Finer Moments

An excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel, one of the better moments:

“Carla, dearest,” he said, when he answered the door. He stood a good six feet tall, barrel-chested from years on the job, lifting and hammering and doing whatever the job demanded. Carla still remembered clambering over his shoulders as a child, how large they seemed. Now, age had softened his physique a bit, but he was still imposing, still strong, and still her godfather, smiling at her as he had always done. “Come in, come in.”

She smiled and obeyed. “I can't stay for too long, Albert,” she said.

“I know, I know. Job interview in Maine—what the hell's in Maine, anyway?” he asked.

“Even the lobsters need hospitals?” she asked, shrugging out of her coat. He hung it up in the closet. They both laughed. “How are Nina and the girls?” she asked. Nina was Albert's wife—they had two daughters between them, both of them grown, married, with children—normal.

“They're doing just fine,” he said, waving her into a couch. “They all want to know, what the hell did you do to that guy?”

“He was going to kill a man,” she said quietly.

“I'm not sayin' you weren't right,” he said.

“You're not saying I was.”

“There's only one Judge whose opinion matters worth a damn,” Albert said. “And I don't think He gives a shit what the jury says.”