Homebody

8

Closing

Don woke up shivering. He thought of crawling inside the sleeping bag in order to warm up—the faintness of the light told him the sun wasn't up yet, or at least the morning mist hadn't yet burned away. But he knew he wouldn't get warm enough to sleep, and besides, he needed to find a toilet. Not to mention a toothbrush and a shower. He thought of Cindy's offer yesterday. A shower, no questions asked, no strings attached. For some reason it reminded him of Esau taking a mess of pottage from his brother Jacob. He just didn't want to be that beholden to anyone.

This from the man who had taken a free dinner from the Weird sisters last night.

And thinking of last night reminded him of how he had spent a half-hour in the small of the morning. Was she still in the house? He looked around at his stuff, glad that by habit he had put it all in the one room. Nothing missing. Even the Singing Sword was where he had put it last night.

So also were his shoes. He got up and rummaged through his stuff until he found where they had fallen after he threw them against the wall. In the process he found his work jacket, which had once been leather but now had a texture and stiffness approaching granite. Rain and sun weren't good on the old cowhide.

He was at the door before he realized: I'm going to a closing. Which ordinarily wouldn't be enough to put him in a suit. But at this closing there would be a woman he had kissed yesterday afternoon, and maybe yesterday's workclothes and a jacket bought when Bruce Springsteen was singing "Born in the U.S.A." on every radio station wouldn't make the right impression.

Then again, it was the man in the workclothes that she had kissed.

This is how it starts, he told himself. You start trying to guess how she wants you to dress, and pretty soon you bring her home so she can tell you herself every morning, but never until after you've put the clothes on yourself, at which point she can say, "You're wearing that?" Am I really ready for this?

More to the point, am I really ready to say that I never want it again? Despite all his grief, all the pain, all the loneliness, wasn't the time with his ex-wife better than the time alone? Not every woman took away your child to go die in the road. Cindy was the kind of woman he should have been looking for the first time around. It wasn't marriage that had failed him, nor was it Don Lark who had failed at marriage. The only thing he needed to change was the person he partnered with. And why not try to impress Cindy? Why not try to look nice for her?

He found his suitbag and unzipped it. His court-appearance suit. Only he hadn't needed it for a couple of years and even if it didn't need to be cleaned, it sure needed a good pressing. And what would he do for a white shirt? He'd been putting off taking his nice shirts to the cleaner because where would he put them when they came back? Even if he got them folded, they'd suffer, jammed into a bag.

He rezipped the suitbag. Instead he pulled out a cleanish t-shirt and a pair of briefs that didn't have any particular odor and headed outside.

He stopped and locked the deadbolt, then paused to think. If he locked the door, she could still get out the way she came in. Whatever the route was, she probably couldn't get any of his really expensive equipment out of the house that way. Nobody invited her here anyway, did they?

Halfway to his truck, he had second thoughts. She was already inside when he put on the locks, hadn't she said that? And just because she was squatting in his house didn't make her unworthy of normal human decency.

Back up on the porch, he unlocked the door and, leaning in, shouted up the stairs. "Hey! You! Whatever your name is! I'm heading for McDonald's to pee and get breakfast. Time to go." He'd feed her, then drop her off somewhere and head on out to the truck stop to get a shower.

She came to the top of the stairs. She looked even more forlorn in what must have been a spring frock in some bygone age, but now was faded, limp, sad. Like her hair. Like her tired expression. But she must already have been awake, to appear so quickly when he called to her.

"You go on. I'm fine."

"Look, when I lock the deadbolt, you can't get out unless you break through one of the windows."

She seemed distracted. "Really, I'm fine." He wondered if she was in a condition to understand what he was saying to her. Did she have some stash of drugs somewhere? Was she exposing him to the risk of arrest for having that sort of thing on his property? Don't be absurd, he told himself. It's not the homeless who are dealing and using.

His own full bladder reminded him of one excellent reason why she should leave the house right now. "What, do you pee in the sink or something? The water's not hooked up yet, the toilets don't flush. Haven't you noticed this?"

Her face darkened. A flush of anger? Or embarrassment? She walked out of view.

Don stepped farther inside the house, to the foot of the stairs. He shouldn't have spoken so crudely to her. Would he ever have spoken so bluntly to Cindy? "Look, I'm sorry." The way Don was raised, you didn't talk about toilet things with ladies. When had he stopped following that rule? "When you've had a kid you learn to talk about bodily functions." Still no answer from her, but he didn't hear her footsteps walking away, either. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Her voice came from directly above him. "Please just go on. I'll be fine."

He stepped up onto the third stair, where he could look up and see her leaning over the railing. "I can't lock you in here. What if there was a fire?"

She leaned over the railing. "Then leave the door unlocked. I'm not going to steal anything."

She had addressed one of his fears directly, so he might as well answer as plainly. "Everything I've got in the whole world is here."

"Me too," she said.

"But you've got nothing."

The words seemed to sting her. "Yeah. And except for all your stuff, same with you." Her eyes were dark with anger. And then she was gone, walking away from the railing. A moment later he heard her footsteps on the attic stairs. Fast now, clattery, not the stealthy creaking tread from last night.

Sorry if I offended you.

Again he closed the front door. Out of habit he already had the key out, poised to lock the dead-bolt. He wasn't going to trust her to protect his stuff, that's what the lock was for. That's how he did things.

His own words came back to him. If there was a fire, and she couldn't get out, if she died, then his locking of this door would have been murder. Like murder, anyway, even if it wasn't the fullblown crime. What's the worst that could happen if he left the door unlocked? She could get some streetliving buddies to come over and help her steal all his stuff. There was nothing there that he couldn't buy again. And if she robbed him, she'd have to move out, so he'd be rid of her. Worth a few thousand dollars to get rid of her without a fight? Probably not. Worth it to remain the kind of man who doesn't throw out a homeless woman, who doesn't lock her in an old abandoned house? Yes. That was reason enough.

He carried his shirt and briefs down the porch steps. On his way to the truck he caught a bit of motion out of the corner of his eye and looked over to see Miz Judea clipping the hedge while staring right at him.

Not clipping the hedge after all. Clipping the air near it.

Where was Miz Evelyn? Ah, there she was. Peering around the hedge, between the leaves and Miz Judea's arms. Ashamed to be caught spying, apparently, as she ducked back out of sight. But Miz Judea wasn't ashamed. She just kept on gazing at him, cold as you please, clipping the air.

What were they looking for? He didn't have any secrets for them to uncover—nothing they'd learn by watching him go in and out of his house, that was for sure. Or was that business with the hedgeclippers a warning? Get out of that house or we'll come after you with garden implements!

I'm surrounded by women, he thought. One upstairs, two—no, three—next door, all conspiring to take away my privacy, all wishing I'd just go away and leave this house to them. And where am I going?

To see another woman who might very well have her own plans for doing away with his privacy and getting him out of this house. But at least she wanted to give him something in return.

He got into his truck and headed straight for the truck stop. He wasn't that hungry and he really needed to wash off the dirt and sweat of the day before. He also needed to do a load of laundry—it would have been really nice to have a clean shirt this morning. But there wasn't time to get everything through all the washing, rinsing, and drying cycles before the closing.

There were only a couple of cars at the realty. Don pulled in next to one of them before noticing that it was Cindy's Sable. If he believed in omens, he supposed that would have to be considered a good one. Getting out of the truck, however, his door swung wide and tapped Cindy's door a little, and when he closed it he saw that a bit of the Sable's paint was on the rim of his truck's door, and there was a nick on Cindy's door that didn't rub off with his finger. What would that mean—if he believed in omens?

The realty wasn't officially open, it was so early, but there was an agent inside. Don knocked on the door. The agent didn't look up. Don knocked again. The agent raised a wrist, pointed to his watch, and then look down again. If Cindy was inside, she wasn't where Don could see her from the door. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Don waited a moment, considering how important it was to get in right now. He had some phone calls he needed to make before they left for the closing, and why should he go down the street and feed quarters into a payphone when he could sit inside the office of a realty that was going to make some money from him when he forked over his check at the closing this morning? With the flat of his hand he struck the door three resounding blows.

Now the agent looked up angrily, saw it was still him, saw also that he was raising his hand to strike the door yet again, and rose to his feet so quickly his chair rocketed back against the desk behind his. He charged to the door, his face turning red, and unlocked and opened it. "We don't open till nine o'clock!"

Don knew not to answer an angry man directly. "Is Cindy Claybourne here?"

"Does it look like she's here?"

"Her car's in the parking lot."

"She walks home," said the agent.

So that's how she kept that girlish figure. Must be a good agent, too—all the neighborhoods within walking distance consisted of very nice houses on large wooded lots with winding lanes. Don had built several of those houses, back in an earlier life.

The man had been as helpful as he intended to be. "Now I've got work to do, if you don't—"

"She wanted me to meet her here so we could ride together to a nine o'clock closing downtown."

Don knew the magic words: Closing. Ride together. No matter how annoyed, a decent agent wasn't going to queer a colleague's sale. And this guy was a decent agent.

"Sure," the guy said grudgingly. "Come in and wait." As Don came through the door, the agent held out his hand. "Ryan Bagatti. I sit at the desk next to Cindy's."

To Don it sounded like grade school. I sit at the desk next to Cindy's. "Lucky," he said.

Bagatti rolled his eyes. "She should have been here to let you in herself."

"Maybe I'm earlier than she expected," said Don. "You're pretty early yourself." He also noticed that Bagatti had apparently not been sitting in his own place or Don would never have seen him from the door. Bagatti stopped at the desk he'd been sitting at, but only long enough to exit some program on the computer and return the chair to its place. Then he led Don back to Cindy's desk, offered him Cindy's chair, and sat down in his own, glum behind his professional smile.

"Think Cindy'd mind if I used her phone?" asked Don.

"Cindy's real accommodating, if you know what I mean," said Bagatti.

One of those. Macho pinhead who flirts with Cindy to her face, then pretends behind her back that he's had an affair with her. Don toyed with the idea of entering the fray—are you the agent in her office that she calls Tiny?—but decided that would do Cindy more harm than good. "It's only local calls," said Don.

"Be Cindy's guest," said Bagatti. "Everybody else is."

This guy really needs to get beat up someday, Don thought. But not by me. Let it be some drunk who'll get six months for assault, suspended. If I once started beating on somebody, I don't think I could stop till I earned a solid manslaughter charge.

In his pocket address book, Don looked up the number of Mick Steuben at Helping Hand Industries. As he expected, Mick was already at his desk.

"Got a houseful for you, Mick."

"That you, Mr. Lark?"

"Who else?"

"How many rats living in the couch?"

"Five couches. Place used to be an apartment building."

"Oh, we moving up in the world."

"No rats, or at least if there are any they're real quiet and they don't shit."

"Man, I wish I'd married into that family."

"I'm closing on the house this morning so it won't be mine to donate till after noon."

"I'll get a crew together."

Helping Hand didn't officially provide a moving service. Supposedly you had to have the furniture and appliances you were donating out at the curb. But Mick had figured out that when somebody was emptying a whole house, they weren't going to pay for a crew to haul everything out just so they could give the stuff away. So he had a well-known but unwritten arrangement with several contractors who worked with old houses, that he'd get some volunteers from his pickup crew to do the hauling, as long as the contractor gave his workers some pretty fair tips. That way the contractor saved money on the hauling, and Mick got a houseful of furniture and appliances that otherwise might have been sold or junked. This amounted to aggressive marketeering in the help-for-the-down-and-out trade. "Mick, you'd be dangerous if you ever got into a business with money and power."

"That's why God put me in this place," he said. "Seeya this afternoon, man."

Don pushed a button for another line and called the city to make sure they were really going to hook up the water today. He was still on hold when Cindy arrived. He hung up and stood to greet her.

She looked good, walking the length of the office, and her smile was dazzling. But he saw her glance at Bagatti, saw how her jaw tightened a little under the smile. He wondered how she'd play it—kiss him openly to drive Bagatti crazy, or greet him formally like any other client because it was none of Bagatti's business. There was no need to wonder. Cindy had class, and Bagatti was a bug. She greeted Don with a cool handshake. "Sorry I'm late," she said.

"I came pretty early," said Don, "but I hoped to exploit your free telephones."

"Putting together another deal in Taiwan?" she said. She opened the file drawer in her desk and took out a folder.

"You know how it is, trying to keep all the time zones straight," said Don. "But Mr. Bagatti here said that it was OK just to dial direct, the company would do anything for a customer."

"Haha," said Bagatti. "You only dialed seven digits."

"See you later, Ryan," said Cindy. "This way, Mr. Lark."

Outside the door, Don let himself laugh. "Never thought he could count to seven."

"He's a neanderthal, but he sells houses to a certain kind of clientele."

"When I got here he was sitting at somebody else's desk, using the computer."

"He's a snoop but we all know it, so nobody leaves anything confidential lying around. He thinks he's a real up-and-comer."

They were halfway to their cars. Don slipped his arm around her waist, feeling like a teenager daring to assert a relationship. And like a teenager, he got slapped down. He felt her twist away just a little.

"Sorry," he said, taking his arm back. What was wrong? Was she regretting yesterday's kiss? Or had she already noticed the nick on her car door?

"Let's take my car," she said.

That had been Don's intention, but now he wondered. "I can follow you, and that way you won't have to bring me all the way back here after the closing."

She had walked to her car door and was unlocking it. Don walked between their cars, positioned either to get into her passenger door or into his own driver's door. "Don," she said, "are you trying to avoid me?"

So what was he supposed to read into that look? If she hadn't just rejected his arm around her waist, he'd suppose she was looking at him with hurt and longing, that sort of dreamy-eyed look that he remembered very well from high school, the look that girls eventually realized they probably shouldn't use with guys unless they really meant something by it, because it had the power to make them hover but then they were pretty hard to get rid of. Come on, Cindy which is it? But instead of having it out with her over the roof of her Sable on the way to a closing, Don decided discretion was the better part of valor and got into her car.

Once inside with the doors closed, she was full of businesslike talk about the closing, how the lawyer was so nice to fit them in before the start of his normal business hours; Don refrained from giving his opinion of lawyers and how "nice" they were, beyond saying, "No matter what time he fit you in, he's still charging you, right?"

She laughed. "I guess you've got a point."

By now the car was out on Market Street, heading downtown. It was a four-lane with no shoulder, but to his surprise she pulled the car tight against the curb and ignored the car behind them that honked and swerved around them, curses coming from the open window. She was too busy leaning over and kissing him deeply and passionately. Then, without a word, she took her foot off the brake and they pulled back into the flow of traffic.

"Nice to see you, too," said Don.

"Sorry if it seemed like I was blowing you off back in the parking lot," she said. "I just can't stand the idea of Bagatti—you know."

"I imagine he'd never let you forget it."

"So if he was watching, what he saw was a client making a pass and the ice princess blowing him off. Sorry."

"Fine."

But was it fine? She could have explained herself right then. Bagatti couldn't have heard. Instead she waited, she let him fret in silence until she decided it was time to let him off the hook. And even then, the kiss was her doing. Maybe she just wanted to be the one to decide when things happened between them.

Then again, what woman didn't want to decide that? Most of them simply waited until after the papers were signed before they took control of the schedule. Cindy was honest enough to get the reins in her hands right from the start.

"All I could think about all night was you," she was saying to him. "I told you I'm not that kind of girl, and that's the truth, but that doesn't mean there aren't times I wish I were that kind of girl."

It was hard to think how Cindy could have said anything better calculated to make a formerly-married-but-four-years-celibate man replace all conscious thought with pure adolescent horniness. "You shouldn't say things like that to a man about to see a lawyer."

"Oh, lawyers' offices aren't conducive?"

"Pure saltpeter."

She laughed. "Well, we need to keep our friendship on a loftier plane anyway," she said. "Since you're not that kind of boy and I'm not that kind of girl."

She knew exactly what she had done to him. And yet he couldn't quite believe that she was jerking him around. Maybe she was being completely open with him, saying exactly what she thought and not even caring about the consequences. How could you tell, when utter honesty and cynical manipulation would each account completely for the things she said and did?

Despite the warm-blooded prelude, the closing went quickly and smoothly. For the first time, Don realized that most of the time-consuming silliness with closings was caused by the bank. The whole thing was done before nine-thirty. The house was his. It should have felt good, and it did, but Don had no chance to relish it because all he was thinking about was Cindy.

What made sense would be to take her to the house and talk about his plans and get her talking about her life or whatever came up until it was time for lunch. How could it hurt to revisit the scene of their first kiss the day before? But that homeless girl was there and he just didn't want to have to explain the whole situation to Cindy. Not that she wouldn't believe him; it's how she'd judge him that mattered. Maybe she'd see him as compassionate, but that was hardly the truth, since he couldn't wait to get the girl out on the street. And it was just as likely that she'd see him as a wimp, a doormat. Which he probably was. But he didn't want Cindy thinking of him that way.

So the walk to the car was silent—the worst possible course of action, but how could he speak until he thought of something to say? Besides, she wasn't talking, either. What did that mean?

They got to the car and Cindy punched in the code that unlocked all the doors. "So the real estate part of our relationship is over, I guess," she said.

"I guess," said Don. What else could he say? And yet he knew that he had to say something, because she had just talked about their relationship and tied it to the word "over" and he knew she was asking him for reassurance—but reassurance of what? He had no idea where she wanted things to go. Or where he wanted them to go. So all he said was "I guess" and that was the worst thing he could have said because it sounded like he was agreeing that things were over.

She slid into her seat. He ducked down and got into his. She reached up to get her seatbelt. If he left things with "I guess" then it would be over between them before it had a chance to begin and it would be his own stupid fault. Yet a part of him was already acquiescing, already saying, Well, nice while it lasted, but you belong alone anyway, better to have an uncomplicated life.

Something inside him might think like that, but it wasn't the man he wanted to be. So, as she fumbled to slide the seatbelt into its latch, he reached down and took her hand and raised it up to put the seatbelt back in place behind her left shoulder. That put him face to face with her, and he kissed her. Letting go of her hand, he reached down and embraced her, pulling her close to him, holding her against him. It was a convincing kiss.

When it ended they did not let go. She nuzzled his cheek, then whispered directly into his ear, her breath tickling him: "So you're saying you want me even when I don't have a house to sell you."

"And you want me," he answered, "even when you're not getting a commission."

She nibbled his earlobe. "Aren't you afraid our relationship is already too physical?"

"Ask me that sometime when you don't have your lips in my ear."

"You planning to let go of me anytime soon?"

"I don't want to think that far ahead." He kissed her again.

"You think you can keep doing that while I drive?"

"The real question is, can you drive while I'm doing that?"

Then they burst into laughter and the embrace broke. "Welcome to high school," said Don.

"That's how it feels, isn't it? Does this make me your girlfriend?"

"Do you like me, Cindy? Yes, no, check one."

"But what is it I like about you, Don? The way you rip padlocks off houses? Or is it the way you look when you squat down to check out toilets?"

"It's the hungry way I look at you."

"Like a starving puppy."

"So you want some coffee? Breakfast? Lunch?"

"You men," said Cindy. "Always wanting the same thing."

"Food."

"I don't cook, Don."

"Then why am I so hot?" He couldn't believe he had said that. Was there anyplace for this relationship to go but into bed? Was that all that was driving him on, his long sexual loneliness? He didn't know this woman. Did he even want to?

He finally let go of her and faced forward, untwisting his back. "Drive," he said.

"Yes sir," she answered. She put her arm up on the headrest of his seat as she turned to see where she was backing the car. When she was out of the parking place, she shifted into drive with her left hand so that her right hand could slip down to play with the hair at the back of his neck. "I know a place that has great coffee."

"Fine," he said. Though he wasn't much of a coffee drinker. The last thing he needed was something that made him more jittery by day and kept him awake at night.

They talked about nothing. Real estate lore about nasty surprises at closings, about flaws in houses and how some sellers tried to conceal them from potential buyers, and they laughed together like old friends who already know all the real jokes. In the midst of laughing he realized that she had just driven past her office and was turning onto a road that he knew was purely residential. The place that had great coffee was hers.

He got out of her car and followed her to the porch of her house, a large brick nine-window federal with a deep, immaculate yard. A large house for a woman alone. She unlocked the door and he followed her inside. The living room was like a page out of Southern Living. There was no sign that a human being had entered the room since the decorator left.

"Have a seat," she said. "Unless you need to use the john. That's what I'm doing, I'm afraid." He heard her jog up the stairs.

He sat down, but then realized the john was a good idea and got up and wandered down the hall. A little half-bath with a bifold door that he could barely close when he was standing inside. There was a framed print above the toilet, a painting of a bunch of raccoons and a pink little pig with a mask over its eyes, and the slogan, "ONE OF THE GANG." He flushed, washed his hands, and came out into the hall. But instead of returning to the living room, as good manners required, he wandered into the large eat-in kitchen. It was as immaculate as the living room. No one cooked here. Cindy wasn't kidding.

He opened the fridge. Leftover takeout cartons and containers of juice and soft drinks. The freezer had some diet and no-fat desserts. He heard her coming down the stairs and decided not to close the freezer door. If he was going to prowl through her house, he wasn't going to pretend that he hadn't done it. "I'm in here."

"Can't keep a man out of the kitchen," she said.

He closed the freezer and reopened the fridge. "Restaurant doggy bags for breakfast?"

"Always tastes better the next day."

"Have I met a woman as lonely as me?"

"Solitary isn't necessarily lonely, Sherlock." She began an elaborate ritual of making coffee, starting with the beans. She had changed out of her business suit into a summery frock, which made her look younger at first glance, but then older, as he couldn't help but notice a little looseness and sagging in the arms, the wrinkles in the neck. He considered these features analytically and discovered that he didn't find them at all off-putting. He came up behind her and ran his hands down her bare arms, then back up to her shoulders as he leaned down and kissed her neck.

"Do you want coffee or not?" she asked sternly.

"Don't much care about coffee," he said.

She turned around and kissed him and he held her, body to body. She was soft and yielding, and his hands discovered that there were no straps or elastics underneath the frock she wore. Her own hands were pulling his shirt out of his trousers, and then they were cool as they glided over the skin of his back, up to his shoulders. They parted, but only by an inch or two. "Screw the coffee," she said. "It's too much like cooking, anyway."

Where does this lead? thought Don. What next? He'd only slept with one woman in his life, and there had never been a love scene in the kitchen. Maybe if there had been... but that wasn't a line of thought he wanted to explore. He took her hand and led her through a swinging door into the dining room, then around into the living room. "Where are we going?" she asked. In reply, he sat down on the untouchable couch, tossed the pillows onto the floor, and pulled her down beside him.

"Here?" she asked. He could see that she was a little annoyed.

"Who were you saving this room for?" he asked.

"For me," she said. "To come in and see it perfect and not have to do anything to clean it up." The annoyance was in her voice now. He tried to kiss her. She turned her face away.

"Sorry," he said. "I just thought—"

"You just couldn't leave a perfect room undisturbed," she said.

"It wasn't perfect until you were in it," he said. "This couch wasn't perfect until you were sitting there." He took the hem of her frock and spread it out across the fabric of the couch, showing more of her tanned thighs, making her look as posed as a model. "The only thing wrong with the picture is me," he said. "I should be standing over there, in the entry, looking at you with longing. The unattainable beauty of Cindy Claybourne."

She laughed, but she had to turn her face away from him. Embarrassed? He got up from the couch, walked to the entry, and stood there leaning against the front door. She really did look sweet and young and lovely. Heartbreakingly so. "Cindy, are you as sad as I am?"

"Are you sad?" she said. "Right now?"

"The picture's too perfect. I don't want to spoil it."

She reached out her arms to him. "I want you to."

He knew he should walk into the room, sit down beside her again, take that frock off her, make love to her. That's what she wanted. That's what he wanted, too. Yet he stood there, trying to make sense of the woman, of the room. How she fit with the house. Why this room had to be so perfect. Why she barely lived in her own house, cooking nothing, touching nothing. Of course that probably wasn't true upstairs. For all he knew, clothes were strewn around her bedroom and her sink was covered in half-empty bottles and tubes. And besides, what business was it of his?

Yet for some reason he had to ask a question, one whose answer he didn't even care about, and still he had to ask. "Have you ever been married, Cindy?"

She looked at him for a moment, then lowered her arms. "Yes."

"Kids?" he asked.

"Does it look like it?" she asked, sounding a little defiant.

"Does what look like it? Your body? No."

"What, then?"

"This room looks like a place of refuge for someone who's sick of cleaning up after other people."

Why had he said that? It was a stupid thing to say, precisely because he was almost certainly right. She looked away from him, her eyes filling with tears. She swung her legs up onto the couch and hugged her knees. The skirt of her frock draped away so he could see the entire curve of her naked thigh and buttocks, and he was filled with longing to hold her, to please her, to take pleasure from her. But when she lifted her face from her knees, her eyes were brimming over with tears. So when he strode to the couch and sat beside her and put his arm around her and gathered her against his shoulder, it was not to make love to her, but to comfort her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to cause you pain."

"You didn't cause it," she said.

"I meant to love you," he said. "I wanted to try to love you."

"That was your mistake. You should have settled for making love to me."

"You do have children," he said.

"Three." She clung tightly to him, and he could feel her convulsive sob as she began to cry in earnest.

"What happened?" he asked, dreading the story, because he knew it would only make him think of his own loss.

"I left them," she said. "My shrink said it was because I was a caretaker child. My father ran off with his secretary when I was eleven and from then on I was the mom of the house while my mother worked. I cooked every meal, I cleaned, I did laundry till I hated my mother for being a lazy bitch even though I knew she was working her brains out to make ends meet and I hated my sisters and my brother because they wore clothes that had to be washed and left things lying around and complained whenever I asked them to help in any way and finally I couldn't stand it anymore. If I didn't get out I'd kill somebody or maybe myself, so I married my poor husband Ray and we had three babies, pop pop pop, and there I was again, cooking and cleaning up. I realized I had only traded one house for another and I thought I'd go crazy. I loved my kids but I found myself one day holding a pillow and wanting to press it down on my baby's face so she'd just stop screaming for a half-hour so I could get some rest. Only I wasn't even tired. It wasn't sleep I needed. I took the pillow and put it in the garbage and then I took the garbage bag out to the garage and jammed it into the trashcan because I had actually thought of smothering my own baby, that's how crazy I was."

Don was sick at heart. He still held her, still felt her breath warm through his shirt, but all desire for her was gone. He knew it wasn't fair. She had stopped herself, hadn't she? She had faced a terrible moment of madness and had triumphed over it, but he knew he would never be able to get rid of the imagined picture of Cindy with a pillow approaching a baby's crib, and the baby crying, only it wasn't an infant he imagined, it was his own daughter when he last saw her, almost two years old, and it wasn't Cindy, it was his ex-wife. Just one more nightmare for him to remember when he woke up in the middle of the night.

Yet he still held her.

"Do you hate me?" she whispered.

"No," he said.

"I knew I had to get out," she said. "I loved my children, I could never hurt them, but for their sake and my husband's sake and my own sake I had to get out before I got carted off to the loony bin or I killed myself or whatever desperate thing happened that should never happen. So I left. And I went to a shrink. And I got my real estate license and worked hard to get enough money to buy a house that has a room for each of my children even though I know they'll never come to see me, I'll never have them living here with me, but I have a room for each of them upstairs, and a bed that's never had a man in it but it's made for a husband. You're a husband, Don. That's what you are. I wanted you in that bed with me."

His body wanted her; his hands wanted to slide down to the bare skin of her hip and seek the body under the frock. But his heart was no longer in this room. Desire wasn't reason enough to share his body with this woman. He could never love her as she needed to be loved. He had too many problems of his own, too many fears, too much history. What she had told him would be impossible to forget.

"Don," she said, "you have to forgive me."

I'm not a priest, he thought. I'm not Jesus. I can't even get forgiveness for myself, how can I get absolution for you? "You didn't do anything wrong," he said. "You gave up everything to protect your children."

"They'll never understand that," she said. "I left them motherless."

"Someday you'll tell them and they'll understand."

"You don't want me anymore, do you," she said softly.

"You don't need a husband to take you on that bed, Cindy" he said. "You need a father to tuck you into it."

She burst into sobs as he slid one arm under her legs, the other behind her back, and rose from the couch holding her. She wasn't all that small or light, but he was strong and it felt good to carry her up the stairs, to have the stamina to do it without panting for breath, without even feeling tired. It felt good to have some strength to give to someone who needed it. He carried her to the master bedroom, with its kingsize bed; not a feminine room at all, but a masculine one, a man's bedroom. No frills, a bold pattern in the bedspread, earth colors instead of pastels. He set her down on the edge of the bed. "Where do you keep your nightgowns?" he asked.

"Second drawer down, left side," she said.

"Take off that dress," he said. He took the top nightgown from the folded stack and brought it back to her. She sat there naked and forlorn, the frock tossed onto the floor. Her body was still sweet but he had no desire for her. He took the nightgown and gathered it around the neck, as he had so often gathered his daughter's tiny gowns and dresses, and slipped it over her head. She reached her hands up and he guided them into the sleeves like a child's hands. Then, as the nightgown dropped over her breasts and down to cover her lap, he turned down the covers of the bed. He picked her up again and laid her down on the sheets, helped her slide her feet down under the covers, then drew them up to her shoulder and tucked them in. Tears were flowing from her eyes onto her pillow. "Don't cry," he said softly. "You're a good person and you've done right." He kissed her cheek, patted her hand. "Don't go back to work today. You've earned a little rest."

"I've lost you, haven't I, Don, before I even had you."

"You didn't need a lover, Cindy, you needed a friend, and you've got one."

"What do you need?" she said.

"I need all the friends I can get." He kissed her cheek again. She raised a hand to touch his cheek. Maybe she was thinking of trying to kiss him like a woman. Maybe she was thinking of making one last try to get him in the bed beside her. That's how the moment felt to him, anyway. But she saw something in his eyes, saw something as she searched his face, and she didn't try to kiss him, just stroked his cheek and said, "You're too good for me."

"Not good enough," he said. "But sometimes you just have to let somebody cry herself to sleep."

He walked out of the room, down the stairs, and out the door, making sure it was locked behind him. He stood on the porch for a moment, looking for his car. But of course he didn't have one. Never mind. His truck was parked at her office, and it wasn't more than three-quarters of a mile to walk. A neighbor in a car was watching him as he walked down the driveway to the street. Don stared back at her defiantly. None of your damn business, he said soundlessly. The woman started her engine and pulled away from the curb. Don walked on down the street. It wasn't even noon yet, and maybe autumn had broken the back of summer, because the day was still cool and there was a breeze even though the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.