One of Stuart's favorite jokes, which has been old for quite some time. She would say something like, You like your pasta the way you like your women, and Stuart would supply various punch lines-spicy, hot, soaked in wine, or in his bawdier moments, filled with meat. Tonight, she doesn't even bother with their little game.

"Well, today I've made it so hot, you can't keep your clothes on," Stuart says anyway.

Faith smiles politely and then excuses herself to change out of her work clothes. Stuart once told her that when Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house, he would also design the furniture (which Stuart did in their place too, for the most part), and he would even instruct the owners on what clothes to wear while inside it. Faith considers herself fortunate that she's still able to select her own wardrobe, even as she appreciates the irony that her work attire is a black robe.

Faith reaches for the baggiest sweatpants and T-shirt in her closet. She could wear something a bit more formfitting, but she'd just as soon not pique Stuart's interest tonight.

When she comes back to the dining table, Stuart is sampling his culinary creation. "Ahhh, 'atsa spicy-a pasta," he says in a cartoon Italian accent.

"Please tell me there's more wine," Faith says, noticing her husband has a nearly full gla.s.s beside him.

He pushes the bottle toward her but doesn't go so far as to get her a gla.s.s, even though he's standing in front of the cabinet where the stemware is stored. She nudges him aside and pulls one down herself.

"I got the Garkov case," she says in a flat tone as she pours.

Stuart's mouth forms a twisted smile. Faith knows that he's experiencing a bit of schadenfreude, which is about as unbecoming an emotional response as she can imagine.

It's moments like this, which occur far too frequently, that she can't believe she ever convinced herself that marrying Stuart was a good idea. She knew his faults-narcissistic, insecure, outsized sense of ent.i.tlement-but disregarded those alarm bells because she was thirty-nine and feared that he might be her last chance at not ending up alone.

"The nomination was always a long shot, Faith," he says. "Truth is, I never believed it was actually going to happen."

Faith isn't surprised that Stuart has jumped to the conclusion that the Garkov case is going to hurt her chances. She's tempted to put him in his place, which she could do simply by telling him that the a.s.signment will likely help her cause. But the satisfaction she'd derive by knocking him down a peg is outweighed by her desire simply not to engage him at all.

The Garkov case doesn't come up again during dinner. Instead, Stuart discusses a project he's working on for a midtown law firm. He looks annoyed when Faith can't recall the firm's name, which she knows he sees as some type of slight on his work, although that doesn't make any sense to her.

"So, every little thing is about the budget," he says. "You know, Can we use cheaper materials on the secretarial stations? Can't we go with fabric rather than leather on the a.s.sociate chairs? But when we start talking about the two founders' offices, oh, now all of a sudden no expense is to be spared. One of them wants a state-of-the-art media center that he controls with a remote from his desk. You know, with a sliding panel that reveals three or four television screens and when it opens, the lighting simultaneously dims? And the other guy, he wants me to put in a safe that's as large as a walk-in closet. I half-jokingly asked if he was going to be hiding bodies in there."

Stuart's rant is interrupted by Faith's phone. She can tell that he's immediately annoyed and that he blames her. She wants to tell him that it's not her fault her phone is ringing, but she could let it go to voice mail and thereby demonstrate to Stuart his superior place in her life, and she's not about to do that. She knows who's calling, and for the record, that person is more important to her than Stuart.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi, Your Honor, it's Jeremy. The senator asked that I call you right away. He regrets that he couldn't do it personally but hoped that you'd understand. If it's not too much of an intrusion, can I come to your place to explain where things stand in light of today's case a.s.signment? I'm in midtown now, so I could be there in half an hour."

Faith instinctively looks up at her husband. He's not going to be happy about this.

Who cares? she thinks.

THE LITTMANS LIVE ON Fifth Avenue, between Seventy-Fifth and Seventy-Sixth Streets, in a prewar art deco building. A plaque outside identifies the building's architect as Rosario Candela, the gold standard of New York City residential architects.

The year that the twins were born, Aaron and Cynthia purchased a ninth-floor cla.s.sic six-two bedrooms, living room, formal dining room, and small maid's room off the kitchen-facing Central Park. They had previously lived downtown, in a much hipper area, but the twins' arrival meant they had to think about schools and parks, and so the Upper East Side became their new home. As their neighbors moved or died, the Littmans annexed their apartments, like real estate conquistadors. Today their Manhattan castle stretches over three thousand rambling square feet, occupying most of the building's ninth floor, which connects by a staircase to a converted two-bedroom on the eighth that now comprises their master suite.

Tonight Aaron has arrived home with flowers in hand. Nothing that extravagant, just a bouquet of what the florist on the corner on Madison recommended. He knows that it's partly his guilty conscience that contributes to these romantic gestures, but they are about more than his making amends for transgressions of which Cynthia is unaware. He's trying to be more like the man he wishes he were, and that man brings his wife flowers just because he loves her.

He calls out, "Cynthia?" but she doesn't answer. His teenage daughters aren't likely to drop their time on social media to acknowledge his presence, so it's not until he has ascertained each of their rooms is empty that he's sure he's alone.

Aaron's being the first to come home at night is rarer than a blue moon. It places him in the uncomfortable position of being alone with his thoughts, a state of being that he seeks to avoid whenever he can. Especially because these days such introspection almost always leads him to reflect about Faith.

Aaron wishes that he could point to some cataclysmic event that resulted in his breaking his marriage vows-a brush with death that caused him to rethink his existence, or that Cynthia somehow betrayed him first, justifying revenge. But the simple truth is that he has no excuse and even less explanation. Opportunities had presented themselves before, and he'd never truly been tempted.

During the four months Faith and he were together, barely a day went by when Aaron didn't think about ending it. But he never did. Rather, he became even more immersed, buying prepaid phones like he was a drug dealer so his nightly calls to Faith would not show up on his phone bill, paying the Ritz-Carlton's nearly six-hundred-dollar nightly rate with cash fresh from the ATM to avoid the room charges showing up on his AmEx bill.

In its throes, Aaron felt like he was two people: his regular life proceeded as usual, and then once a week or so he met Faith, and during those two or three hours in her company, he felt as if he inhabited an alternative universe where his wife and children didn't exist.

They had met at a legal bar a.s.sociation dinner. It was the kind of event that honors whoever can strong-arm enough people to buy tables at five thousand dollars a pop. Members of the judiciary are part of the bribe and are allocated among the two hundred or so tables.

The honoree was George Vanderlyn, the chairman of Windsor Taft. Aaron later learned that the only reason Faith was even at the dinner was because she had worked at Windsor Taft before her appointment to the bench. She wasn't even originally seated next to Aaron, but when Jose Luiz claimed to have some fire to put out in a deal he was working on, Aaron felt compelled to slide over a seat so that a federal judge was entertained. He can scarcely remember how one moment they were talking, and before he knew it, they were in an upstairs room.

It might have been years before their s.e.xual life intersected with their professional one. There were forty-one judges in Manhattan, and even though Faith had been on the bench for almost three years already, Aaron had never had a case before her. But a little more than a month after their affair began, Faith's name came rolling out of the wheel as the judge randomly a.s.signed to preside over the trial of Eric Matthews.

Aaron had been representing Matthews for nearly a year by that point, and he expected Faith to recuse herself. But despite the fact that it violated every ethical canon in the book, Faith said that there was no reason they couldn't keep their professional and personal relationships separate. "Besides," she said, "you know cases like this always end in a plea bargain, and so where's the harm?"

Of course, the case didn't plead out.

During the trial Faith had been fair, or at least no more unfair to the defense than any other judge might have been. Certainly, Aaron didn't think it was due to any of her rulings that the jury found Matthews guilty. He had told his client that the odds of an acquittal were slim and had urged a plea deal even before Faith had been named as the presiding judge, but Matthews wouldn't hear of it.

Aaron expected Matthews to be sentenced to between four and five years, which was what similarly situated defendants had received from other judges. But then Faith dropped the hammer with fourteen years, explaining that the severity was necessary to send a message that financial fraud was every bit as destructive to society as street crime.

Aaron, however, received a very different message. He heard loud and clear that it was over between them.

9.

Just one look at Jeremy Kagan makes it clear why he decided to be the man behind the man. His appearance not only inspires little confidence; it actually creates concern. It's something about his eyes. The way they seem to always dart around, as if he's on constant lookout for something to go wrong.

When Kagan extends his hand toward Faith, she can't help but suppress a laugh. Stuart believes Kagan's arms are too short for his torso and derisively refers to him as T-Rex.

As they make their way over to the living room, Faith is hoping that Stuart will let her speak with Kagan alone. But like a petulant child, Stuart takes his seat beside them.

"I'm sorry, Stuart," Kagan says. "Can your wife and I speak privately?"

Stuart looks insulted, although he would be morally outraged if Faith ever tried to sit in on a meeting he was having with a client. He skulks off, muttering something about being in the bedroom if anyone needs him.

Kagan isn't one for small talk, and so as soon as he hears the bedroom door close, he gets down to business.

"Your Honor, Senator Kheel wanted you to know that he's already spoken to the White House, and your a.s.signment to the Garkov case is being viewed as a very positive development. So much so that they've asked Justice Velasquez to stay on until the end of the Supreme Court's term in May, in order to give you enough time to finish the case." He smiles, stretching out his scraggly beard. "In other words, you're a lock."

Faith isn't smiling, however. She knows the part that Kagan has left unsaid.

"I a.s.sume it's not a lock if Garkov's acquitted," she says.

Kagan's cheerfulness vanishes. "Hold on. Do you even see that as a possibility? The White House is banking on the fact that you're judge and jury on this one. The senator believes it's what put you over the top."

From the moment Faith saw Sara's face this morning, she's known that her nomination to the Supreme Court is going to rise and fall on the Garkov verdict. Nevertheless, now that it's actually been confirmed, she feels thrown.

"So the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing is . . . what? A technicality?"

Kagan's look hardens. He obviously didn't expect this reaction. Truth be told, Faith didn't antic.i.p.ate it, either.

"Your Honor . . . I don't mean to suggest in any way how you should carry out your judicial responsibilities," he says with a deliberate tone, as if he suspects the conversation might be being recorded. "I'm here solely to apprise you that if Nicolai Garkov is convicted before July fifteenth, you're going to be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States. Any other result, and you're not. And that's that."

"Jeremy, I'm relatively sure that Garkov is going to withdraw his request for a bench trial now that I'm the judge," Faith says. "That'll take it out of my hands and a jury will make the decision."

Kagan is shaking his head. "I don't know about the law, Your Honor. I'm just telling you the political reality here. It doesn't matter who renders the verdict-you now own the Garkov result. If he's convicted, you're America's judicial warrior against terrorism. But if he's acquitted . . . well, you become the judge who let a terrorist go free."

Faith knows that Kagan's right, but that doesn't make it any easier to digest. "And July is the drop-dead date?"

"Yeah. It wouldn't hurt if it was over a little earlier, just to give us some breathing room. The working a.s.sumption is that so long as the April fourteenth trial date holds, there should be more than enough time."

Faith has been thinking about a way out all afternoon. Kagan has shot down the jury option, but she has one other escape plan.

"What if I recuse myself? Let another judge own the Garkov case?"

Kagan seems confused. "Why would you do that?"

Of course that would be a politician's reaction, Faith says to herself. All you need to do to get on the Supreme Court is make sure a terrorist gets the max, and you're thinking of stepping aside?

"I'm just worried that the timetable won't work out," Faith lies. "You told me things were looking good before I got Garkov. If I recuse myself, there's no risk that the case drags on past July and the timing does me in. I can pa.s.s it off to another judge and it'll be just like I didn't get it in the first place. I don't have to give a reason for stepping aside. In fact, it's customary not to disclose why."

Kagan is shaking his head again, now even more vigorously. "I must not be making myself clear, Your Honor. This process is highly political. You don't get to keep things to yourself. Everything you do-everything you have ever done-is going to be scrutinized by the press the moment the president nominates you. h.e.l.l, you remember that guy who got bounced because he smoked a joint? Now, I know times have changed since President I Didn't Inhale, but my point is that the American people want nothing more than to see Garkov sentenced to death, and that's precisely what the president demands if you want him to nominate you to the Supreme Court."

"It's not a death-penalty case, Jeremy. The government never brought a murder charge."

Kagan waves off the mistake as if it's nothing. "Whatever the maximum penalty, Your Honor, Garkov's got to get that. Any other outcome and the president will pick someone else."

"THE FLOWERS ARE LOVELY," Cynthia says when she arrives home about an hour after Aaron. "Although I'm not sure what's a bigger surprise: the flowers or that you're actually home before me."

Cynthia smiles, and Aaron is struck by how infrequently he's seen that expression from her of late. And what a pity that is, because Cynthia's smile can light up much more than a room, a stadium at the very least, and her emerald eyes positively shine when she's happy.

"I was running away from the office," Aaron says. "Donald Pierce, to be specific."

Cynthia's expression drops slightly. "I'd prefer you think of it as running to us, rather than away from work . . . but I guess I'll take what I can get."

Aaron accepts the rebuke. "Will the girls be joining us for dinner?"

"No. Lindsay is at rehearsal and Sam is working on some project with Olivia."

"In that case, why don't we go out for dinner? Caffe Grazie?"

"Wow. I don't know what I did to deserve such attention from you-flowers and my favorite restaurant."

What she did, Aaron thinks, is not give up on him when he lost his mind and betrayed her. It hardly matters that she didn't know she was doing it; he still has a lot of making up to do.

At dinner, Cynthia appears to be in very good spirits. The two gla.s.ses of wine probably don't hurt her mood any, but Aaron can sense that she's missed him of late. She chats about her patients, the other doctors, general workplace gossip. Aaron's thankful that she's taken the lead, for the news at his office is not something he wishes to share, at least not tonight, when Cynthia is in such a good mood.

It's lightly flurrying when they leave the restaurant, and Cynthia leans up against Aaron, holding his hand as they make their way down Madison. The girls are both home when Aaron and Cynthia return. Lindsay tells them that rehearsal was boring and Samantha complains that she and her partner can't get their science project to turn out right.

At a little before ten, Aaron and Cynthia get into bed. Aaron puts the television on, but Cynthia suggests they do something else first, and slides down the sheets.

As he feels his wife's hot mouth around him, his body releases to the sensation of pleasure. But not completely. He knows how undeserving he is of her affection.

WHEN FAITH AND STUART get into bed, Stuart signals that he wants to have s.e.x. She's glad it doesn't take long. Small favors, she thinks to herself.

He falls asleep immediately after, and she knows that's not going to happen on her end for several hours still. It's during this time, with her husband asleep beside her, that she feels most alone.

One thing that Faith learned early on as a lawyer was that there is no such thing as good and bad people. There are just people, who sometimes do good things and other times do bad things, and the idea that the guilty are punished is just something that people say; it isn't even remotely true.

In fact, quite the opposite. People doing bad things are sometimes even rewarded for their misdeeds.

She likes to think of herself as a person who mainly does good things . . . but for the past six months, no fly on the wall of her life would have described her that way. First there was the affair with Aaron, and although there are countless ways she could try to justify it-Stuart's own likely infidelity, his thoughtlessness toward her, his . . . general Stuartness-she knows that she was responsible for her own actions. And then there was the entire Eric Matthews debacle. Faith believed to her very core that every ruling she made in the case was right on the merits, but she also knew that her a.s.sessment was impossible to verify. No matter how you cut it, presiding over the case put her on the wrong side of the ethical divide.

In a just world, her conduct would have at least led to a divorce filing, if not impeachment proceedings. But Stuart didn't leave her (or even know about the affair with Aaron, as far as she knows), and she wasn't run off the bench in scandal.

Instead, Faith was rewarded, now on the verge of being nominated to the highest court in the land.

All she has to do to get there is engage in further misconduct: convict Nicolai Garkov and then sentence him to the max, regardless of the evidence.

She feels the pang of conscience, the angel on her shoulder telling her that even Nicolai Garkov is ent.i.tled to judgment by someone free from bias. And then she thinks about Roy Sabato telling his client about the pros and cons of Faith's a.s.signment to the case, without the slightest notion that it was already over for Garkov the moment her name rolled out of the wheel.

10.

Aaron can't recall ever being so nervous before a court appearance.

He's about to blindside Faith. She's expecting Roy Sabato, and instead she's going to be confronted by the one lawyer she doesn't want to have sitting at counsel table. But what choice does he have? Calling to give Faith a heads-up wasn't an option. For all he knew, she might have used such contact without the prosecution present-a big no-no called ex parte in legal jargon-as a reason to disqualify him, which would almost certainly have caused Garkov to go public about the affair.

The gallery is full of members of the press, the lucky ones who were granted access to report on the proceedings firsthand. A hundred or so of their colleagues have been shut out of the main event, relegated to shouting questions on the courthouse steps after the hearing.

From Aaron's presence at counsel table, the members of the media in the courtroom now know of the change in counsel. Faith won't become so aware, however, until she takes the bench and sees Nicolai Garkov sandwiched between Aaron and Rachel London.

Three hard knocks on the doorpost connecting the judge's chambers and the courtroom announce that the judge is about to enter. "All rise!" the court officer bellows. The ma.s.sive wooden door leading to the judge's chambers swings open and all eyes turn toward the Honorable Faith Nichols.

Even cloaked in her loose-fitting black robe, Faith looks more like a 1940s Hollywood star than a United States district court judge. Her dark hair is down and loose, and she flashes a glimpse of her calf when she walks.

Aaron feels almost light-headed. Focus, he tells himself.