Chapter 44: Maturity

April 24, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

Sunday was an insanely busy day. I was at the dojo with Mitsuko right after breakfast, went to Jesse’s hockey game later in the morning, went directly from there to Sensei Ichirou’s house for lunch, and, finally, went out to Norway to watch Matthew drive a Go-Kart. We had our family dinner, after which I took Jesse, Matthew, and Michael to see D2: The Mighty Ducks, the sequel to the first movie. I didn’t think it was nearly as good, but the boys loved it and that was sufficient for me to consider it a good movie. The boys wanted to stop for ice cream, but because Jesse and Matthew had to be up for school in the morning, I promised to take them another time.

Just before 11:00pm, I went into the sauna to relax with my wives, Michelle, and Elyse.

“That was a hell of a day,” I sighed as steam rose from the heated stones.

“Just wait until the younger kids get their hobbies and sports,” Elyse said.

“Something is going to have to give at some point,” Jessica said. “It’s like those insane hours during PGY1. You’re going to burn yourself out.”

“So what’s the solution? I can’t just blow off the kids activities!”

“No, but you’ll have to prioritize,” Elyse said. “Not try to go to every event.”

“Karate is taking a lot of your time,” Jessica said. “But I don’t see how you can cut back. You’re going three times a week plus working with Mitsuko. And we absolutely can’t blow off our appointments with Doctor Green.”

“And pretty much everything is locked in,” I said. “I started karate thirteen years ago. We started NIKA nine years ago. We got married just over eight years ago. Jesse arrived on the scene eight years ago.”

“You know the kids will understand,” Kara said. “They all know they have to share, and usually siblings don’t come to events unless they’re super important.”

“But he’s missing his downtime,” Michelle said. “His time to contemplate or meditate or whatever. And that interferes directly in the joie de vivre you want him to have and which he needs.”

“I’m not sure there’s much that can be done,” I said. “Even prioritizing simply means slightly fewer events, and as was mentioned, the other kids are going to need me at events soon.”

“Well, one thing that can give is the Rap Sessions,” Elyse said. “If they don’t improve in September, we just axe it and you get two Sunday afternoons a month back.”

I nodded, closed my eyes, and leaned my head back. I was missing something; something important, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Fortunately, the girls took the hint and were quiet as well, and all I heard was the hissing of steam and soft breathing. Less than five minutes later, it hit me. I smiled and opened my eyes.

“If Jorge were here, he’d remind me that even if the Rap Sessions go well, there are other people who could run them, and that I do much better with one-on-one philosophical discussions; first with Anala, later with Michelle, and currently with Mitsuko. Those discussions in the Rap Sessions are more valuable to others than they are to me, but there’s no reason that Michelle, Elizabeth, and Trish couldn’t run them in my place and achieve the same thing. And then he’d ask me for 5¢!”

“But you enjoy those sessions immensely,” Kara said. “You always have. Well, at least when they were better.”

“I do, but if something has to give, that has to be the first thing. What other things can I give up? I don’t want to give up my time with the four of you, the kids, or the guys. All of those are way more important than the Rap Sessions.”

“You seem to be mentioning Jorge quite a bit, Tiger. Is he guiding you from beyond? Like the visions, maybe?”

“No, but you have to admit he had a pretty big impact on me.”

“On us,” Jessica said softly, taking my hand. “On all of us.”

“I agree, Babe. So, besides that, what?”

“You know,” Kara giggled, “you aren’t making your weekly trips to Belgium, so perhaps you could sneak in an hour or two of ‘me time’ after the kids go to bed on Tuesdays!”

“True,” I agreed. “But beyond that, it’s a tough nut to crack with seven kids, two wives, a steady girlfriend, a young woman I’m mentoring, and a business, not to mention friends, karate, and running.”

“I’m not sure there’s a full solution anytime in the next ten to twelve years,” Kara said. “Once the kids start going to college, things will be different.”

I smiled, “Jesse in college; sometimes it feels like I just graduated a year or two ago.”

“Honestly,” Elyse said, “the most important thing is ensuring you have time for you. Maybe you can’t spend hours writing in your journal as you used to, but perhaps you should set aside a specific time to do that each day.”

“I am up earlier than everyone,” I smirked.

“And then you’ll have eternity to contemplate the error of not cuddling our daughter!” Kara laughed. “Speaking of which, I need to go check on the kids. They’re usually OK, but you never know.”

“Stay,” Elyse said. “I’ll do it. The four of you probably don’t get enough time together and I get to talk to Steve at work if I need to.”

She got up, gave me a quick kiss, and left the sauna.

“You know,” I said. “I was just thinking about something my dad said back right after the accident - that we should count our blessings, not our losses. And I think in this case, we should count our blessings. All of the things we’re talking about are blessings, and we certainly have a surfeit of them! I don’t want to mention all the bad things that could happen, and you know why, but honestly, I suspect there are a lot of people who would gladly trade places with us.”

“I like this new attitude,” Michelle said. “Where you acknowledge the negative, but you almost immediately focus on the positive.”

“I agree with Michelle,” Kara said. “And it’s helping you to enjoy life, to have the joie de vivre we discussed.”

“Now, if only I could find the same thing,” Jessica sighed.

“It’ll come, Jess,” I said, squeezing her hand. “The goal is in sight. One year, and you’ll be an Attending at UofC. And if you don’t want to work there, Loyola, Northwestern, or Cook County would hire you for sure!”

“Ugh. Not Cook County! Anything but that! I don’t even pull full ER shifts because of my electives, but it’s a zoo! It makes our house look like nap time at a daycare facility!”

“Then Swedish Covenant or one of the others. You’re past the worst of it.”

She sighed, “I know, but every time I think about that, I remember Jorge and it makes me sad. And I remember all the times I hurt you and Kara and the kids.”

“All that stuff is in the past; well, not Jorge, if you know what I mean. We’ve all forgiven you.”

“And Jorge?” she asked softly.

“Jess, I can’t answer that question for you. You could ask a priest, rabbi, imam, or yogi and get four different answers about where he is right now. Just remember he loved us both enough to try to help us get back together.”

“But he died doing it,” she sighed.

“Maybe it’s trite, but John 15:13 tells us there is no greater love than for someone to lay down his life for the sake of his friends.”

“You believe that?”

“I do. And all our sailor friends believe it about Nick. It took me a while to see that, but I think it’s true.”

“I hope Jorge knows how much we owe him.”

“Somehow,” I said, “I think he does.”

April 26, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“Steve, I have Jamie for you,” Lucas said over the intercom.

“Put him through to Elyse’s office, please. I’ll go there.”

“Will do!”

I got up and ignored the look Penny gave me and walked down the hall to Elyse’s office just as she was putting Jamie on speakerphone.

“What’s up, Jamie?”

“They offered to settle for $15,000, and agreed to the other terms we specified.”

“I was pretty clear about the offer, Jamie.”

“Yes, you were. But I’m ethically required to tell you about any settlement offers, even if you’ve told me in advance you aren’t interested. I could be disciplined or even disbarred for failing to do that.”

“Sorry; I didn’t realize. I’d like to hear your opinion, please.”

“Accept it, if for no other reason than to save your clients the headache of dealing with it.”

“Who made the offer, Jamie?”

“Zimmer, on instructions from Lomax.”

“OK. I’ll agree, so long as everything is sealed, we admit no fault, Littleton personally signs the non-disclosure on behalf of his firm, and they all sign the release you suggested.”

“What about Milton & Lomax as a future client?”

“That’s a good question. What’s to stop them from trying this again?”

“An arbitration clause, among other things. We’ll also update the section about billing disputes to make it a bit more difficult for them to get into court without trying to resolve it directly with you first, and barring that, going to arbitration.”

“I take it you can’t prevent them from suing?”

“No. Even what appears to be an ironclad binding arbitration clause could be tossed by a court so they could accept the case. All it does is make it tougher. Given how you operate, I’d be shocked to see anyone actually exercise the arbitration clause, but you never know.”

“Who arbitrates?” I asked.

“The American Arbitration Association administers the arbitration, but the arbitrators are selected according to the contract terms. We’ll have a unique problem in that the pool of arbitrators consists mostly of attorneys and many of them would have a conflict of interest. We’d probably propose either a contract law professor or retired judge. We or the other party could nominate anyone, and so long as both parties agree, that individual would conduct binding arbitration.”

“Binding? As in it can’t be appealed?”

“Can’t is a strong word, but the grounds for such an appeal are severely limited. As I’ve told you many times, strange things happen in courtrooms, and it’s not just juries. I know at least one judge in Chicago who would have given Littleton all of his discovery and let us fight it out with him in the appeals court with an interlocutory appeal, assuming we could even get one heard, which is very difficult. That judge is wrong on the law, but he gets to be wrong until a higher court tells him to stop.”

“How do we make the payment, Jamie?”

“The same way you did with Kaitlin. Send me a check for $15,000, and we’ll pay it from our segregated account.”

“Elyse will do that today. You’ll have it by morning. Thanks, Jamie.”

“You’re welcome. Make sure you thank the two Bens as well.”

“Trust me, I will,” I replied.

I nodded to Elyse and she hit the button on the phone.

“Jesus, Steve!” she exclaimed once the call was disconnected. “Calm, cool, collected, and rational? I almost don’t believe it. In fact, given who the adversary is here, I don’t believe it!”

“How much would it cost us in fees to Allen & Baker, not to mention the lost good will with our clients? It makes sense, even though it’s three times what I said was my maximum. Get the check to Jamie, please. And other than the board, this is between you and me and nobody else. If they’re under an NDA, we’ll act the same way. I’ll just tell our team we reached a settlement and leave it at that.”

“I’ll take care of it. You have a problem, though.”

“Which is?”

“We publish our financials to the staff. That expense will show and it’ll be obvious what it is.”

“Will it? Just bundle the line for legal expenses on the report and don’t differentiate between Jamie’s fees, our reimbursements to Ben van Hoek, and the settlement. People can guess, but they won’t know. Only the board needs to know the details.”

“I’ll change the way the report is run,” Elyse said. “Bruce was always nervous about how much you disclosed, and summarizing things like this helps keep information contained.”

“I know, but we trust our people. We’ve only been burned once, and that was with source code, not financials.”

“We’ve been lucky in that regard. We’re getting too big to be as open as we’ve been in the past. You don’t know everyone personally like you used to,” she added with a smirk.

“I didn’t know EVERYONE,” I chuckled. “We did hire guys along the way!”

“Before we hired Debbie, every female you hired had been in your bed, Mr. Adams!”

“Not true! Cindi and I never got to that point!”

“OK, but you two were pretty intimate even without actually doing the dirty deed!”

I laughed, “The last person I heard say that was Stephie when she introduced me to her cousin Emily down in Georgia!”

“I knew I’d heard it somewhere. I bet it was from her. Let me get the check cut and have it couriered to Jamie.”

“Thanks, Elyse.”

April 27, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“Son of a bitch!” I swore as the Capitals jumped out to a 3-0 lead less than ten minutes into game 7 of the first round of the playoffs.

I was able to watch from the start because Doctor Green had been able to accommodate our counseling session an hour earlier than usual. Jesse and I had our dinners on trays in the great room and the TV was tuned to ESPN. I was wearing a Penguins jersey and he had on a Mighty Ducks jersey, though I had no doubt that if he could have procured a Capitals jersey he’d be wearing it.

“Not good, Dad!” Jesse said with a smirk.

“I see that smirk, Ducky! Your, ahem, ‘Mighty’ Ducks didn’t even make the playoffs! And the Hawks are down three games to two!”

“And your Penguins are going to lose, too!”

“Yeah, and then who do we root for?” I groused.

“Nobody! Can they all lose?”

I chuckled, “I wish!”

Things turned around a bit at that point, and with an even-strength goal by Jágr and a power-play goal by Tocchet, the Pens were back in it.

“Much better!” I said after Lemieux fed the puck to Tocchet for the goal.

Unfortunately, the wheels came off in the second period, with Washington scoring two goals in the first ten minutes of the period.

“Not good, Dad! 5-2 at the end of two!”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “The Pens losing two out of three in Washington didn’t do them any favors.”

Mario Lemieux scored about halfway through the period, but the Penguins were still down two goals. It stayed that way despite the coaches pulling Tom Barrasso with a minute-and-a-half to go. The Penguins had some good pressure, but didn’t score. With less than ten seconds to go the Capitals got an empty-net goal to seal a 6-3 win, knocking the Penguins out of the playoffs. Again.

“Well, that sucked,” I sighed.

“Come to bed Tiger,” Jessica said, looking up from her medical journal, “I’m sure there can be some sucking there, too!”

Jesse smirked, rolled his eyes, and headed back to the coach house. I decided Jessica’s offer was a good one, and my wives and I went up to bed.

April 30, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“They just described a basilar skull fracture,” Jessica said. “And given the speed, I’m sure that’s what the autopsy will find.”