My father was the doyen of the divorce barristers. He was an

Host: The afternoon sun fell through the tall windows of the old library, dust drifting in the light like quiet applause for the past. Rows of books lined the mahogany shelves — thick, leather-bound, their spines worn by a thousand arguments and secrets. The faint scent of paper, pipe smoke, and rain on stone filled the air, an atmosphere halfway between intellect and confession.

At the center of the room, Jack sat in a deep leather chair, a glass of Scotch balanced on the armrest. His grey eyes wandered over the portrait above the fireplace — a man in barrister’s robes, stern, brilliant, unreachable.

Across from him, Jeeny sat cross-legged on the rug, a half-smile playing on her lips as she flipped through an old copy of Rumpole of the Bailey.

Host: The fire crackled, throwing amber light over the walls. Somewhere outside, the city murmured — car horns and footsteps like distant punctuation.

Jeeny: “John Mortimer once said,” she began, her tone light but with that sharp edge she always carried, “‘My father was the doyen of the divorce barristers. He was an extremely erudite and very famous divorce barrister. So that, when I was a little boy in the nursery, instead of a story like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” I used to get “The Duchess and the Seven Correspondents.”’”

Jack chuckled, low and fond. “Trust Mortimer to turn childhood into cross-examination.”

Jeeny: “He grew up with the sound of heartbreak as bedtime music,” she said, setting the book down. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it? How the stories we’re told as children build the architecture of who we become.”

Jack: “Or demolish it,” he said dryly. “Imagine growing up in a house where love was a case, not a feeling. Where every affection came with exhibits and affidavits.”

Host: The fire shifted, the wood hissing softly, as if agreeing.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve lived it.”

Jack: “My father wasn’t a barrister,” he said. “He was an engineer. But he built with the same precision. There was no room for emotion — only blueprints. My mother used to joke that he could calculate the square footage of silence.”

Jeeny: “That’s beautiful,” she said softly.

Jack: “It’s tragic,” he replied. “But I suppose that’s how it goes. Mortimer’s father had law; mine had logic. Both men believed in control more than connection.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes glinting in the firelight. “You think control is the opposite of love?”

Jack: “Isn’t it?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s fear dressed as order,” she said. “People like your father — and Mortimer’s — they used intellect to keep emotion at a safe distance. Law, engineering, philosophy — they were just moats around the heart.”

Jack: “And you think emotion’s a better architect?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said, smiling faintly. “But it’s the only one that builds without plans.”

Host: A log cracked in the fire. The air smelled faintly of oak and old books — the perfume of memory.

Jack: “Mortimer’s childhood must’ve been something,” he said after a pause. “Bedtime stories about betrayal and litigation — love reduced to evidence. It’s no wonder he wrote Rumpole. The man turned courtroom tragedy into comedy.”

Jeeny: “That’s what artists do,” she said. “They recycle their wounds into wit. Mortimer’s humor wasn’t deflection — it was defiance. He made laughter out of the very thing that tried to make him cynical.”

Jack: “So you think cynicism can be funny?”

Jeeny: “When it’s honest, yes. Mortimer didn’t mock marriage; he revealed its theater. He grew up watching adults dressed in dignity but drowning in hypocrisy. How could he not see the farce?”

Jack: “Maybe that’s why I like him,” Jack murmured. “He didn’t believe in moral saints or monsters — just flawed people doing their best under oath.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said. “And what a tender kind of justice that is — to laugh not at human failure, but with it.”

Host: The fire dimmed to embers. Shadows danced across their faces, soft and uneven, like the truth itself.

Jack: “You know,” he said, staring at the portrait again, “I used to envy people who grew up with fairy tales. Princes, castles, happy endings. Instead, I got lectures about responsibility and self-reliance. My bedtime stories were instruction manuals.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why you became the man who questions everything,” she said. “When you’re raised on logic, imagination becomes rebellion.”

Jack: “Rebellion?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said. “Every skeptic is just a disappointed romantic.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, soft as smoke, cutting as glass. Jack looked at her, almost startled — like she had found a door in his house he’d forgotten was there.

Jack: “You think I’m a romantic?” he asked, smiling faintly.

Jeeny: “You build your walls too carefully not to be.”

Host: Outside, thunder rolled faintly — far off, like a memory clearing its throat. The smell of approaching rain threaded into the room.

Jeeny: “You know what I love about Mortimer’s quote?” she continued. “It’s the irony. He makes tragedy sound charming. He remembers that world not with bitterness, but humor. He forgave it by turning it into a story worth retelling.”

Jack: “That’s power,” he said. “To laugh at the wound instead of hiding it.”

Jeeny: “It’s also love,” she said. “A strange kind of love — not for the pain, but for the survival.”

Host: The rain began, slow at first, then steady — the kind of rain that made old houses sigh in relief.

Jack: “So what do you think it means,” he asked, “to grow up surrounded by other people’s divorces? What does that do to a child’s view of love?”

Jeeny: “It makes them cautious,” she said. “But also curious. They grow up wanting to understand what breaks — and how to build something that won’t.”

Jack: “Or they stop building entirely.”

Jeeny: “That’s fear again.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or wisdom.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said gently. “Wisdom learns to build differently — not never.”

Host: He looked down at his hands, the faint tremor there betraying the argument inside him. The rain tapped the windows softly — a slow applause from the night.

Jeeny: “You know,” she said, “maybe that’s why Mortimer’s stories endure. Because they understand both sides — the barrister and the broken heart. The law and the longing. He saw the courtroom and the nursery as one and the same: both places where people plead to be heard.”

Jack: “And sometimes punished for speaking.”

Jeeny: “True,” she said, smiling sadly. “But even punishment is a kind of acknowledgment. Silence is worse.”

Host: The room glowed dimly now — the last firelight flickering against rain-darkened glass.

Jack lifted his glass and took a slow sip. “You make him sound like a priest of irony.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he was. His humor was his sacrament. His forgiveness was laughter.”

Jack: “And his inheritance — the Duchess and her seven correspondents.”

Jeeny: “Which means,” she said, “that even his father’s cynicism became fuel for grace. Children always rewrite their parents’ stories, Jack — some with bitterness, others with art.”

Jack: “And you?”

Jeeny: “I rewrite them with empathy,” she said simply. “It’s the only inheritance worth keeping.”

Host: The rain softened into drizzle. The fire was almost out. Their shadows leaned closer, two figures caught between irony and tenderness, law and love.

Jack looked at her — at the quiet certainty in her eyes — and smiled, not as a skeptic this time, but as a believer.

Jack: “Maybe Mortimer was right,” he said finally. “Fairy tales and divorce cases — they’re the same thing. Both begin with ‘Once upon a time,’ and both end with people learning what love isn’t.”

Jeeny: “And still,” she said, “we keep telling them.”

Host: The rain stopped, leaving only the scent of wet stone and the last breath of the fire.

And there, in that fragile hush, truth and humor coexisted — as Mortimer himself would have liked — proving that sometimes, the only way to understand love’s tragedy is to laugh softly in its courtroom, and let the verdict be mercy.