Glitsky paused in his search. 'You know what this is, don't you? This is the empty drawer.' He began to flip through the rest of the pile, which seemed to consist mainly of envelopes – bills mostly – to the phone company, PG &E, a couple of credit cards, Macy' s.

And then at the bottom, one last envelope, stamped, addressed in a firm hand, to Abraham Glitsky, at his home address.

Dear Lieutenant Glitsky (Abe?) (Dad?),

Funny, isn't it? You know what I'm talking about although we've never talked about it. Isn't that funny? Or perhaps it isn't. Not really. There is no return address on this letter because by the time you get it I'll be gone and where it came from will have no meaning. But now that I am gone, I wanted you to know that I don't plan to return. At least not soon. Maybe never.

Why do I want to tell you any of this? Because you are my only blood relative? Does blood even mean anything anymore? I don't know. There's so much I don't know. It makes me wonder what all the education was about, if it's left me so ignorant on the important things. You didn't have any part in raising me. The person I knew as my father, Dana, was older and distracted, but I think he must have suspected something and I can't say we were terribly close. Maybe this explains some of my problems with men, mostly older men. Hoping to get the affection of the father I never had? Again, I don't know.

I've re-read this to here and realize that it sounds a little like I'm attaching some blame to you about all this, but please, it's not that. I know you had no idea about me until recently. I believe if you'd known you'd have taken some role -I just believe that. It seems to be who you are.

After you found out, and I knew that you knew, at first I didn't really understand why you didn't come to me. That's true. And it hurt me as I suppose you might imagine. But then eventually it came to feel right, that it was OK. We'd see each other at work from time to time and got along pretty well. I admired you, and think you felt the same about me. At least I hope you did.

You had your own family, your boys. See? I know all about them, my half-brothers. But I had my life – busy and public and personally a mess. You didn't need any part of it, believe me. I think you made a wise decision. And with all the older men I was searching to connect with, who I'd try to please at work and then need to go further, make it personal – Chris Locke, then Gabe, Aaron Rand – well, I don't have to give you the litany, but these and so many more. Half my clients. And all of them went nowhere. They couldn't go anywhere. I was too needy and demanding and screwed up. I think that's really why I never came to you, either. It was the one sacred thing.

A part of me wishes that we could have talked, at least acknowledged what we were to each other, although something else tells me that this would have been a bad decision, too. Like so many of the rest of them.

I could somehow just keep you best by not saying anything. I could watch how you kept your dignity and handled the losses over Mom, over your wife. All the losses. And maybe I could learn something from that. I came to see it as though you were talking to me that way. By example. And as long as we had no acknowledged relationship, I could keep you as mine and not make all my usual mistakes. Does this make any sense?

The truth is, Abe, that I don't really fit in my life here and I never have. Oh, I know it seems like I did. My mother the senator and her connections. It was all laid out for me, who I was and what role I'd play. The politics. Who I'd become. So I finished law school and went right to work here for the DA and Chris Locke and I… well, you knew about that.

I thought he loved me. I know I did love him. But after that – after Chris and Mom were dead -the bottom just fell out. I'd done everything to please Mom, then to please Chris, and suddenly neither of them were there anymore and all the reasons I had for doing what I was doing just disappeared.

And then the awful truth began to emerge that I wasn't who they thought I was after all. I'd never been that person inside. But I'd also never taken any time for myself, to figure things out that if I wasn't that, then what was I?

The only thing I knew, the only reference I'd ever lived with, was Mom's, and she was happy with it because it was who she was, this political animal. She got her identity and self-worth by her causes and issues, by keeping busy and connected. You volunteered, you did good works, you fought for the oppressed, and that was the secret to a happy life.

But Abe, it wasn't my life. It was Loretta's, and then suddenly she was gone and I was the heir apparent, having to live it, to be it. To be the reincarnation of my mother, full-time, full-bore. Everybody wanted me to step in, fill her shoes, continue her work.

It's not the kind of thing you realize right away, that you're living a lie, that the whole thing isn't you. But you get enough headaches and cramps and you stop sleeping because you're living two or three separate – no, contradictory - lives. And eventually, even if you're not the most insightful person in the world, a few years go by and you start to get a clue.

But what do you do? All the tapes are running. You can't just drop everything at once. Especially if your entire personality is that you aim to please. You tell some school where you volunteer to teach or a neighborhood council you're organizing or even your boss that you need to cut back on your workload and get some time and perspective, and it's like you're speaking a foreign language. Give us just one more class, Elaine, one more term on the board, one more high-profile client.

And if you're me, when it finally comes to it, you agree to stay on. Because you need their approval. All their approvals. In your deepest heart, you need them to like you. You're nothing if you're not pleasing someone. You need to be loved. So you tell yourself…

No, not you, I.

So I kept telling myself it would be soon. I'd stop for a while, step off the treadmill. Nothing so drastic as a complete change of career, but a long vacation to figure out a new plan, a different approach.

And meanwhile, every single day, so miserably unhappy.

I'm cheating on my fiance; he's cheating on me. My boss is betraying me. I find out that another one of my mentors, who in the past I trusted, confided in, worked with, depended on, even, of course, slept with – here's another betrayal, more cheating. Now there was no integrity even in the system that I'd worked so hard on behalf of, that I still wanted to believe in. But no longer could. The whole thing – the career, my private life, the law itself, Abe – none of it was working.

And suddenly I knew I couldn't take another hit. I was in the wrong place, doing the wrong things. It was going to kill me.

I had to change it all.

I couldn't tell a soul, not even my dear paralegal, a woman named Treya Ghent – she'd be wise and tell me I could stay and change and work things out, but I don't believe that's true. Not anymore. I've lost all my faith in this life. There was so much I couldn't even tell her. Cheating on Jonas. Other things. I couldn't have borne her disapproval most of all.

So I'm gone. It is the right thing and I am happy. A clean break, no explanations to anyone with their agendas for me.

Except this to you.

It isn't anything to do with you.

Love, your daughter,

Elaine

They both read it in the bus station, then took the packet and the suitcase out to the car. On the way home, they started to dissect the startling revelations. Elaine had been leaving the country anyway? The Alitalia ticket was for a 6:15 a.m. flight the morning after she'd been shot. Gabe Torrey? Aaron Rand, Clarence Jackman's partner? Half her clients? But eventually, the weight of it all became too much and they both fell silent.