Guardian

"I applied for a supervisor's position," she whispered to him at a function. They had worked together in government service where he had been her supervisor. He had long been in the private sector.

"At my interview they asked me which supervisor I would most want to be like. I said you." He turned his head suddenly and looked at her directly, touched. "One of them scrunched up her face and said, 'Michael Dixon? Why?'"  He was not well-thought of by his former supervisors, now hers. A reporter had once said to him "Getting rid of you was the best thing that ever happened to them" and he had laughed heartily.

He now turned his ear to Sarah to hear better over the din. "I told them, 'Michael always supported us, he would never hand us up. He told us he would trust our judgment until given a reason not to. He told us he wanted us to be lawyers not robots.'"

"I am glad that that made an impression on you, Sarah, thank you for that."

"Michael, are you kidding? What you did for me with Charlie..."

He looked at her.

"Don't you remember, Michael?"

 

...The courtesy knock came on his door which opened simultaneously with him saying "Come in."

He saw at once on her face that she was upset, specifically, worried. "Michael, I screwed up." She sat in a chair in front of his desk. "You remember the Sampson case?"  He didn't. She refreshed his memory. It had been a violent crime and the victim had been very interested in any proposed resolution, as victims have the right to be.

"I pled it out without running it by the victim and now she's calling Charlie." "What did you plead it out to?" The plea offer had been a little low but within the outer bounds of acceptability, her greater sin had been not consulting the victim beforehand.

"Okay, but you did get my approval for it."

"No, I didn't."

"No Sarah, you did."

They looked at each other.

"I have a specific memory, and as you know I have a pretty sharp memory." They smiled, "and I specifically remember you coming into my office and telling me the proposed plea offer and I said, 'Do it.'"

"Michael..."

"I am going to go down to Charlie's office right now and tell him I approved it."

"Michael, no." She said this seriously, even gravely.

"Yes, Sarah. Look, you are a junior lawyer, they always look for a reason to come down on you guys. This could hurt your career, it cannot hurt mine. You and everyone else in this section are my responsibility. I am not going to allow you to be hurt by this." He rose to walk down to Charlie's office.

"Michael, thank you. I can't believe you're doing this." He patted her on the shoulder.

"Boss, I screwed up. Sarah Heller came to me for plea approval on a case, I knew the case, knew the victim would be upset."  Here he had not thought through how to explain to Charlie that victim approval had not been obtained, a serious offense, by either Sarah or him.

"Charlie, I told her to do the plea and I would take the responsibility."  He was pretty sure Charlie didn't believe him. From the look on his face he was pretty sure Charlie thought he would never do such a thing and was protecting Sarah. He was annoyed at himself for not having thought through this crucial part of what he would tell Charlie and was feeling uneasy about his total acceptance of responsibility, a confession, a false confession to a fairly serious matter. He was feeling uneasy about his position.

"Now she is calling you to complain. I'm sorry man, it's my fault." In for a dime, in for a dollar. Fuck! Maybe he had gone too far.

"With your permission I will call her and tell her it's my fault and if she's not placated and asks to speak to my supervisor, I will, of course, tell her to call you again."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry, boss."  He had not wanted to say "I'm sorry," a further admission of wrong-doing. Charlie didn't respond, either because he didn't believe Michael or he couldn't forgive him, Michael couldn't tell now.

Michael left Charlie's office and sighed audibly in frustration with himself as he walked back to his office, annoyed and now concerned by Charlie's ominous silence to his apology.

He went to Sarah's office and told her the meeting with Charlie had gone fine and it was all taken care of.  She gave him the victim's phone number.

"Michael, I will never forget what you did for me."

"Sarah please, it's nothing"

He called the victim, mea culpa-ed, and she didn't call Charlie again. That was the end of the matter and Charlie never mentioned it again.

 

 

..."Oh yes,"  he said.  "I remember that case now. Yeah, I did support you. I wasn't going to let you get hurt by that."

"I have never forgotten that, Michael."

"Thank you for that, Sarah. That you appreciated that and remembered it..."

"Are you kidding me? Michael, that was amazing."

"That's the nicest thing someone has ever said to me. Thank you," he looked her directly in the eye.