft, the construction. It was the sort of exquisite gift you bought for someone who had everything, which is why it was an odd gift for us. We both worked hard, and we were doing okay, but we didn’t have everything, by any means. For Alice’s law school graduation, I had, in fact, bought her a pen. It was a beautiful thing I’d purchased from a private dealer in Switzerland, after doing months of research into the surprisingly complex field of fine writing instruments. It was as if I’d opened a door expecting a small closet and had, instead, found an entire universe. I took great pains to pay for it in a roundabout way that hid the exorbitant cost. In the event that she ever lost it, I didn’t want her to be weighed down by the true depth of the loss.
I picked up Finnegan’s pen. Across the top of the wrapping paper, I scribbled a few circles, and then the phrase Thank you, Liam Finnegan! The ink flowed smoothly, the pen gliding across the slick paper.
Along the spine of the pen, something had been engraved.
The writing was so small I couldn’t read it. I remembered a magnifying glass that had come with a board game Alice bought me for Christmas. I rummaged through the hall closet. Behind Risk, Monopoly, and Boggle, I found the game, the magnifying glass still in its cellophane wrapper. I brought the pen into the light and held the glass up to it.
ALICE & JAKE, followed by the date of the wedding, and then simply DUNCANS MILLS, CALIFORNIA. I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed. I expected more from one of the world’s greatest living folksingers. Had the engraving contained the meaning of life, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I pulled the other pen out and placed it on the table. Then I lifted out the smaller box. It had the same reclaimed wood, the same fancy hardware, and the same logo branded across the front: THE PACT. It was surprisingly heavy.
I tried to open it, only to discover that it was locked. I placed the box back on the table and searched through the packaging, looking for a key. At the bottom, I found no key, just a handwritten note:
Alice and Jake, Know this: The Pact will never leave you.
I stared at the note. What could it mean?
Alice had to work late, tying up loose ends with cases and projects before the wedding and honeymoon. When she finally did arrive, a million things had come up, and so the gift from Finnegan was forgotten.
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