Injustice Read Online Free

but too late. She was gone.
    Ethan was Lizzy’s new boyfriend. They met when they were arrested together for criminal trespass at one of the Occupy sites.
    A minute later, Flora called. “Hello, Nickie,” she said. “I’m afraid Chip and I won’t make it this afternoon.”
    Flora is my ex-wife and Lizzy’s mom. Chip is her FBI-agent husband. He and I are buddies, our friendship predating his relationship with Flora. “Kind of last-minute, Flora,” I said.
    â€œAnd I’m so awfully sorry. But we’ll see you at the park tonight. We’re coming with Lizzy and her friend. Oh, and I think he’s such a great guy—Ethan—don’t you?”
    â€œHaven’t met him yet, Flo.”
    â€œOh, well, tonight, then, Nickie. See you soon.”

    Tina’s sister, Lydia, arrived at about two-thirty. Barnaby rushed into her arms as exuberantly as he had into mine a half hour earlier. She carried Barnaby out into the yard, and the two of them settled into the sandbox, where she buried coins and had him hunt for them. After ten minutes of this, she came back into the kitchen, gave me a kiss on the lips, then held my hand, swinging it in hers while we talked.
    â€œI brought a salad,” she said, “  except the store was out of organic spinach, so I just used Boston lettuce, which is almost as good, don’t you think? And daikon, and endive, all organic, and some dill . . . oh, God, I can’t stand that music . . .”
    Lydia walked into the living room to turn off the stereo. I’d had an old George Winston CD playing. Lydia is the only person I’ve ever met who hates having music on in the house. She says it gums up her thinking. She was five years younger than Tina and had always been the black sheep of the family. She had some kind of learning disability, barely made it through high school, dropped out of college, joined a charismatic church of some ill-defined pantheisticbelief, and supported herself first as a baker and then as a bookkeeper. Politically, she swung from the ditsy left to the dour right, apparently bringing unbridled verve to whichever camp she was in. She worked for the state legislature briefly in the legislative clerk’s office. Now she was working for the state tourism office, producing ebullient pamphlets about the state’s natural and historic attractions. Tina and Lydia were very close as children but became alienated during Lydia’s tumultuous years. Now they were together again.
    After Barnaby was born, Lydia started spending more and more time at our house. She was one of the family. I liked having her around. I liked her energy. It was a nice counterbalance to Tina’s sober-minded reserve.
    Lydia had a steady boyfriend now, and they’d just become officially engaged. I liked the guy, though I thought he was kind of plain vanilla, while Lydia was surprising and exotic.
    As Lydia and I stood in the kitchen talking, we heard the front door open, and a moment later, Henry Tatlock, assistant U.S. attorney, walked into the kitchen. Lydia squealed, put her arms around him, and they had a long soulful kiss.
    Yes, Henry and Lydia. He was the love of her life, she said: her hero, her savior, her husband-to-be.

    We grilled the chicken and brats and corn and ate outside on the picnic table. There was too much food, so I dropped a big chicken breast onto the ground for our dog, ZZ, who snatched it up like a frog zapping a dragonfly. Barnaby named the dog himself. We’d gotten him, a bouncy Australian cattle dog pup, when Barn was two years old. He wanted to name the dog after his big sister, but in his toddler’s pronunciation, “Lizzy” always came out “ZZ,” and it stuck.
    I went into the kitchen for more beers. On my way back, I stopped in the doorway and just watched the four of them—Tina, Lydia, Barnaby, and Henry. Barn had fallen asleep in his