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accentuated her narrow waist and her snug slacks that—
    "Ms. Dawson would probably have sex with you."
    "You really think so?" He caught himself. "I mean, Boo. "
    The girls giggled. They knew all about sex now. Fifth-grade health class. Which was a blessing; Scott didn't have to have the talk with them, just as his father had never had the talk with him. His mother had said to his father at dinner one night, "Butch, it's time you had a father-son talk with Scotty. You know, about sex." Butch Fenney had turned to his son and said, "Don't have sex. Pass the potatoes." But sex was more complicated these days and more dangerous. Sex can kill and eleven-year-old girls were having babies, so kids had to know the truth. Explaining the facts of life to girls was a mother's job; but they had no mother so the job had fallen to their father. Just when Scott had bucked himself up to do it—he had even bought a book—the girls had come home armed with all the facts. Thank God. A major single-father hurdle had been cleared.
    "Ms. Dawson has nice cheeks," Boo said.
    "Very nice."
    "The ones on her face."
    "Oh."
    "She's got a crush on you, A. Scott."
    "Really?"
    "Big time, Mr. Fenney. During lunch, she'll mosey on over and say, 'Hi Boo, hi Pajamae,' you know, like she's just visiting. Then she'll get around to asking, 'So how's your father doing these days?' And I'll say, 'Oh, 'bout the same as yesterday, Ms. Dawson.' Then she'll blush like white girls do and say, 'Well, tell him hi.' She's got the hots for you, Mr. Fenney."
    "She does?"
    "A. Scott, we're at that age—we need a mother. Ask her out. Please ."
    "Oh, I don't know …"
    Pajamae let out an exasperated sigh. "Man up, Mr. Fenney, and ask that woman out!"
    Scott eased the Jetta up to the drop-off point. Ms. Dawson opened the back door for the girls then leaned down. She said, "Hi, Boo, hi, Pajamae," but she looked at Scott. The girls leaned forward and kissed Scott on opposite cheeks and whispered in his ears—
    "Ask her!"
    "Now!"
    —then climbed out of the car and ran up the walkway to the entrance. Before she shut the door, Ms. Dawson stuck her head in and said, "Scott, if I invited you over for dinner this summer, would you come?"
    He wanted to say yes, but he said, "No."
    Her face sank.
    "Ms. Dawson—"
    "It's Kim, Scott. It's been Kim for two years."
    "Kim. I'm sorry. I've got to work through some things first … my ex-wife …"
    "How long will she own you, Scott?"
    "I don't know."
    She shut the door on him. Scott sighed and exited the school drive, cut over to Lovers Lane, and hit the Dallas North Tollway heading south toward downtown. He tried to put thoughts of Kim Dawson and Rebecca Fenney out of his mind and focus on a subject matter he knew more about than women: the law.
    But he could not know that before the day was out his ex-wife would again assert ownership over his life.

THREE
    In a courtroom on the fifteenth floor of the Federal Building in downtown Dallas, A. Scott Fenney addressed a jury of twelve American citizens.
    "Forty-six years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated just a few blocks from where you now sit. The world's press descended on this city and exposed the ugly side of Dallas: a police force that ran roughshod over black citizens … a district attorney who won white votes in North Dallas by sending black men in South Dallas to prison … a city known as the 'Southwest hate capital of Dixie' … a city run by rich white men who retired to East Texas on weekends to hunt and fish at the Koon Kreek Klub … a city President Kennedy himself described as 'nut country.' That was Dallas in nineteen sixty-three."
    Scott stood before the jury of nine whites, two Latinos, and one African-American. Dallas was a minority-majority city now, but money still ruled. Money makes the law and the law protects the money; and lawyers protect the people with money. But not this lawyer. Not anymore. Scott was representing all residents of South Dallas in a