Innocent

II.
CHAPTER 11

Rusty, September 2, 2008

The inside line in my chambers rings, and when I hear her voice, just the first word, it is nearly enough to bring me to my knees. It has been a good six months since the last time I saw her, when she came by to have lunch with my assistant, and well more than a year since we brought things to a close.

"Oh," she says. "I didn't really expect you. I thought you'd be out campaigning."

"Are you disappointed?" I ask. She laughs as she always does, in full grasp of life's delights.

"It's Anna," she says.

"I know," I say. I'll always know, but there is no point in making this any harder for either of us.

"I need to see you. Today, if possible."

"Something important?"

"To me? Yes."

"Are you okay?"

"I think so."

"Sounds a little mysterious."

"This will be better in person."

"Where do you want to meet?"

"I don't know. Someplace quiet. The bar at the Dulcimer? City View? Whatever they call it."

I replace the phone with the fragments of the conversation bouncing around inside me. Anna has never really ended for me. The ache. The longing. A year ago July, not long after I had visited Sandy Stern, I became convinced for several days that I was ready to forsake everything and beg Anna to take me back. I visited Dana Mann, an old friend, who is the king of high-end divorce in this town. I didn't intend to tell him about Anna, just that I was thinking about bringing my marriage to an end and had some questions about how quietly I could do that, assuming Barbara agreed. But Dana's strength as a lawyer is for the weak joints in the masonry, and with five or so questions he had the outline of the entire story.

'I don't think you came here for political advice,' he said. 'But if you want this to stay off the front pages during the campaign, you'd be better advised to do nothing.'

'I've been unhappy for a long time. Until I got involved with this woman, I didn't realize quite how desperate I am. But now I'm not sure if I can do nothing. I was better off before, just for that reason.'

' "The precise character of despair is that it does not realize it is despair," ' said Dana.

'Who is that?'

'Kierkegaard.' Dana laughed off my look of total disbelief. I've known Dana since law school, and he wasn't quoting philosophers then. 'I represented a professor at the U last year who taught me that. Same kind of situation.'

'What did he do?'

'He left. She was his grad student.'

"How badly did it cost him?'

'It cost him. The U rapped his knuckles pretty hard. He'd gotten her grants. He had to take a year's leave without pay.'

'Is he happy anyway?'

'So far. I think so. They just had a baby.'

'Our age?' I was incredulous. Somehow, Dana's story was enough to prove it was all impossible. I could never try to cheat nature that way. Or brook the thought of what a divorce could do to Barbara, how savagely she might suffer. I told Dana before I left that I did not expect to come back.

Yet there are still nights, while Barbara sleeps, when I am consumed by pining and regret. I never had the heart to delete from my home computer the parade of e-mails Anna sent me back then. Most were one-line messages about where we would meet next. Instead, I've gathered them all into a subfolder I titled Court Affairs, which once every month or so, I open in the still house like a treasure chest. I do not read the actual messages. That would be too painful, and the contents were too brief to mean much. Instead, I simply study her name echoing down the page, the dates, the headings. 'Today,' most were called, or 'Tomorrow.' I linger with memory and wish for a different life.

Now, in the wake of Anna's call, I consider her urgent tone. It could be anything, even a professional problem. But I heard the strain of a personal lament. And what will I do if she has come to tell me that she cannot go on without reuniting? What if she feels as I have felt so long? The Dulcimer was the last of the places we met. Would she have chosen it if passion was not her purpose? I hover then, above myself, my soul looking down on my hungry heart. How can longing unfulfilled seem to be the only meaningful emotion in life? But it does. And I realize I will not say no to her, just as I could not say no when she turned her face to me on the sofa in my chambers. If she is willing to leap, I will follow her. I will leave behind what I've had. I stare at the pictures arrayed on my desk, of Nat at various ages, of Barbara, always beautiful. It's pointless to try to fathom the full consequences of what I'm about to do. They are so many and so varied that not even a Russian chess master or a computer would be able to play out every step. But I will do this. I will try to have at last the life I want. I will, finally, be brave.