Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

Mack the Knife

He was a squint-eyed tom. He was a veteran of the wars, scarred-eared and progenitor of 14,288 kittens.

His fur had once been sleek-obsidian black but was now matted and dull-dusty-black as if he’d been rolling with zestful abandon in the dirt. His thick stubby tail looked as if it had been broken at the tip. The whiskers sprouting from his ears were bristling-black but the whiskers sprouting from beneath his nose were bristling-white, broken and asymmetrical. His “good” eye, his left, was tawny and glowering. His tummy had begun to slacken into a fatty pouch contiguous with his crotch but his body overall was fit, firm, muscled, tough as rubber.

He was large, hefty, the size of a piglet, weighing near twenty pounds. His head and paws were disproportionately large for this body like his penis which when erect was several inches long and thick and (just slightly) prehensile, barbed at the tip with one hundred small protrusions like nails. Three of his thick-padded paws were white, the fourth was black. His claws were still sharp though some had been broken off at the quick. The tip of his tail was white. His tummy was dusty-white. He had a way of mewing silently, drawing back his lips from his stained, still-sharp teeth, that might be mistaken for a hiss. His alternative mew was percussive, startled-sounding, and interrogative—Myrrgh? Myrrgh? His snarl was ferocious as a lynx but his purr was a guttural thrumming music that rose from deep inside his being, his battered cat-soul.

This purr, astonishing to the woman when first she heard it. Not immediately grasping where the sound was coming from, and what it meant.

Craftily, with much patience the squint-eyed black tom was courted by the woman. Food was set out for him on the rear deck of the house in two bowls—fleshy-wet, chewy-dry—and water in a large plastic dish in which (if he wished) he could dip his paws, wash his whiskers and head with a strange daintiness for one so large. He was often very thirsty, for the blood of his (usual) prey was salty: his thirst vied with his caution. Of course he was not always hungry but ate as if ravenous until his tummy swelled for eating was instinctive with him and not a frivolous matter of choice.

Having eaten, drunk, washed his whiskers, head, and much of his fur he might withdraw to sleep a heavy, profound sleep in the underbrush beside the creek or, more boldly, in the bushes beside the house; in time he was observed sleeping on the deck near steps down which he could propel himself within seconds if he sensed danger, a footfall on the deck.

By degrees the squint-eyed tom allowed the woman to approach him. His manner was kingly, skeptical. He was not a skittish creature who “took fright” over trifles nor did he cower, bare his teeth, and hiss in warning. He advertised himself as fearless—tufts of fur at the nape of his neck lifted, to magnify his size. His tawny-glowing eye was alert, unyielding. There might come a low growling in his throat over which (it seemed) he had little control; yet often there came the silent mew instead. A switching of the stubby tail that might be interpreted (for so the woman chose to interpret it) as inquiring, not entirely hostile.

“Kitty! Here, kitty!”—the calm-murmurous voice awakened in him a dim memory of a time when he’d trusted beings like her. His burly body shivered, recalling a caressing hand. He was undecided, ambivalent. The woman knew not to alarm him with affection but exuded rather an air of respectful caution like his own.

Finally after weeks of courtship the squint-eyed tom allowed the woman to touch—very gently—his head. His body quivered, his tail switched, but he did not hiss. He did not snarl. He did not bare his stained teeth or slash out with his sharp claws. Bravely he held his ground, and did not bolt away.

Not then, but soon after, the guttural vibratory purr began. The woman was deeply moved. She would invite the squint-eyed tom into the house if she dared.

Mack the Knife. Was that his name?

The Teasing

Years ago when they’d been young and credulous he’d teased them saying that when he died—“Which will be a long long time from now, kids”—he would follow the example of the Great Houdini.

Of course they’d asked: What had Houdini done?

He told them that Houdini had promised that, if there was an afterlife, he would escape from it and return to this world so that people would know that there is life-after-death.

And did he?—did Houdini return to this world? (They had to ask.)

Whitey had laughed at them. But not unkindly.

“Kids, no. Houdini did not ‘return to this world.’ He died, and that was that.”

Only then they asked him: “Who was Houdini?”

The Anger

Grimly Beverly called her sister. Fuck you pick up that fucking phone. I have serious news for you about our mother.

A violent anger seethed in her like the agitation of the (God-damned) washing machine in the basement of her house. Bile rising in her mouth black and viscous.

Pressing both hands against the washer’s warm white surface as it vibrated, shuddered with idiot energy. What she’d done, fuck she’d jammed too many sheets, towels, kids’ filthy jeans into the machine and had made it off-balanced, its mechanism askew. This had happened before, you’d think she would have learned but God damn, she’d been impatient, eager to get the load of smelly laundry in so she could get it out soon again and into the dryer. God damn fucking washer, she hated every moment of her life.

Fuck you—“Dr. McClaren”! Who the fuck do you think you are not calling me back when I call you!

The words that tumbled from Beverly’s mouth! Worse than her teenaged kids! Words that sizzled and popped and emitted a sharp stink, surprising to her, dazzling.

Who’d guessed the sweet-smiling suburban mom was so stopped-up with her own fury and disgust? Once you began it was easier to continue than to stop like trying to stop an explosion of diarrhea.

No way as the smart-ass kids would say.

Pouring herself another glass of wine. Fuck, she deserved it: Who better?

It was Thursday. Housemaids (young sisters, Guatemalan, scarcely understood English, in the hire of an older Guatemalan woman with savagely penciled-in eyebrows who collected their checks) were not due to return until Monday morning.

What a family is, is laundry. And the suburban mom was fed up.

The money Whitey’d left her, most of it was gone, or where she couldn’t touch it—CDs at Steve’s bank, he’d talked her into investing, a yield of 3.1 percent interest he’d claimed was “excellent.”

Fuck him she’d wanted to use the money for the house that was collapsing practically around their heads. Repainting the exterior, remodeling the kitchen, bathrooms—it was her money, Whitey’d wanted her to have. Maybe she’d spend a little on herself: hair, face. (Botox? If it didn’t hurt too much.) Yes, certainly, a good portion of the money should be invested, kids’ college tuition, God knew how much that would add up to, like a vise gripping the heart. CDs at the Bank of Chautauqua—“certificates of deposit”—whatever the hell these were, Beverly wasn’t sure. Brain just shut off when anyone began talking about money, math, interest rates—IRS, taxes.

Laughing at Jessalyn for not knowing how to activate a new credit card, Whitey’d had to do it for her, a simple telephone call. They’d laughed at Jessalyn fondly, tenderly—(all of them: even Beverly, who couldn’t add up a column of numbers)—but no one laughed at Beverly in that way, the older kids were merciless and Steve just this side of sarcastic.

Mom, grow a brain will you? (Had one of her children actually dared to say this to her?)

This scared her: ending up like Jessalyn lost and forlorn since Whitey’s death. A woman who’d been an ideal wife, a truly beloved wife and mother. Adored. Intelligent, totally sane. None of her children had ever once insulted Jessalyn or ceased to love her for a half-second. Not one! And now: not answering calls, not seeing friends or even her family, shockingly uninterested in her own grandchildren whom she’d always adored. Saying to Beverly apologetically I guess I am tired, Beverly. I don’t think that I can be Granma Jess right now, I hope you understand.

Well, Beverly could not understand! Beverly had never heard of such a thing.

It wasn’t natural, and it wasn’t normal. A widow became more devoted than ever to her family, not less. Most women Jessalyn’s age lived for their grandchildren, practically begged to be allowed to spend time with them, even if their husbands were still alive.

I guess I am tired. Scary to hear Jessalyn McClaren of all people say such a thing. When after Whitey’d died she’d been so strong.

Never spoke of herself in all the years Beverly could recall, in any complaining way. Not Mom!

“Fuck. Fuck fuck.”

Damn washing machine convulsed, squealed like something being strangled, shuddered to a stop. Still in the first cycle. If she opened up the lid she’d see warm soapy water slopping amid soggy clothing so God damn, she would not open the lid.

Her own grandchildren, Mom doesn’t have time for any longer. Fuck she’s “tired”—we are all fucking tired!

Not the cheap twelve-dollar wine Steve served to most guests but the more expensive French chardonnay he kept in a cabinet in the basement, that was what Beverly deserved.

Bastard. Had to laugh at how surprised he’d be, discovering several of the bottles missing.

Mad as hell, he’d suspect her (would he?) but if she denied it—what? Think I don’t know your lecherous heart, bastard.

Since last October when Whitey passed away Beverly was becoming increasingly angry.

At first she’d been grief-stricken. Exhausted, could hardly get out of bed. Cried all the time. Then, irritable. People’s fucking trivial problems made her furious.

In stores, waiting in line, hearing people complaining over shit—she’d wanted to shout into their faces. Are you serious? What the fuck do you know about life? You will learn, assholes.

Snotty salesclerks at the mall looking like some cheap version of Britney Spears, these were the worst. Eyeing her, that crease in the crotch of her slacks.

Striking back at her kids who’d condescended to her quite enough.

Little bitch. You’d better watch your smart mouth.

Astonished by their mother, who’d been so long-suffering. No more Mister Nice Guy!—she wanted to jeer at them.

“Dad was a nice guy. A damned nice guy. And now he is dead.”

(Had Whitey McClaren been a nice guy? Not all the time, and not with everyone. But mostly yes, fuck it he had been.)

(Stopping to help that Indian doctor, what was his name—“Murtha”? Stopping to prevent “Murtha” from being beaten by cops so he’s beaten by cops himself, except worse. What happens to “nice guys.”)

No wonder she was angry. Jesus!

Steve was becoming afraid of her. So long he’d been the one to make her feel inadequate, clumsy and unattractive, now it was—“Bev, what’s wrong? Why are you angry with me?”

Bev. Hated that name, almost wasn’t a name, insulting, insufferable.

Darling he’d used to call her. Now if it was darling you’d know he was being sarcastic.

She’d glared at him. She’d stood her ground. What a great question the husband has asked, why is the wife angry with him, well—“You know why, Steve.” Her voice heavy with sarcasm.

Think I don’t see the way you look at the young girls. Jesus! Mouth open, practically drooling. As if any female under thirty would give you a second glance, asshole. Unless you paid them.

That, Beverly did not want to consider. Unless you paid them.

Furious with her husband and the older kids. Building up for years. But the younger children were beginning to shrink from her too.

“Hey, sweethearts—Momma loves you.” Stooping to kiss, still they shrank from her. (Smelling the wine on her breath? Was that it?)

Had enough of all of them, frankly. Pulling on her like baby monkeys, too many kids no wonder her breasts hang down like udders and her only thirty-six, or is it thirty-seven now—not fucking old.

Fuck he’d helped out around the house. Not my bailiwick he’d actually said, she’d had to ask what bailiwick meant. Fucking meek too many years. Now, the scales were fallen from her eyes.

But she was more angry with Thom. Another smug asshole like her husband. Superior-acting, bossy. He’s going to sue the Hammond PD over their father’s death? What about her? What about her opinion? Lawsuit, publicity, death threats, her kids in school, what would Whitey say about this?—You know damned well what Whitey would say.

He’d get the guilty cops fired, kicked out on their asses. But he wouldn’t go to the media. He wouldn’t sue. He’d work behind the scenes, he’d had connections. Thom wanted to make a public issue of it—“police brutality”—“racism”—not like Whitey who’d been practical-minded.

The lawsuit was progressing, Tom had told Beverly. Only just not as fast as he’d hoped.

First, they were filing criminal charges with the country prosecutor. Later, after the criminal case was adjudicated, they would file civil charges.

Meaning—what? Suing for how much? Millions?

That’s right, Thom said grimly. You’d better believe it.

Beverly asked if the two cops who’d beaten and Tasered Whitey were still on the force and Thom answered evasively saying he wasn’t sure.

Not sure? Couldn’t you find out?

Thom hadn’t liked that line of questioning. Thom didn’t like being questioned at all.

Beverly had the idea that the cops hadn’t been suspended. Probably hadn’t even been disciplined. She’d given up looking in the paper for headlines—HAMMOND POLICE OFFICERS CHARGED IN MCCLAREN BEATING, DEATH.

Dreaded seeing a photo of John Earle McClaren in the paper, on TV. How shocked everyone would be, what a scandal, that Whitey McClaren had been beaten by Hammond police officers who hadn’t known who he was, or who he’d been.

Whitey had hated people who sued the city, made a big deal of being victims. What the hell will a big settlement do for me, I’m dead and gone. And you kids don’t need any more money.

Riveting to Beverly, to hear Whitey’s voice as if he were here in the room with her—almost.

“Daddy? Steve took my money from me. He forced me. CDs at his fucking bank. That was my money.”

Why’d you give in to him, honey? Should’ve just said no.

“Oh Daddy. It isn’t so fucking easy.”

This was wrong. This was not right. In life Beverly would never have uttered fuck in Whitey’s presence, he’d have been stunned.

In the presence of women, Whitey had been a gentleman in his speech. Never would Whitey have even muttered fuck in Jessalyn’s presence.

That generation. Sinking away, falling. Whitey had joked about not troubling to learn much about computers, cell phones, “electronic gadgets,” he’d been sure it was all just a fad, and wouldn’t last.

Well, Beverly wasn’t much better. Knew fuck-all about the new TV, damned remote controls, DVDs and such, even the young children snatched the gadget out of her fingers—Mom-mee! Like this.

So angry! Bile rising in the back of her mouth.

Hell with the fucking washer. Can’t deal with it now.

Upstairs she rinsed her mouth, spat into the sink. Could’ve sworn something tarry-black came up.

Another glass of wine. Soothe her nerves.

Since Whitey, she’d been seeing a psychopharmacologist in Rochester. Prescribed a new antidepressant with “no side effects”—problem was, alcohol was prohibited.

Couldn’t stop taking the pills, she’d be suicidal. Just lie in bed and cry and cry and when she did get up, overeat and pack on weight—she’d gained eight pounds in a single week, back in December. But she wasn’t going to stop drinking: the taste of wine was a solace, not just the alcohol-effect.

First it was I need this. Then, I deserve this.

“Lorene? I need to speak with you. Call me.”

Trying to remain calm. Upstairs in the bedroom, door shut. Sprawled on the bed, bottle on the bedside table and glass in hand, cell phone in hand. (How long until the kids came home from school? Couple of hours.)

What was infuriating was, Lorene never called back. Pretending she was God-damned busy.

She was planning a trip to Bali, after the school term was over. Already she’d bought a new car with some of the money Whitey’d left her, and was talking about a down payment on a condominium in that new high-rise overlooking the river. Nothing Lorene liked better than lording it over her teaching staff at the high school especially the older teachers she’d surpassed, being promoted to principal.

“Selfish bitch. Selfish.”

Since they’d been girls together Lorene had been the selfish one.

Anything she could do to get the highest grades, flatter her teachers, plagiarize an idea, copy out of a book and “translate” into her own prose—Lorene would do. Homely as a fire hydrant (one of Beverly’s boyfriends wittily observed) but that didn’t seem to deter her: Lorene had guy friends as well as a cluster of girls vying for her (often sarcastic) attention. Despite her size she’d been a competitive athlete—captain of the girls’ volleyball and field hockey teams. Vice president of her graduating class. With as much care as another girl would take to avoid contracting herpes or (worse yet) getting pregnant Lorene had steered her way through college and graduate school by avoiding, as she’d admitted, the more difficult and challenging professors who might’ve given her grades below A. Ending up, somehow, with a Ph.D. in something called educational psychology from the State University of New York at Albany.

Winced recalling how proud Whitey had been. Do I get to call my little girl “doctor” now?

As if conniving Lorene had ever been a little girl.

“Lorene? Please call me back or God damn you, I will drive over there and march into your office and expose ‘Dr. McClaren’ to the world as a hypocrite and negligent daughter. I will expose you as an utter phony as a fucking ‘educator’ who doesn’t give a damn about her faculty, her students, or her fucking school.”

There! Beverly’s bare toes writhed in delight. Had to laugh imagining the expression in Lorene’s pug-face when she hears this message.

Within minutes Lorene called back. For once hushed, concerned.

“Bev, what is wrong? You sound so—angry…”

“Fuck ‘angry.’ First words out of your mouth, attacking me—attacking the fucking victim.”

So furious was Beverly, so stunned Lorene, for a moment neither could speak. Then Beverly said in a hissing voice: “I have been the victim long enough. All of my adult life. Trying to do the right thing, the decent thing, remembering birthdays, taking time to buy presents, having my share of family celebrations, or more than my share—while nobody else gives a damn. You can’t be bothered—too busy. Sophia and Virgil can’t be bothered—wouldn’t even think of it. Thom’s prissy wife goes through the motions every second or third year—gives a big party at Christmas for her friends and invites us. And we are supposed to be grateful. Why Brooke thinks she can look down on us, I have no idea. Who’s she? Who’s her family?”

“Excuse me, Bev? I’m in my office at school. I don’t have much time. What exactly are you talking about?”

“Don’t you fucking condescend to me, Lorene. I’m not one of your cowed teachers. I’m talking about our family responsibilities. I’m talking about you, Lorene. First you’d said you had to work extra hard to get a promotion—then you’d said you had to work extra hard because you got the fucking promotion. Since Dad passed away you are not doing your share in taking care of Mom.”

“My impression is that Mom is doing pretty well. When I speak with her—”

“—on the fucking phone. But when do you see her?”

“I—I’ve seen Mom—not long ago… It’s been hard to connect with her, she’s been volunteering at the library. I think she said—”

Beverly laughed harshly. “No. Stop. Just fucking stop. Let me tell you what the situation is.”

“What—what situation? What are you talking about?”

“Yesterday I drove to the house. Mom wasn’t answering the phone, so I thought I’d better check up on her. It was shocking to see broken tree limbs and storm debris in the driveway—after that windstorm last week Mom hasn’t had anything cleared away. Dad would’ve had it cleared away the next day—he might’ve done it himself. Remember, I told you—Mom isn’t using Hilda anymore? After twenty years she says she wants to take care of the house herself—a house that size! Dad would be astonished, Mom was always so reliable.” Beverly paused. It was rare that Lorene shut up, and listened; Beverly meant to enjoy the situation. “So—I came into the house—let myself in—and called ‘Mom? It’s me, Beverly’—and there was no answer. All I heard were wind chimes, and wind—nothing else. And the house was cold—I couldn’t stop shivering. The kitchen wasn’t nearly as clean as Mom used to keep it—there were dishes in the rack that might’ve been rinsed, but not washed; the dishwasher was empty! (I checked.) (Why on earth would the dishwasher be empty?) There was a strange smell—sort of meaty, rank. And on the floor, on stained newspaper pages, plastic bowls for an animal to eat from, that weren’t looking very clean.”

“An animal? You mean a dog or a cat, Mom has adopted?”

“Just wait! I’ll tell you.” Beverly took time to pour more wine into her glass.

Lorene protested faintly: “She didn’t tell us that she was even thinking of—”

“Mom didn’t adopt this animal, it’s a stray. A large ugly feral cat with one eye missing, that must weigh thirty pounds. It is huge, with matted black hair, and it snarls.”

“Feral cats have all kinds of diseases. Oh, God.”

“Actually, I didn’t see the cat just yet. I was in the kitchen calling for Mom, and nobody answered. (I knew that Mom was home, both the cars were in the garage.) I was beginning to get scared thinking Mom might have collapsed or hurt herself so I went upstairs calling ‘Mom?’—‘Mom, it’s me’—this terrible vision came to me of Jessalyn upstairs on the floor—in the bathroom—having overdosed with drugs, or—Jesus!—slashed her wrists…”

“That’s ridiculous. Mom would not. Not ever. Not pills and certainly not slashing her wrists. You know Mom—she would not ever make a mess for anyone else to clean up.”

“Yes. I mean no—that’s right. Normally. But Mom might be losing control. She has said she is ‘lost’ without Whitey and I think she means it literally. Remember how rudely she behaved to poor Leo Colwin? He’s still talking about it. He has complained to everyone. Ginny Colwin won’t even speak to me, she’s so insulted. So—I was in the upstairs hall calling for Mom, and this—this thing—came bounding at me out of nowhere. It was snarling and hissing—might’ve been a raccoon—a lynx—it came rushing at me as if it was going to attack me—I screamed and got out of its way but the thing wasn’t actually attacking me, just rushing past me, to escape down the stairs. But I’d almost fainted, or had a heart attack. If it had collided with me I’m sure it would have raked me with its claws, and bitten me—it might be rabid…”

“Wait. What was it?”

“A feral cat. ‘Mack the Knife.’”

“‘Mack the Knife’—what’s that?”

“That’s the cat’s name. Mom calls him ‘Mackie.’”

“Beverly, I’m confused. Where’d Mom get that name from?”

“Where? Frankly—I think from Whitey.” Beverly lowered her voice though there was no one within earshot to hear her.

“What do you mean, ‘from Whitey’?”

“When I asked Mom about the cat’s name she said, ‘That’s his name. It came to me.’ I didn’t want to press her but I got the impression that—well, ‘Mack the Knife’ is Whitey’s name for the cat, because it’s exactly the kind of name Whitey would think up, for exactly that cat.”

“Dad wouldn’t allow a wild, feral cat into the house! You know that.”

“Mom said the cat ‘just appeared’—at the back of the house, on the deck—in the snow. She said she started to leave food for it, and it has become ‘tame.’”

“My God. Can we take it away from her?”

“‘We’—? What’s this ‘we’? If anyone helps out Mom it’s me—it isn’t likely to be we. Fuck that!” Beverly spoke with renewed vehemence. She could hear Lorene’s indrawn breath over the phone.

“Well, I—I hope Mom has taken it to a vet to have it checked…”

“All this about the God damn fucking cat came later. We didn’t even talk about ‘Mackie’ right away. Because when I found Mom she was in the bedroom in that old cream-colored robe of hers, and her hair was tangled and matted, and her eyes were dilated and wild-looking, and she was actually panting like a wild animal. And she just stared at me blinking as if she didn’t recognize me at first—‘Oh, Beverly. Is it you.’”

Beverly paused, recalling. Her heart beat resentfully, she’d had to endure this terrible experience alone. “It was kind of a crazy scene—clothes in piles all over the floor.”

“Well, finally! Whitey’s clothes for Goodwill.”

“No. Not Whitey’s clothes. Mom’s own clothes. She has yet to take Whitey’s clothes out of the closet, in fact she’s been putting Whitey’s woolen things in mothballs. It’s her own clothes she was sorting out for Goodwill. Can you believe it, Lorene?—Mom’s beautiful dresses, her shoes and coats, the mink coat.”

“What? The mink coat Daddy gave her?”

“All these beautiful things in heaps! On the floor! Jewelry, too. Gloves! Cocktail dresses, black silk, red silk, the long mint-green gossamer gown she wore to the McCormick wedding, the white pleated dress, a bunch of high-heeled shoes—‘My life is over. Whitey wanted “the best for his wife”—that was me. But now Whitey is gone. A fur coat is ridiculous—an abomination. I will never wear that abomination again.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing—from Jessalyn! ‘My life is over.’ In this sad, calm, matter-of-fact voice. In this voice that wasn’t even self-pitying! I was pleading with her, ‘Mom, you can’t give away a mink coat.’ And Mom said, ‘I don’t have any choice, Beverly. It’s an abomination, I have to give it away.’”

“Jesus! If Whitey knew.”

“We actually argued about it. Not just the mink coat but other coats, too. The only coat she was willing to keep is the black cashmere, that has got mud on it somehow—she hadn’t even seemed to notice. It was very upsetting. How could Mom give her beautiful things away? And why? I don’t think that I’ve ever argued with Mom about anything—just trivial things, when I was a kid. Nothing serious, and nothing ideological. She’s gotten it into her head that fur is ‘sinful’—must’ve been that God-damned Virgil talking to her. But also she kept saying that her life was over and she didn’t need so many clothes any longer. The most distressing thing, Mom’s body smelled—this animal smell. Her hair hadn’t been washed in days. She has always been so clean and fastidious, remember she taught us to brush our teeth after absolutely every meal and to wash our hands with soap after using the bathroom… Oh, another thing Mom said was: ‘I hate high-heeled shoes! I only wore them for Whitey.’”

Lorene was silent as if stricken. God damn her, Beverly thought, if she’d hung up.

But Lorene had not hung up. She’d been listening, and she’d become upset. Saying, “I hope you didn’t, Bev. I am hoping to hell that you did not.”

“‘Did not’—what?”

“Take that coat for yourself. The mink coat Daddy gave Mom. Don’t you tell me you took that gorgeous coat for yourself.”

“I—I told Mom that—well, yes—if she didn’t want it—”

“No! You will not take Mom’s mink coat. Damn you, Beverly, that’s why you called me—to tell me you’ve got your hands on Mom’s mink. A coat that cost, how much, fifteen thousand dollars—don’t tell me that Mom gave it to you. She did not give it to you. She isn’t in her right mind and can’t give consent. Damn you, Beverly—is that why you called me, to gloat about this?”

“N-No. It is not.”

“It is! It’s exactly why. You’ve taken all of Mom’s good things, that’s what you’ve done, her good clothes, her good jewelry, at least you can’t fit your big feet into her shoes—at least.” Now Lorene was furious, stammering.

Beverly protested: “Mom’s things are in safekeeping with me.”

“Is that what you call it—‘safekeeping.’ What a euphemism!”

Euphemism. Beverly had no idea what the fuck this meant except it was her hypocrite sister plying her pretentious vocabulary like nasty little missiles. She protested:

“I had to plead with Mom. She was becoming very emotional. She isn’t the Jessalyn we know, or think we know—it’s like something has infected her, some kind of madness. If I hadn’t arrived just when I did, she would’ve dumped everything out at the curb in cardboard boxes. Right now, everything would be gone including the mink coat. Where the fuck were you, Lorene! Don’t you dare judge me.”

This shut Lorene up. Beverly heard her sister breathing harshly at the other end of the line.

“And another thing: there were scratches on Mom’s hands and arms. When I saw, she tried to hide them inside the sleeves of her robe. At first I was panicked thinking she’d slashed herself with a razor then I realized it had to be that disgusting animal. A dozen scratches and cuts at least, not fresh and bleeding but scabby, ugly. I asked her what on earth had happened to her and she backed away saying nothing, it was just an accident, and I said, ‘An accident! How could anything like this be an accident! Wounds like these could become infected.’ And Mom said in this sort of pleading voice, ‘Oh, Beverly—it doesn’t hurt at all. Please just leave me alone.’ As if that was a sane, sensible answer!”

All this while Lorene had been listening, Beverly had supposed with mounting concern, for both their mother and for her. But now, Lorene said nothing.

Beverly listened. What was she hearing? In the background were voices, indecipherable words. Then Lorene’s voice, addressed to someone else Excuse me, will you—

A sharper sound, as of a filing cabinet drawer being shoved shut. And Lorene on the line again, suddenly loud in Beverly’s ear: “Sorry! Something has come up here. I’ve been listening but—have to hang up—what I’ll do is, I promise I will stop by Mom’s tonight on the way home. Problem is, we have a late meeting. The new guidelines from Albany are impossible—a battery of state-monitored tests—it’s a crisis situation coming at just the wrong time…”

Beverly broke the connection. Tossed the cell phone down as if it were radioactive.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck you.”

But she was feeling tired now. Deflated. The euphoria of rage had seeped out of her like air out of a balloon leaving her sprawling and fleshy-limp on the bed she hadn’t troubled to make yet that day, a bed she shared with what’s-his-name, the asshole who was betraying her (she knew) a dozen times a day in his head if not actually with his rubbery knob of a penis, well fuck him too—fuck the husband.

(Was she waiting for Lorene to call her back, apologize? Fuck no!)

(The cell phone had fallen onto the floor anyway. Fuck she had the energy to lean over, reach down and retrieve it. No fucking way.)

The wine was depleted. Her head was starting to ache.

Crying now. A blubbering sort of crying you wouldn’t want anyone to overhear. Not sorrow for her dear widowed mother nor even for her dear, deceased father but for her own lost self, exiled from the house on Old Farm Road she had to realize now permanently.

Please just leave me alone.

The Wave

And then, one morning in early May she was herself (again). (Or nearly.)

Waves that had been lifting her, throwing her down, beating her against the tight-packed wet sand for months seemed to have receded. Dazed she lay scarcely daring to breathe. Was it over? The terrible malaise, the sickness like death, the widow’s raw grief like a gnawed stump? Was she herself again? There came a starburst, dazzling light rippling across the earth. Chickadees and titmice at the feeder calling excitedly to one another.

New day! New new new day day.

And the squint-eyed black tomcat nudging his big head against her legs, purring loud as a defective motor New day! Now! Feed me!

Suffused with strength. Her old strength. Another time the tight-choking tourniquet thrown off and blood rushing in to reclaim what had been numbed, paralyzed in all of her limbs, her belly, throat, and heart.

That morning, she read a Dr. Seuss story to enthralled young children at the Huron branch library where she’d been a volunteer since before Whitey had been stricken; next day, she returned to her volunteer position at Hammond General Hospital, stepping into the hospital foyer like one walking on eggshells, herself fragile as eggshells—and she did not faint, she did not burst into tears, in wonderment she observed herself greeting her friends at the Information counter, accepting a hug or two, a smearing kiss on the cheek—Thank you. I missed you, too. But I am very well now. And you?

She took a deep breath. She called Thom, Beverly, Lorene, Sophia—left messages. Just saying hello. I am feeling much better. Sorry to have been out of touch. I am catching up now—but slowly.

Later that week she drove to visit an elderly, ailing relative in an assisted living care facility, whom she’d been neglecting since the previous October, and who had not been informed (to spare her being upset) that Whitey had died.

Forgive me please. Much has happened. I have been distracted.

TWO ITEMS SHE’D NOTED (for Jessalyn McClaren was one who perused public bulletin boards thoughtfully) on the hospital bulletin board: the Eleventh Annual Chautauqua Arts & Crafts Fair to be held on May 29, and a meeting that very night at the Hope Baptist Church (Armory Street) organized by the SaveOurLives Caucus open to “All Citizens Concerned with Hammond Police Department Racism, Brutality & Injustice.”

It was possible that Virgil would have new work in the Chautauqua Arts & Crafts Fair, but Virgil would never tell her beforehand; she would have to drive there and see for herself. And the meeting at the Hope Baptist Church on Armory Street—this seemed to Jessalyn, in her state of renewed strength and purpose, in the rush of optimism that coursed through her veins like adrenaline, to be something she should attend as a concerned citizen.

(Should she call Thom? Would Thom want to attend with her? Jessalyn had the idea that the lawsuit against the Hammond police was not going well—at every turn the attorney for the defendants was “stalling”—“obstructing.” Briefs were prepared and filed, hearings were scheduled in the Hammond County Courthouse and then postponed. To bring the subject up to Thom was to risk rousing him to fury.)

(Would Whitey be comfortable with her attending such a meeting, in inner-city Hammond? Jessalyn could not imagine that he would approve though her presence there would be solely because of him.)

And so, that evening a lone white woman appeared diffidently at the rear of the small redbrick church on Armory Street. She took a seat in the last pew. Already there were forty or more people in the front pews and in the center aisle, talking together with much animation. Everyone seemed to know everyone else: of course. The lone white woman understood that she was (perhaps) a curiosity to them: not only a white woman in a company of (mostly? entirely?) persons of color but a woman with a very white skin, a porcelain sort of pallor, and stark-white hair to her shoulders, of a length uncommon in women her age. And though this woman was dressed inconspicuously it was evident that her clothes were not inexpensive, and that her manner lacked the ease and camaraderie of whites accustomed to black activist occasions. This white-skinned woman smiled in greeting to anyone who acknowledged her but her smile was over-eager, timid.

She’d rehearsed the way in which she would identify herself should anyone ask. Not Jessalyn McClaren—(for the name McClaren might be recognized in ways she could not anticipate)—but Jessalyn Sewell. It would be a relief to her, yet a disappointment, when no one asked her name.

Alone in the last pew of the little church she listened to impassioned speeches from the pulpit with mounting alarm. She’d had no idea that so many unarmed and defenseless individuals in inner city Hammond, ranging in age from an eight-year-old boy to an eighty-six-year-old woman, had been shot by Hammond police officers within the past decade. So many deaths, and not a single conviction of any police officer! In fact, not a single indictment.

Not a single apology from the Hammond Police Department.

The minister of Hope Church spoke, gravely and with dignity. The head of a New York State youth training program spoke, vehemently. A young black lawyer spoke, his voice quavering with emotion. Mothers spoke, holding pictures of their murdered children. Some were tearful and tremulous and some were angry and resolute. Some could barely speak above a whisper and others raised their voices as if keening. Young dark-skinned men and boys had been assaulted by Hammond police in the greatest numbers but no one was exempt from police violence—women, girls, the elderly and even the disabled—a nineteen-year-old Iraqi war veteran in a wheelchair, shot dead by police officers for seeming to “brandish” a weapon; a twelve-year-old boy Tasered into unconsciousness by police officers for “suspicious behavior”—nothing more criminal than fleeing a police cruiser that braked to a stop in the street.

Jessalyn listened, appalled. She would have liked to add her voice to these voices but could not bring herself to speak.

She was not feeling so strong after all. There was such sorrow in this gathering, she could not add to it. Her own loss seemed not singular but rather one of many, unheralded.

Eyes on her were curious, inquisitive; not hostile if not (evidently) friendly. The minister smiled in her direction but rather stiffly, guardedly. White lady? Why’s she here?

As it turned out there were several white or very-light-skinned individuals at the meeting. One of these was lanky-limbed with his hair tied back in a slovenly ponytail—for a moment Jessalyn thought this might be Virgil. (It wasn’t.) Another was a tall gray-mustached man in a Stetson hat, wearing a dark-rose embroidered shirt and a black string tie, at whom Jessalyn found herself staring—felt her heart thud in her chest, and her hands jerk with a rush of blood.

Him. The man in the cemetery.

The man who’d found her glove. Called her “dear”…

But the tall mustached man was involved in an intense conversation with several others and took no notice of the (white) woman at the rear of the church.

A sharp-voiced white woman sporting a mane of ashy-blond hair, in gaudy quilt-like clothes, turned to stare at Jessalyn, and to glare at her; here was a middle-aged Caucasian hippie-activist, contemptuous of the diffident white woman of a very different background.

This woman’s companion at the gathering was a massive black woman with a stern Easter Island face, who turned to stare at Jessalyn with an air of outraged incredulity. She’d spoken from the pulpit in a fierce voice denouncing the “time-honored Christian tradition” of white racism and white indifference to black victims dating back to pre–Civil War times and here, as if to taunt her, was a representative of such racist-enabling Christians.

Jessalyn had never seen so large a woman in person, and she’d never seen anyone stare at her with such hostility. The woman was in her mid-forties perhaps, and must have weighed three hundred pounds; she was at least six feet tall, and wore a sack-like article of clothing that fell loosely over her bulk; her legs were columnar, and her (bare) arms were masses of slack, pocked flesh, enormous. Her face was massive as well, yet sharper-boned. Her eyes were accusing. “Yes? Ma’am? What d’you want with us, ma’am?”—in a mocking voice loud and assured as a bugle she called to Jessalyn at the rear of the church.

Jessalyn shrank away in embarrassment and unease. Why had she come to the Hope Baptist Church, to intrude upon these people who knew one another intimately, and had no need of her? Badly she wished she could escape but in a hoarse voice she managed to stammer that she’d wanted to contribute to SaveOurLives but her words were so faint no one seemed to hear.

Fortunately the massive woman with the Easter Island face and her ashy-blond-haired friend lost interest in Jessalyn almost immediately. Nor did anyone else take notice of Jessalyn except, out of politeness it seemed, the minister of Hope Church, who smiled worriedly in her direction, uncertain whether he should approach her, or take pity on her and ignore her.

How thoughtless and foolish she’d been, Jessalyn thought. An affluent white woman, a resident of suburban Old Farm Road, hoping to align herself with inner-city residents who’d suffered at the hands of white police officers, and through white indifference, not a single time but countless times: What had she been thinking? Lorene would charge her with white-liberal condescension. Beverly would charge her with lunatic recklessness. Thom would have been furious and Whitey would have been speechless, as deeply shocked by Jessalyn’s behavior as if she’d set out deliberately to betray and upset him. Driving into the inner city, alone!—Jessalyn McClaren, of all people.

So utterly intimidated by the situation Jessalyn dared not even reveal that her husband had died as a result of Hammond police brutality, no one wanted such an offering from her, indeed they did not want anything from her.

Yet, the minister decided to come to speak with her. He had a wan, worn face, kindly eyes, his impatience with the awkward white woman vied with his natural courtliness. She saw that he was older than he’d appeared at the pulpit, Whitey’s age at least. Maybe he knew Whitey McClaren, when Whitey was mayor. Maybe they worked together and were friends.

It was the most tenuous, the most pathetic of hopes. But she dared not suggest it. There seemed to her no words she could offer in the little redbrick church, no attitude that was not in some way condescending, or inadequate; ridiculous, self-serving and (unavoidably) racist. The massive stern-faced woman had peered into her white, shallow soul and annihilated her.

Vaguely Jessalyn had intended to donate money to SaveOurLives. For that purpose she’d brought along her checkbook. She had no idea how much money to give: $1,000? But she was thinking now that such a sum was too much, that it might surprise and offend these people; the massive woman would sneer at her, and the ashy-blond-haired woman would sneer at her, as a rich white woman who hoped to absolve herself of racial guilt by giving money. But was five hundred dollars too little? Was five hundred dollars both too much and too little?

In his will Whitey had left thousands of dollars to Hammond charitable organizations with ties to the black, inner-city community; he and Jessalyn had donated to these, as to the NAACP, for years. But the donations had been impersonal, mediated. Here, Jessalyn was exposed. Her generosity, or lack of generosity, could not be hidden. She wondered how much other visitors were giving—the mustached man in the Stetson hat, for instance.

The kindly minister stooped over Jessalyn, introduced himself and shook Jessalyn’s hand. He did not ask her name but thanked her gravely for coming. He did ask if her car was parked near the church. Rapidly Jessalyn’s mind was working: Should she make out a check for seven hundred dollars? (Not much, but nothing she could give would add up to much. The racial situation in the city seemed all but hopeless, during the very reign of the first black president of the United States.) Jessalyn wanted to apologize to the gentlemanly minister for having so little to give: her husband had limited the amount of money she received each quarter to prevent her being extravagant in giving money away to causes like SaveOurLives… But of course she couldn’t give such an excuse: it would seem to be blaming Whitey, the most generous of men.

In the end, as the minister looked on with some embarrassment, Jessalyn hurriedly made out a check for $1,500 to SaveOurLives. It was more than she could afford this month but she couldn’t explain that. Her face burned with shame, discomfort. “Ma’am, thank you!”—the minister smiled and blinked at her in genuine surprise, and shook her hand another time.

He had seemed to like her, at least. The others, at the front of the church, speaking intensely together, had forgotten her utterly.

The minister walked her to the door of the church. In some magical way, a click of his long deft fingers perhaps, he’d summoned a boy named Leander to “walk this lady to her car, please”—that happened to be in the parking lot of the Hammond Public Library three blocks away.

Tall spindly-limbed Leander was polite, taciturn with Jessalyn. He had not balked at the minister’s request though he did not appear to be thrilled with it. As he escorted Jessalyn to her car she tried to make conversation with him but he replied in mumbles—Yes’m. N’m. The distressing thought came to her—Should I give Leander something? But—of course not. I should not.

At her car Jessalyn thanked Leander for his kindness and Leander muttered Yes’m and quickly edged away.

She could call after him—but she did not.

Of course, she should not.

Driving home she felt her heart pounding against her rib cage as if she’d narrowly avoided a terrible danger.

She might easily have given Leander a twenty-dollar bill—he would have appreciated it.

Yet, Leander might have been insulted by a tip. (He had acted out of kindness, not for a tip.) (She knew this: yet, knowing it, could she not in any case have given him a twenty-dollar bill as a sort of acknowledgment of his kindness, and not a tip?)

“But when is a tip not a tip? Is a tip always a tip? Is there no escaping—tip? If you are white?”

There was something debasing in the very word tip. Flippant, insulting. No one wants a tip.

The man in the Stetson hat, who’d seemed so much at home with the members of SaveOurLives, would know. Even if he laughed at Jessalyn he would not scorn her for asking.

By the time Jessalyn arrived at the house on Old Farm Road she was feeling very tired. Disgust and depression commingled in an ashy taste at the back of her mouth. The drive from Armory Street in downtown Hammond should have taken no more than twenty minutes but it required forty minutes for Jessalyn who stared through the windshield at the highway as if she’d never seen it before and who was assailed by panic that she might take the wrong exit, and become hopelessly lost in the city in which she’d lived most of her life. Rarely had she driven into Hammond, and virtually never in the night, returning home: Whitey had always driven.

If Whitey was in any vehicle, Whitey drove that vehicle. You would not want Whitey McClaren in the passenger’s seat reacting to your driving with grunts of surprise, alarm, disapproval and amusement, and braking motions of his right foot against the floorboard.

And how dark Old Farm Road was, without streetlights! Of course, it is a white enclave. Strangers are not welcome here after dark or before.

Belatedly Jessalyn realized that the minister would recognize her name from the check: McClaren. She hadn’t disguised herself after all; and if she had, to what purpose? Who could care in the slightest about her, or John Earle McClaren?

The strength that had coursed through her several days before and stirred such hope in her, such optimism, had now vanished utterly.

Her blood had turned leaden. Her eyes ached as if she’d been crying. A wave washed over her, of the most bitter grief.

What had she done?—Why had she done it? Driving so far from the house, behaving in a way of which Whitey would never approve, in fact in a way of which Whitey would have strenuously disapproved?

On shaky legs the widow entered the large darkened house from which (it seemed) she’d been gone a long time. The first shock was—she’d forgotten to lock the door: the knob turned too readily in her hand.

(How Whitey would scold her, leaving the damned door unlocked! She’d had this habit, careless, negligent, complacent for years that the house on Old Farm Road was inviolate. And since becoming a widow she was forgetting so much.)

Lights she switched on, in the kitchen. Was something wrong? What was wrong? Her vision wavered, she was close to fainting.

This sensation of blood beating in the ears. The widow’s heartbeat.

The second shock was: Whitey had died. How could she have forgotten? A wave of filthy water rushed over her—Whitey has died, and Whitey is dead. What are you doing, still alive!

Unbelievable to her, she had forgotten this fact. She had been walking about as if her life had not collapsed and ended, how was that possible?

She would be punished. Must be punished. Possibly, the punishment had already begun.

“Oh, God. Help me. Whitey…”

Someone, something, was in the house. She could smell the rank animal odor. Her own perspiring body, and yet more than just her body—the body of another.

She had scarcely time to be terrified as a creature rushed at her, scuttling across the kitchen floor on its nails or claws—matted black fur, big block-head, tawny squint-eye, lips drawn back from sharp glistening teeth in a petulant myrrgh?—she gave a scream, and shrank away; but it was only the cat, the cat she’d taken in, Mack the Knife—“Mackie.”

In her absence he’d devoured every particle of food in the cat bowls. He drunk all the water, or he’d caused it to spill by stepping in the plastic bowl.

She’d set a door ajar at the rear of the house, to allow the feral cat to come and go as he wished, for Mackie had grown demanding in the several weeks he’d come to live with her, and mewed loudly and persistently to be allowed out, and to be allowed in; and out again, and in. He did not like to be confined: he could not bear a shut door. If Jessalyn did not feed him promptly, he mewed in an aggrieved manner; if she did not feed him quite the (canned, moist) food he preferred, he nudged his head roughly against her legs hard enough to cause her to stagger. Sometimes, purring loudly and abrasively, Mackie kneaded his oversized paws against her legs, hands, or arms; sometimes, she hoped inadvertently, he raked his claws against her bare skin, and drew blood.

It was not enough to scold him: “Mackie, no! You must not hurt me, I am your friend.” For Mackie only just stared and blinked at her with his single good eye as if he’d never encountered anyone so naive as to attempt to reason with a cat.

He was hungry now. He seemed not so sensitive to the widow’s fraught nerves, her stricken face and air of desolation, defeat. As she managed to open a can of cat food he nudged against her legs, nearly capsizing her. By the time she emptied the fishy contents of the food into the bowl, Mackie had drawn blood on the backs of her hands, mewing querulously.

She staggered upstairs. The wave of grief was pounding at her now, near-suffocating. It was difficult to breathe. Beyond this, the pointlessness of breathing mocked her. Barely she was able to stagger into the bedroom where she fumbled to switch on a light, but there was no light—(had the bulb burnt out?); in a swoon of panic, despair she fell onto her bed.

Darling I’ve missed you. Don’t leave me ever again.

IN THE MORNING she came very slowly to consciousness. Like one who has been washed onto shore scarcely alive.

Could not move, so exhausted. Too exhausted to have removed her clothing, even her shoes.

Through the night the wave had beaten against her. Pounding, pounding without mercy. She had difficulty opening her eyes, her eyelids were leaden. Why did you think you could leave me? Betray me?

Her nostrils pinched: somewhere close by was a sharp animal smell. The creature was in the room with her, in the night he’d leapt upon the bed. She had encouraged him to make a nest for himself at the foot of the bed and he was there now. She could hear his deep breathing, that was a kind of purring in his sleep. And in his sleep, his stubby tail twitched. All of his legs, his big paws, twitched with the thrill of the chase, the catch. He had brought with him into the bed the remains of something he had hunted in the night, a bloodied furry shank, a part of a rabbit’s leg, or a part of its head.

Demon Rakshasa

He’d seen, in the rearview mirror of his car. He was sure.

The police cruiser surging near. Very near to touching his rear bumper.

We will run you off the road.

This time, we will finish what we started.

SO NERVOUS, he could not sleep. Could not lie still. Could not find a position in which to be comfortable.

Restless leg: something of a joke and yet not a joke. For the (left) leg was moving ceaselessly. The leg was running. Twitching. The foot was cramped. Each bone of the foot was aching, arching.

Sudden pain! Cramps in the leg, in the foot. Rousing him from his bed, he must walk, bring his feet down hard and flat on the floor. Bare feet. Though it was only “cramping” the pain was excruciating.

Sharp and fast like electricity. Tasered.

How he’d convulsed, on the ground at the side of the Expressway. Powerful bolts of electricity shot into his (unresisting, undefending) body prone on the littered pavement.

The (white) police officers’ shouts, screams of fury, rage. For what, why, how could such a thing possibly happen to him—as confounding months later as it had been at the time of the assault.

Why do these strangers want to kill me. If it is to cover up their own mistake, I have no chance.

All that he could sweep from his mind during the day, at the hospital, in the busyness of his work, in the neediness of others and in the resolve of Dr. Azim Murthy to be available to all who required him, came flooding back to him at night.

At night, vulnerable as a skull that has been sawed open, the derma pierced, the moist gnarled brain laid bare. Vulnerable as a victim of third-degree burns. One whose immune system has collapsed to a pinpoint.

Eleven days without sleep is the medically recorded limit for human beings. Beyond that, hallucinations, dementia, and death.

Of course, Azim has not been entirely sleepless. What happens is that as soon as he falls asleep his dreams are so disturbing he is awakened immediately covered in sweat and his heart pounding like a small, trapped creature.

The terror he’d felt. That the (white) police officers were going to kill him.

That they had not killed him is the greater mystery. That they regret not having killed him when they’d had the chance has occurred to him many times.

In his head the reel winds, unwinds. Starting with the siren suddenly so close behind his vehicle on the Hennicott Expressway and then beside his vehicle on the driver’s side.

Him? The police are forcing him off the road? Stopping him?

Out of the car. Out of the car. OUT OF THE CAR!

Your license. Your car registration. Keep your hands in sight! Keep your hands on your head! On the ground! ON THE GROUND!

No matter how he complied, how he protested, no matter how he groveled before the shouting men he could not avert the terrible beating to come and the guns from which sharp darts leapt and sank into his flesh and caused him to convulse like a violently shaken rag doll.

And through it all the conviction—How could such things happen to him?

Saved from a fatal beating (he is convinced) only by the white-haired stranger who’d dared to pull his vehicle off the roadway and intervene.

HIS CRIME, WHAT WAS HIS CRIME, is it a crime even now?—dusky-dark skin. Very dark hair, eyes.

It is a dusky-pale skin, in fact. It is, or was once, a smooth and unblemished skin, a healthy skin, not “dark” though (of course) not “white.” At a glance you can see that Azim Murthy is Indian, from the great subcontinent of India.

Yet still seeing their victim close-up, realizing that he was not a thug, not a drug dealer, not even a drug user, the (white) police officers did not cease their assault.

Infuriated at their victim for being not what they’d hoped for, they’d become more violent.

And their violence had spilled over onto Azim’s rescuer, who had bravely/recklessly intervened in the assault.

All this Azim Murthy will testify to the grand jury when he is summoned. He will not be intimidated, threatened.

He has promised the son of the deceased man—McClaren. He will not back down from this promise.

On the eve of the deposition in the office of the Hammond district attorney, Azim Murthy vows.

BUT THIS TERROR. It is familiar to him from long ago.

In the Bhagavathi temple in Kerala to which his parents had taken him and his sisters while visiting his father’s family in Cochin. Seven-foot demon Rakshasa—fangs like monstrous sharp-gleaming buck teeth, glaring mad eyes, multiple arms like spider-legs, misshapen fat-bellied body. Unspeakably ugly, hideous—the seven-year-old Azim had wanted to hide his face, hide his eyes, but had been paralyzed with fear.

Worse, the demon was a cannibal. Rakshasa devours male, female, children, the elderly. He slobbers as he eats. He is insatiable, his stomach is bottomless. From his cupped hands he drinks blood. With his fat lips he sucks at a skull. His fingernails are talons. But he is a happy demon, it appears. Rakshasa is not raging, or scolding, as a parent might scold. This demon’s joy is the misery of others, the cries and screams of his victims. For all whom the demon encounters are his victims. All, all are helpless before him. Piles of bones, skulls. Picked clean. Rakshasa is something of a scavenger as well, like a vulture, a hyena.

It is the efficiency of Rakshasa that most horrifies the child who is a practical-minded, bright child who scores high on all written tests and whose teachers in the United States praise him. An American child, indeed not “Indian”—the “Indianness” is only skin-deep (already at age seven Azim is sure).

Hands where we can see them! On the ground!

Drenched in sweat. Jolted awake. The creature has him in its fat taloned fingers.

AS A HINDU—(but Azim Murthy is hardly Hindu: he is thoroughly secular)—you discovered that the most hideous monsters are but incarnations of the single god who is the god of love. For how could it be otherwise when all is all, one is all, the deity inhabits all consciousness, you are the deity yourself.

To the adults the idols at Bhagavathi were “exotic”—not to be taken seriously. No more than, in their adopted country, Hallowe’en demons, witches, and vampires were to be taken seriously.

Of course, the idols in the Hindu temples were extraordinarily detailed. Carved, painted. Not like living persons but more magnificent than living persons because so much larger, so much more monstrous. The temple itself was frightening to a child with its heavy, heady smells of rotted things, stale urine. Incantatory chanting, long lines of pilgrims with glazed faces, eyes.

Why had the Murthys taken their children to such a place? To inoculate them? To infect them? To take pictures of their wide-eyed children gaping at the idols? They took pride in thinking of themselves as wholly secular, nonbelievers—“modern.” Both had gone to universities in the United States and both exalted most things American.

Their dream for their son, which he has fulfilled. Medical school, M.D., resident physician at St. Vincent’s Hospital for Children in Hammond, New York.

The residency in upstate New York had not been Azim’s first choice. But it was not a shameful choice. It would do well, for his first job out of Columbia medical school.

Except in their souls the Murthys remain Indian. His fiancée and her family who live in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, Indian. Struggle, hard work, but if you fail, passivity, fatedness. The way in which trapped in the viper’s jaws the small furry creature ceases to struggle, its eyes glaze over in the ecstasy of oblivion.

Who is Lord Vishnu? Vishnu is all-in-all, each incarnation of Vishnu contains all incarnations.

Rakshasa is the demon that will never cease. The god hides inside the demon.

Why?—that is your answer.

Of his own volition Azim had sought out the McClaren son. He’d agreed to allow the son’s lawyer Mr. Hawley to record his accusatory words. I was the reason Mr. McClaren stopped by the side of the Expressway. He was protesting two police officers beating me. He was a very brave man, he saved my life. The police beat him savagely when he intervened. They knocked him down, and kicked him, and shot him repeatedly with stun guns despite his age, and his being no threat to them. Even after he was unconscious they kept on shooting him with the Tasers like maniacs—as if they wanted to kill him.

He would swear. He was a witness. He’d suffered a terrible beating at their hands, and in the end they’d “dropped charges”—there had been no crime committed, all had been a ruse. He would seek justice for himself but more urgently, for the courageous John Earle McClaren who had died in protecting him.

The Hammond PD has issued only a terse statement that the “alleged assault” by police officers is “under investigation.”

The officers being investigated have not been suspended by the force but report for “desk duty.”

Their salaries have not been affected.

Azim Murthy will not be frightened by their threats. He will not be intimidated. He has filed a complaint with the Civilian Review Board. He will testify to the district attorney on behalf of the McClaren claim. He is much admiring of the McClaren son—Thomas. He has spoken with Thomas several times. He does not intend to betray Thomas. The McClaren loss is greater than his for he, Azim Murthy, had not died.

Next time we finish what we started.

HE IS AWARE: half his brain remains alert, wary while the other half sleeps. For half his brain is galvanized by fear that he will be murdered in his sleep if he dares sleep.

How has it happened, his chest is not a manly chest but thin-skinned, bony, the hairs that cover it are sparse and prematurely gray. What a sorry specimen Azim Murthy has become—and he’d been meant to be a man! Within six months he has become middle-aged. He is only twenty-nine, a part of his life has ended. Kicked, struck by their booted feet, Tasered. He has not told his fiancée. He has not told his family—of course. To explain his injuries, bruised face, limping, welt-marks from the Taser he’d concocted a far-fetched tale of tripping and falling on hospital stairs, hurrying down a flight of stairs when an elevator had malfunctioned. They had seemed to believe him. They revered him, of their several children he is the only son. Though they are secular Hindus yet they cannot help but revere the son above the daughters. How is that Azim’s fault? It is not Azim’s fault. He will not accept such fault. His parents do not interrogate him closely for they understand that his life as a rising young physician is beyond them to comprehend as it is beyond them to judge.

Impossible to tell them. If they learn what was done to him by the Hammond police they would be terrified for his life. They know of religious riots, massacres swift as flash floods, temples cordoned off, trains barricaded, explosives, fires, automatic weapons. Primitive blood-wars masquerading as religious wars. Hindus, Sikh militants. You cannot trust the police—you cannot trust uniformed men. Incarnations of Rakshasa. The Murthys do not speak of such things. They hide their eyes at gunfire on TV. They are baffled and repelled by American movies. They would insist upon sending their prized doctor-son back to India to live with his father’s brother who owns a radiology clinic in Cochin. Azim could be a doctor in the beautiful city of Cochin, his Columbia medical degree would be of great value. He would have a good life there. He will not have a good life in Hammond, New York.

In his misery he has no time to think of the future beyond the next week. Of course it is time to marry, his mother has insisted. He is not young: he must make amends for the delay. His fiancée must not know about the deposition. She is not much aware of the police assault, he has chosen not to confide in her. She is a young nervous woman. She is not so young, she is Azim’s elder by nearly two years: for a female, old. She has a good job as a laboratory assistant at Squibb pharmaceuticals. She plucks her thick eyebrows to prevent them growing together across the bridge of her nose. Azim is not supposed to know how she swoons with envy and jealousy of the gorgeous Indian girls, the slender Indian-American teenagers, their astonishing beauty, perfect olive skin, peony mouths. All of them so petite—never weighing even one hundred pounds. Her name is Naya which is not an attractive name in her own ears. She would have wished a more American name: Susan, Sarah, Melanie, Brook. She is sick with worry, when her fiancé sees her without clothes he will not like her. She makes up her face very carefully. Her lips are purple grease. Her eyebrows are given a delicate arch. Her eyes are outlined in black ink. Her breasts are heavy. Her hips are heavy. She is (is she?) heavier than Azim, at 148 pounds—that is her secret, she is terrified he will discover.

Azim scarcely thinks of Naya without a pang of apprehension, regret. Guilt. He feels no desire for her. Cannot maintain desire, the jeering (white) faces intervene. The Taser voltage, terrible electric shocks convulsing his body more violently than any orgasm.

“A NEW CAR IS LIKE NEW HOPE.”

A foolish saying, he isn’t sure if it is specific to his family—(his father repeating a father’s words)—or if it is very well known, belonging to “posterity.”

New car, new hope. One must hope.

Of course, he has bought a new car. Soon after the outrage of the previous October he traded in the Honda Civic for another compact car, a Nissan. Where the Honda Civic was white, a foolish eye-catching hue, the Nissan is a discreet silvery-gray like so many other vehicles, intended to blend in with its surroundings like the camouflage of a prey animal.

His reasoning is the reasoning of a desperate, almost a superstitious man—They will not recognize the new car so quickly.

(But what of license plates? His old license plates are on the new car.)

The Hammond police officers will have no difficulty identifying Dr. Murthy’s new-purchased car as his. Soon, a police cruiser will sideswipe his car. It is only a matter of time. When he leaves St. Vincent’s, and enters the Expressway at Fourth Street, the cruiser comes up swiftly and unerringly behind him. No one will know, no one will be a witness. No one dares to give testimony against the Hammond police.

In the parking garage he has seen them on foot (he thinks). A single shot to the back of the head. A single shot into his face, fired from the cruiser as it glides past his vehicle. Who would know? Who would care? The Indian community is not large in Hammond, all are law-abiding citizens who shrink from publicity and are not to be associated with radical causes. Especially, they do not wish to be associated with Muslims.

Stray bullets in this part of Hammond. In what is called the inner city, that empties out rapidly by 6:00 P.M.

In the rearview mirror he sees the cruiser edging closer.

His eyes fill with moisture, he is so frightened. It is the very face of demon Rakshasa just visible through the cruiser windshield. In another second or so, the demon will nudge the bumper of his vehicle against the rear bumper of the Nissan…

Drenched with sweat Azim exits at Twenty-second Street. The cruiser does not follow.

Trembling badly Azim is grateful for slow-moving traffic on the ramp that moves, halts and jerks forward like a nightmare peristalsis.

IT IS THE EVE OF the deposition at Center Street. All day at the hospital his mind is fixed upon this fact. Staring at computer screens, decoding blood work. Dr. Murthy? Excuse me?

No. Wait. It is not yet the eve, that will be next week. Not yet, the grinning police officers will come to murder him.

For all of the Hammond police are his enemy. He is in their computers. Name, license plate number trapped in their computers like screaming prey in the mouth of demon Rakshasa.

Never will Azim arrive at 11 Center Street—he knows that now. He will not dare drive into the inner city on such a mission. Never arrive at the courthouse where he is expected at 9:00 A.M., May 11.

If Azim Murthy does not give his deposition, he may be subpoenaed. Will he be arrested? It is a lesser threat than the police threat of violence.

If he acknowledges that he saw nothing at the edge of the Hennicott Expressway, knows nothing and has nothing to testify, they will not harm him. That is the only way.

On the ground, fucker! ON THE GROUND.

Waking drenched in sweat. Another time.

IN THE BLEAK HOUR BEFORE DAWN staring at his ghost-image in the bathroom mirror he rehearses in the bright schoolboy voice he means to reclaim: “I think that I will return to medical school but in Buffalo. I will specialize in blood cancers. I will broaden my training. There are too many internists. I am already in debt, it will not matter if I am more deeply in debt. My fiancée’s family has promised that they will help. Certainly, they will help. Naya will see to that. She has all but sworn. There is much money in blood cancers. There is a rich future in blood cancers.

Recurring Dreams of the McClaren Children

After seven months still they dreamt of Whitey.

After seven months still each night was a rough journey from which they had no more protection than children trapped in a jolting cattle car.

Thom was saying how in his dream news had come that Whitey had been moved to another hospital—“In Buffalo, I think. The dream was about driving to Buffalo on the Turnpike but the drive was very complicated and tricky. And the vehicle I was driving was open—no roof. Something like a tractor, with huge tires. And the highway was under construction, or a bridge had collapsed, and I was stuck in traffic like the end of the world and it was dangerous—you needed to protect yourself with a weapon—a gun, a baseball bat. But I didn’t have any weapon, and there was no roof to this vehicle I was driving. And I was bawling—like a big, helpless kid—I didn’t know where the hell I was, what the hell was happening, why I was being punished, what I could do to get to Dad before it was too late…”

Lorene was saying she’d been having the same terrible dream essentially—“Dad is in a hospital in some other city. You have all left without me so I have to take a bus. A bus! I haven’t taken a bus for years. And when I get off the bus I don’t actually know where the hospital is. And when I finally get to the hospital it’s enormous, like a huge train station, the size of a city block. I can’t find the entrance, and keep walking around the outside trying to find a way in, and there are people coming up from some underground place like a subway station, with these blank, terrible faces and I’m confused thinking—‘Is one of these supposed to be Dad? Or—who?’ At the same time I’m supposed to be at school—there’s an assembly, I have to make an announcement—the auditorium is filled and they’re waiting but I have to see Dad first (in this other city, but I don’t know the name of the city or how far it is from school) and I have to make sure Dad is all right because there’s been some mistake in his treatment and none of you are around—not even Mom. And I’m feeling—just—so—awful…”

Beverly was saying her dream was like theirs but weirder and scarier because in it she was actually at the Hammond hospital except in Whitey’s room there was a stranger who was supposed to be John Earle McClaren but was not—“His face was blurred but you could see, he wasn’t Dad. He just wasn’t! But I had to act as if he was Dad—the idea was, I couldn’t insult this person if it turned out he actually was Dad—that was the crucial thing. Or, if it was Dad he had changed because he had passed away and it was up to us to keep him from finding out, because that would be crushing to him, just terrible. And Mom was there—(but it didn’t really look like Mom)—pleading with us, ‘Don’t let him know! Don’t let him know!’ (So I guess you guys were there, also. But I couldn’t see your faces clearly and you never said a word.) I had to go closer to the bed where the man was reaching out for me and trying to talk to me—like Dad tried, his mouth all twisted—and he touched me—my arm—and I was so frightened I couldn’t scream— And next thing I know Steve is shaking me awake and sounding annoyed, I’ve wakened him.”

Sophia was saying that she didn’t dream at all. Her sleep was smooth as raked sand. But often she was at the bottom of a sand pit, and when she tried to climb out the sand-walls collapsed and cascaded down onto her and there was the danger of suffocation—“This was in place of a dream of Dad. Somehow, I was made to know this. A voice like a voice over a loudspeaker—‘Because your father is not here, this is the dream in place of your father.’ When I try to wake up it’s the dream that cascades down over me like sand. But I can’t wake up, so the dream never ends though it isn’t—actually—a dream…”

Virgil was saying that personal dreams were of not much interest to him. A merely personal dream promises little of significance or worth to anyone apart from the dreamer trapped in the mire of the small soul.

Yet—(Virgil acknowledged)—since last October he’d been having dreams about Whitey, or more precisely the possibility of Whitey—“Set in some large building like a hospital, but not the Hammond hospital. And I am supposed to meet someone in this building, to ‘report’ to him. But I can’t find the right floor. I don’t know the right floor. I’m in an elevator, and pushing along an underground passageway where I can scarcely breathe, the air is so foul. And there are these people, strangers—in white hospital gowns, or death-shrouds—and each stranger’s face is vivid to me as if I have met these people and know them—they are people important to my life—except I’ve never seen them before, I’m sure. And Dad is supposed to be among these people somewhere, but I never see him. Or if I do, I don’t recognize him. I’m being knocked around, onto my knees, there are rough people here. But then I find a little hiding place like under some stairs. And there’s a way out, if I crawl on my hands and knees—a way out to the daylight, and fresh air. And then I think—‘He can’t see me, either. He is not watching me.’ And I get happier and happier like air blown into a balloon. Helium—laughing gas! And when I wake up I’m laughing and my face is wet with tears.”

May Heat

Fury mounted in him like mercury in a thermometer in rising heat.

Hot red mercury, in Thom it was hot red blood.

Sometimes he wanted to kill. Murder with his own hands.

In his car driving the Expressway. CD turned up high. Deafening. Hot frantic pulsing beat of Metallica.

Thom please turn down that music, please Thom we have to speak.

Pretending to be concerned for him. Frightened for him, and frightened of him.

Soon, the wife wouldn’t have to pretend.

IN HOT MAY. TOO SOON. Made him sick.

Like a girl you think is just a kid, young kid, twelve, younger than twelve, just a child then you learn Holly has had her first period and that is dismaying, and that is disgusting.

Not Thom’s own daughter, but yes, one of Thom’s nieces. Overheard Brooke and her sister Maxine talking about the girl who was only eleven and Christ!—he’d been shocked, dismayed. Next time he saw Holly couldn’t take his eyes off her and she’d asked, What’s wrong Uncle Thom? He wasn’t smiling.

SORRY. I’m afraid I will have to let you go.

But that was an awkward way of speaking. What he meant was Sorry. I’m afraid I have to let you go.

Better yet: Sorry. I have to let you go.

Still better: I’m letting you go. Three weeks’ notice. Sorry.

HE WASN’T, THOUGH. WASN’T SORRY.

Each day since Whitey had died and his remains had been consumed by flame at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit to a fine, gritty-powdery dust it had become increasingly hard for Thom to pretend to be sorry, patient, forgiving, kind.

He’d always been admired. Even as a boy. One of those tall husky frank-eyed boys whom adults trust on sight. He’d been what you’d call stalwart.

Now it was fuck stalwart. Fuck Thom.

These words like jolts of electricity coursing through his brain, he couldn’t shake off.

Fuck every fucking thing, they killed our father.

Hearing on TV fatuous commentators discussing politics. Price of gasoline, a sports team, weather.

Weather! Jesus fucking Christ.

How the dead would love to complain about rain, snow. How the dead would love to complain about anything.

Hearing his kids bickering, whining. His wife Brooke. His sister Beverly leaving a message in her breathy-girl voice Thom! Please call Mom tonight. Not that she will admit it but she is so depressed! And that horrible feral cat she has adopted—someone has to get rid of it…

“Fuck you, Bev. Get rid of Mom’s fucking cat yourself.”

Laughing. In a fury deleting her message.

And Lorene annoyed him also. Sending cryptic emails inquiring after the suit against the Hammond PD—“What’s the progress, or lack of? How much is this going to cost us?”

Thinking about the case roiled Thom’s blood. He had to remind himself that he had not ever actually seen Whitey beaten by two cops young enough to be his sons, had not ever seen the cops discharge electrified darts from stun guns into his father’s fallen body—this was the young Indian doctor’s testimony. But the vision assailed Thom as if he’d been a witness himself. Haunted him, made him want to kill.

“With my own bare hands.” (But why would a premeditated killer’s hands be bare?)

As of early May the case was stalled. Thom was sleepless thinking about the department’s attorney’s claim that sixty-seven-year-old John Earle McClaren had had a medical record of high blood pressure and that he’d been a “walking time bomb” at the time of the (alleged) police attack in October.

How to prove that the cops were responsible for Whitey’s death in the hospital? Whitey’s collapse? In a civil suit the likelihood of convincing a jury or a judge that the cops were liable was high; in a criminal case, requiring a unanimous jury verdict, not so high. Except for Azim Murthy’s testimony they had little to bring to the district attorney as evidence.

None of the others asked about the lawsuit. Not Jessalyn—of course. Beverly avoided the subject as one might avoid discussing a terminal illness. Sophia and Virgil would not have inquired even if they’d known much of Thom’s plans.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Wasn’t this the monkey-mystic logic in which Virgil believed? Passivity of Eastern religion in which nothing matters except to overcome human desire that anything might matter.

Thom couldn’t think of his brother without feeling a wave of disgust and disapproval. How it pissed him, their father had left Virgil exactly as much money as he’d left Thom, the father of children and Whitey’s right-hand-man at the company. As if he’d valued both his sons equally.

Since Whitey had died, the sons had kept their distance from each other. Thom didn’t think he’d seen Virgil since the disclosure of the will in the law office. In fact he hadn’t seen Virgil there.

Lorene kept him informed: “Virgil has bought himself a fancy pickup truck. He’ll probably purchase that farm for his commune friends.”

“Fuck Virgil. What the hell do I care what he does with his money?”

“Because it’s Dad’s money. Or was.”

Thom marveled how his sister could take time from her busy schedule at the high school to needle him on the subject of their younger brother, as on the lawsuit against the Hammond PD. Was this Lorene’s break from work? Her recreation? Had she no friends, not even online companions in meanness? Beverly had told Thom that Lorene had feuds with certain of her faculty who feared and resented her and were waiting for her to misstep so they could agitate to bring about her fall.

Yet Lorene had confided in Thom in an unguarded moment that she missed Whitey—“Like, all the time. I miss Dad just being. He was so proud of me when I was promoted, and I try to think of that now he’s gone.” She’d paused, considering. “I mean, in the beginning it had seemed that Dad was just away somewhere, but he’d be back and we should keep things going as they were. But now it’s sinking in, he isn’t coming back. So that leaves us—where?”

“Mr. McClaren—”

“Thom. Please call me Thom. There was only one ‘Mr. McClaren.’”

“‘T-Thom.’” The name sounded oddly in the woman’s voice, like an echo in a small space.

Some of the staff at McClaren, Inc. knew Thom McClaren from when he’d been a boy. Newer employees knew him as Whitey’s older, adult son, who’d taken over Searchlight Books and moved away to Rochester. Now, Thom had moved back to Hammond, and was bringing the (small, all-female) Searchlight staff back with him, as the new CEO of McClaren, Inc.

He’d hoped to hell, Whitey had said, that he’d outlive certain of his employees so that he could hire better replacements. Since he hadn’t the heart to “downsize.”

The new CEO wasn’t going to have that problem. A week into his father’s former quarters Thom was preparing his hit list.

Perusing the books. Whitey’d never shared with him.

Past quarter. Earnings, expenses. Operating costs at all-time high, projected costs expected to be higher. Insurance, building maintenance, employee benefits.

Staring at Whitey’s old Dell computer that had needed replacing years ago. Slow-moving as (you’d imagine) one of those dinosaurs with very long tails and small heads—Brontosaurus. (In his room as a boy Thom had had model dinosaurs hanging from the ceiling from wires. Why’d he love dinosaurs so much? Even as an adult he’d been crushed to learn that the authenticity of Brontosaurus had been questioned by paleontologists and only somewhat mollified to learn that the skeptics had been mistaken, maybe.) Swivel in Whitey’s old, creaking chair—the seat smoothed to fit Whitey’s buttocks—to stare out the window in the direction of the Chautauqua River, barely visible beyond rooftops and rusted water tanks and a tangle of telephone wires. This was the downtown scene like a painting by Edward Hopper to which Thom’s father had been so attached, he’d wanted never to leave.

Before even Whitey McClaren was born, McClaren Printing, Inc. had occupied a suite of rooms on the eleventh, top floor of the dignified old brownstone building locally known as The Brisbane. Originally built in 1926, The Brisbane had long been the most prestigious of Hammond office buildings as it had been the tallest. Now, many buildings in downtown Hammond were taller including a new Marriott of more than twenty floors, flashy and rude-seeming, blocking part of the view from McClaren, Inc.

When he’d taken over Searchlight Books Thom had insisted on moving the subsidiary company to Rochester; McClaren, Inc. had grown cramped in its quaint Edward Hopper quarters, and he’d had no interest in an office on a lower floor in the same building, in such proximity to Whitey who’d have wanted to have lunch with Thom five days a week and insist upon taking him to chamber of commerce meetings, business dinners with clients, receptions at the Marriott. It was pressure enough to get a call from Whitey once, sometimes twice a day, and to hear that air of scarcely disguised impatience, exasperation in his father’s voice.

Worse, Whitey’s habit of praising Thom as he praised everyone, lavishly, promiscuously, condescendingly—“Great work! Thanks.”

Whitey’s way of manipulating others, Thom knew. You soon caught on as one of Whitey’s children.

Still, it did bring a thrill of a kind, those cheering words—“Great work. Really great work! Thanks.”

Whitey had been impressed with Thom’s work at Searchlight Books. He’d given Thom a good deal of responsibility rather quickly as if to see—(but surely Thom was imagining this)—if Thom would crack under the strain.

Had to be gratified, Whitey took the most pride in Thom. Expected the most from Thom.

Whitey had a sharp eye for flaws, typos, infelicities of design. Carefully he proofread each page, each paragraph of prose to be rendered into print by McClaren, Inc., from pamphlets of a few pages to handbooks of hundreds of pages—“The buck stops with the CEO,” he’d liked to boast.

He’d always read the books Thom published, or read through them, even the breathless YA novels of Christian girls torn between boys who believed in Christ and boys who didn’t (yet) believe in Christ. On shelves in his office he’d kept copies of Searchlight books in chronological order of publication and it was touching to Thom to see that they were displayed with pride.

Some of the school textbooks had bookmarks in them. When Thom opened these it was to discover poems that Whitey must have liked—excerpts from Carl Sandburg’s The People, Yes, Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Death of the Hired Man.” In a high school anthology he’d marked an excerpt from Henry David Thoreau:

(What was it, then? What were they after? Thom hated riddles.)

(Not that Whitey knew much about fishing. From stories he’d told, he had been taken fishing by male relatives as a boy, black bass fishing in Lake Chippewa, but he’d never caught a single damned fish and that had included ice fishing as well.)

His father hadn’t wanted Thom to move his family and relocate Searchlight Books in Rochester but he’d given in, finally. Whitey had been a shrewd businessman as well as a proprietary and somewhat possessive father and he’d seen that Searchlight Books could become a serious moneymaker if properly developed.

He’d been frankly surprised that Thom’s subsidiary had done so well. Each quarter, profits rose. The YA novels were written to formula by earnest, middle-aged women writers who were eager to sign multi-book contracts for modest advances and royalties; the textbooks were edited by academics at small universities and community colleges, also eager to be published.

Whitey hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that The Brisbane was no longer a prestigious address and that the building itself had become weatherworn, shabby. Why did it matter that the foyer downstairs was tiled in (now grimy) black-and-white octagons and the solid-oak doors to each suite were frosted glass? Why did it matter that the (sole) elevator moved with elephantine slowness? That there was (Thom recalled as a child, shivering at the sound) an actual echo if you called up the stairwell? Whitey thought of The Brisbane as a sort of vertical village populated with doctors, dentists, businessmen like himself: he’d always had a dread of being alone.

He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that Hammond was gradually emptying out like so many American cities ringed by white suburbs. He wouldn’t consider relocating, he’d hated the look of blandly affluent, corporate-type office buildings in the Hammond suburbs, that lacked souls.

Souls. A curious usage for Whitey who’d prided himself on not being religious in any conventional way.

That joke he’d made about Houdini. Vowing to return from the dead to attest to the fact of an afterlife but—of course—Houdini had never returned.

The joke, if that was what it was, had made Whitey’s children uneasy. How could it be funny, Daddy saying the terrible words when I die? Sophia, only five at the time, had looked as if she were about to cry.

None of them had known who Houdini was, very precisely. Lorene had thought he was some sort of famous sailor. Thom had known that he’d been a magician but had had no idea how famous and how ingenious his performances had been.

When he’d become a father Thom resolved that he would not ever make enigmatic remarks, still less unfunny jokes, about death, dying, anything to upset a child. He would not.

“MR. McCLAREN—”

“Please call me Thom. There was only one ‘Mr. McClaren.’”

“‘T-Thom…’”

Breathy voice. Streaked and strawlike hair. Staring wide-eyed at the new CEO in Whitey McClaren’s old swivel chair as if hypnotized.

You know, “Tanya.” You know what this is. Can’t you make it easier for both of us?

These months Thom had become irritable, edgy. He hadn’t broken down to weep for his father (or if he had, he couldn’t recall; and no one saw him) but he came close to weeping for other reasons, frustration, dismay, despair. Fury. Felt as if he’d been locked in a box (precisely the size of Whitey’s old office) and the oxygen was being pumped slowly out.

Seeing in the eyes of Whitey’s faithful staff their unease with Thom whom they didn’t trust, scarcely knew. He had yet to praise them as Whitey had, in Whitey’s negligent kingly way—Great work! Thank you.

Fourteen full-time employees in the office, most of them long-term. Just a few were relatively new, young, digitally trained, skilled at computers and online salesmanship, Thom’s age or younger.

These young employees Thom intended to promote, with substantial raises. They were the future of McClaren, Inc.

The eldest, who’d worked for Whitey McClaren for most of their lives, Thom hoped not to terminate, at least not within the year; but he planned to shift their responsibilities, assign them tasks of which they were capable. He would monitor their work closely. He would freeze their salaries.

(Time to retire? The oldest employee was seventy-one.)

(McClaren, Inc. had excellent retirement benefits in which Whitey had taken particular pride.)

One of the newer employees with whom Thom wasn’t so impressed was a young woman named Tanya Gaylin, a graduate of the local community college with a degree in communication arts and graphic design. Tanya wore clothes to catch the (male) eye, very short skirts and low-cut blouses; she cast covert glances at Thom which (for the most part) he hadn’t acknowledged. Her cubicle in the open office, small as a closet, was adorned with Day-Glo flowers and snapshots. Annoyed with her work which was frequently slapdash and sloppy as if quickly prepared, Thom had not criticized Gaylin in front of the others but invited her into his office to speak to her in private.

Each time, she’d seemed surprised, as if no one had ever found fault with her work before; each time, she quickly became silent and sullen. In her eyes was a look of disbelief and resentment as she was made to realize that Thom McClaren wasn’t nearly so charmed by her as his father had been.

Following Thom’s suggestions she’d revised her work, to a degree.

But in the end, more experienced coworkers would have to finish it.

Today, Thom invited Tanya Gaylin to speak with him in his office, in the late afternoon when most of the others had gone home. It would be her last day at McClaren, Inc., Thom was determined.

“Miss Gaylin. ‘Tanya.’ I’m afraid—I hope this isn’t a surprise—I’m going to have to let you go.”

Not at all what he’d rehearsed. Stilted, awkward. Made him feel like a dentist extracting a tooth with a pliers.

Wide-eyed Tanya seemed not to comprehend. Have to let you go—what did these words mean?

She smiled hard with sharp-defined crimson lips. She was not so young as she appeared in her short skirts and high-heeled shoes: in her mid-thirties. Her low-cut cotton-knit sweater fell forward to expose the tops of bulging breasts, from which Thom averted his eyes, frowning.

He had discovered to his surprise that, though Tanya Gaylin was a relatively new hire at McClaren, Inc., her salary was disproportionately high. As an assistant to the graphic designer she made nearly as much as the graphic designer did. Her mascara eyes glared at Thom and her breath came sharply.

“I—I—don’t understand. Mr. McClaren—Whitey—your father—said he liked my work. He hired me himself, and he always praised my work. There was, like”—Tanya paused before plunging on—“an understanding between us.”

“Was there? What kind of understanding?”—Thom was careful to speak politely.

“A—an—understanding. Between Whitey and me.”

Whitey. Don’t you dare call my father “Whitey.”

“Yes, you’ve said. And what kind of understanding was this?”

Tanya licked her lips. Very carefully she said that sometimes, Whitey would ask her to stay after work in the office—“To go over a brochure design if there was, you know—a deadline for it.” There was something suggestive in the phrasing after work in the office which Thom did not care to ponder.

“And—Whitey would say, ‘I like your style of doing things, Tanya.’”

“Did he! Well.”

“Just before your father got sick there was a rush order for the Squibb brochure—we were working on it together—and—when it got to be late,” Tanya said, fluttering her eyes and daring to plunge forward, “Whitey said we should have dinner together, and so—at Lorenzo’s…”

Tanya’s voice trailed off inconclusively. Her eyes were fearful and defiant, fixed on Thom’s face.

“That was just one example! Whitey took me to dinner more than once—he might give me a ride home. He always liked my work, from the start—my designs, and my copy. He’d have one of the copy editors go over my copy to fix up little mistakes but mostly he was never critical—he would say ‘Great work, Tanya! I like your style.’ He was a gentleman.”

Thom let her speak. The more silent the man, the more the woman will speak, inanely, recklessly. Tanya’s lavishly made-up eyes were damp. Not tears of hurt or alarm but (Thom guessed) tears of resentment, dislike.

Finally he had to speak:

“I’m afraid, Tanya, that I don’t share my father’s appreciation of your ‘style.’ I think that your work is substandard for McClaren, Inc. and you’ve had a long enough time to adjust to our standards. And so, as I’ve said—I have to let you go.”

Still, Tanya was staring at Thom with a look of astonished hurt.

“You have three weeks’ notice. But don’t feel obliged to come into the office during this time.”

Thom was not taking pleasure in this. He was not!

Go away now for God’s sake. Please.

Tanya protested, as he’d known she would:

“But—Whitey was my friend. He wasn’t just my boss, he was my friend. He cared about me. There was an understanding between us. He asked about my life—my divorce. He was really, really sweet and supportive. It was such a shock—when news came of him, in the hospital. I went to see him there. I brought him flowers—he used to bring me flowers here, sometimes—like, for Valentine’s Day—just kind of joking—but beautiful flowers. He did! He was the most wonderful friend and I miss him so! My heart was just broken when I heard what—what happened. Your father would never, ever fire me the way you are doing—he would be very angry about this, if he knew—how you are treating me—you are not giving me a chance—‘Thom’—your father would be so upset about this, he was such a gentleman and so kind about everyone, other people’s feelings, he wouldn’t like your behavior at all.”

Thom resisted the impulse to shut his eyes. If the woman uttered the reproachful words Your father one more time he couldn’t predict what he might do.

“I—I met your mother, once. She didn’t know me—of course, she had no idea who I was. ‘Jessalyn’ would be surprised to meet me now, I think—if I went to visit her…”

Tanya was speaking boldly, recklessly. A crude flush had come into her face and she wasn’t so attractive now.

“Is this a threat, Miss Gaylin? Is that how I should interpret what you’re saying?”

Calmly Thom spoke. He was resolved, he would not lose his temper as so frequently lately, with his family, with strangers, he was doing.

“It’s a—a—whatever you want to think it is! Whitey would be so, so upset—if he knew how you are treating me—”

“Is it a threat? You’re suggesting that you intend to intrude upon my mother’s privacy?”

“N-No. I didn’t say that.”

“But you suggested it. Didn’t you?”

“I—I did not. No.”

“Not trying to blackmail me, are you? ‘If I visited your mother…’”

“No…”

“Well, good. That’s good. Because if you ever try to see my mother, or communicate with my mother, if you ever speak of my father to my mother—you will regret it, Tanya. Do you understand?”

Tanya’s lips were trembling. Yet, like a reckless child she persisted, “Why’s she so special?—‘Jessalyn.’ Looking right through me like I didn’t exist.”

Seeing his face Tanya backed down. Here was a face from which defiant adolescent children quickly backed down.

“Well, I’m sorry. I guess! It’s just that I miss your father so much. There were some kinds of—you could call them ‘promises’—Whitey had made to me… It isn’t the same without Whitey, here. Everybody says so.”

“You won’t mind so much leaving, then.”

Tanya was looking as if she might burst into tears. None of her stratagems had worked against Thom McClaren.

Was it possible, Thom wondered, that the woman had genuinely cared for Whitey? Loved him?

He’d hardened his heart against her. He would never forgive her for the things she’d said, especially about his mother.

“Good night. Goodbye.”

He was on his feet. The conversation was over. He was trembling badly with a wish to grab hold of the woman and shake her until her teeth rattled and tears spilled down her cheeks powdered to an apricot sheen.

It was nearly 6:00 P.M. The outer office was deserted. Everyone had departed. Only Tanya Gaylin remained, and Thom McClaren. If Tanya lingered at her cubicle, wiping at her eyes, breathing harshly and muttering under her breath, half-sobbing, Thom kept his distance, and did not hear, and when finally he left his office a half hour later, to lock up, Tanya Gaylin was gone and the cheery crap with which she’d decorated her work space was gone.

He’d already hired a twenty-three-year-old graduate of the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse to take Tanya Gaylin’s place. He would pay Donnie Huang nearly as much as Whitey had been paying Tanya Gaylin but he would expect more of Donnie Huang than anyone had expected of streaked-blond short-skirted Tanya.

AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN US. Whitey and me.

Met your mother. Why’s she so special…

“I like your style.”

Mixed with the car’s air-conditioning fan, turned up high. Insinuating, insidious words he knew he had better make every effort to forget.

“PLEASE, THOM. NO.”

“Daddy, no.”

The wife did not want to move from Rochester to Hammond. The children did not want to move from Rochester to Hammond. The children had never lived in Hammond, and knew that they did not want to live in Hammond where their grandparents and cousins lived and where they visited a few times a year for family occasions. The river that ran through Hammond—the Chautauqua—was nothing like the fast-moving, turbulent river that ran through Rochester—the Genesee. The downtown buildings of Hammond were nothing like the downtown buildings of Rochester. The children were in high school, middle school. Their lives were their friends—how could you live without your friends? Their alarm could not have been greater than if their father had presented them with a perverse and inexplicable decision to relocate to Mars.

Pleasantly the Daddy said that he respected their wishes but he was now CEO of McClaren, Inc. and McClaren, Inc. headquarters were in Hammond. And headquarters were going to remain in Hammond. So Daddy was moving to Hammond, and they had the option of coming with him or remaining where they were.

Bravely Brooke hinted, maybe yes. Maybe they would remain in Rochester, for the time being at least.

(Did Brooke mean this? From the quivering mouth, the evasive eyes, the way in which her voice lifted like the soft, startled cry of an animal whose paw has been stepped-upon, not quite by accident—Thom guessed not.)

Telling her in his most pleasant Daddy-voice that certainly that was a possibility for her and for the children. For the time being at least.

“You can stay in Rochester but it will have to be in another, smaller place. I can’t afford two houses. There’s a property in Hammond that’s just come on the market, on Stuyvesant Road, a few miles from my parents’ house, that I’d like to consider. You can find a condominium, if you want to stay here. The kids won’t need to transfer to new schools. I can see you on weekends. We’ll work something out. What’s called ‘visitations.’”

So affably Brooke’s husband spoke, you would not be likely to detect the fury in his heart.

And then, the most profound shock.

A call from Bud Hawley informing Thom that their witness Azim Murthy wasn’t returning his calls or emails. The grand jury was in session and the district attorney had planned to present the McClarens’ case the following week.

Thom was stunned, disbelieving. How was this possible? Murthy had come to him, to volunteer his testimony against the police officers. And Hawley had recorded it.

Hawley explained that the young Indian doctor—their sole “witness”—hadn’t been under oath. There was no way to force him to cooperate. If a witness has second thoughts it usually means that someone has gotten to him, to intimidate him. That would be the Hammond police.

“We could insist upon a subpoena. But Murthy could claim he doesn’t remember—he’d been injured by the police himself, his memory was affected. If he’s been threatened by them there’s no way we can prove it.”

“But—can’t we use his testimony? He came to us, because he knew about Whitey. He’d volunteered…”

“We can’t use a witness’s testimony if he recants. No.”

“Why the hell not? There’s only one reason the witness would recant, because he’s been threatened. The district attorney knows this, he has heard the testimony. What do D.A.s do in these cases?”

“Offer police protection. But in this case, it’s the police our witness needs to be protected against.”

It was sickening to Thom, the irony of such an impasse. For there is a complacency in irony, the resignation to what is intolerable. Thom’s heart beat quickly in revulsion.

Gleeson, Schultz. Thom knew their names well.

Murderers, racists. Still on the Hammond PD payroll, though not at the present time allowed to carry guns.

They’d never been arrested. They’d never had to account for their actions publicly. An internal review was “in progress.” Through the department counsel they had issued their flat, lying statements: their actions against John Earle McClaren and Azim Murthy had not been excessive but warranted under the circumstances, for they’d feared for their own lives in an encounter with “violent” men they’d had reason to believe might be armed.

Nothing could shake them from this defense. Apart from Azim Murthy’s testimony there were no witnesses. Whitey’s remains having been cremated without an autopsy weakened their case, which had to be made on medical records and the cell phone pictures of his father that Thom had taken, which were open to disputed interpretations. Thom recalled how he’d pleaded with his mother to allow his father’s body to be autopsied, but Jessalyn had become emotional and refused. He was dismayed by her, even now. His dear mother, acting out of a naive and unexamined sentimentality, had undercut their case, which was Whitey’s case—why couldn’t she have tried to understand, at least? But Thom supposed it was his own fault, he hadn’t wanted to argue with her. He hadn’t wanted to upset her any more than she’d been upset.

Hawley had warned him at the time, this would be a mistake. And Thom had known. Yet, he’d drawn back from confronting Jessalyn. He would not reproach his mother now, allowing her to know that the case had been sabotaged by her wifely scruples. If he discussed it with her, as he rarely did, he would tell her about Azim Murthy’s defection. And that was true enough, and disappointing enough.

A lawsuit was like a quagmire, or rather was a quagmire: you might step into it of your own volition, but having stepped in, you lose your volition, you are drawn in, and down, and are trapped.

He’d known this, Thom was no fool. He’d been dealing with lawyers through his professional life. And Whitey had been involved with lawyers through his professional life. You could not run a business without being protected by a team of lawyers, and you could not retain a team of lawyers without paying their exorbitant fees.

Yet, Thom couldn’t help but feel that the case would be presented to the grand jury, and that the grand jury, consisting of Hammond citizens, people like Whitey himself, would be sympathetic; they would vote to indict the murderers, and there would be a trial.

Beyond this, Thom couldn’t bring himself to think. A part of his mind exulted in Gleeson and Schultz being found guilty of second-degree homicide, and sentenced to prison; another part of his mind, more sober, subdued, doubted that this would ever be.

The purpose of the criminal case was to secure a kind of posthumous justice for his father, and to expose and punish Hammond police brutality and racism. If there was a civil suit, its purpose wasn’t to win a large settlement but to bring the Hammond PD to its knees.

“I don’t want money, I want justice for Whitey.”

How many times over the past several months had Thom uttered these words.

It had become an obsession with him, the case. Even at McClaren, Inc., in the midst of a crowded schedule, Thom found time to call Bud Hawley to ask how things were going.

“Reasonably well, Thom. As Whitey used to say, ‘Things could be a lot better, and things could be a lot worse.’”

The most diplomatic of answers, intended to assuage concern without exactly answering it.

It became a desperate matter, Thom needed to speak to Azim Murthy. He couldn’t believe that Murthy would betray them—betray Whitey. After how grateful he’d been, how adamant, in his belief that Whitey had saved his life.

But Hawley tried to dissuade Thom from trying to contact Murthy. Their relationship should remain mediated through him, Hawley said. It could be a terrible mistake to contact Murthy directly, and to get into some sort of quarrel with him.

“If he doesn’t want to talk to you, don’t force it. Don’t pursue him.”

Of course, Thom understood.

“He’s been frightened. He’s in fear of his life. It took extraordinary courage for him to come to you initially, but he was angry then, and feeling reckless, and now it’s months later, and he has to live with what he’d done, and that isn’t so easy. So don’t, you know, stalk him.”

Fuck you. Mind your own fucking business, it’s what you are paid for.

Fury mounting in Thom like molten lead. Red-hot, pulsing.

After months of planning Thom was seeing victory about to be snatched from him. Badly he’d wanted a trial, a public forum in which his father would be alive again, in the minds and memories of those who’d known Whitey McClaren, and even those who had not known him. He’d been so certain that this would happen, must happen: the police officers were guilty, and Whitey had been such a good, decent, courageous man. And Dr. Murthy, a young doctor misidentified as a drug dealer, a sympathetic victim of police brutality and racism as well.

The more he thought of it, the more likely it seemed to Thom that this must happen, as he’d originally planned. Hawley must be mistaken, or had misunderstood: Murthy was on their side.

The vehemence with which the young Indian doctor had spoken, when they’d first met. His gratitude for Whitey’s intervention. His rage at the Hammond cops… How could that not have been sincere? Thom had felt for Azim an almost physical yearning to embrace him as a brother.

But when Thom called the numbers he had for Azim Murthy, no one ever picked up. And when Thom left messages, no one ever called back. His emails flew like missiles into an ether of oblivion, never answered.

Finally, Thom tracked Dr. Murthy down at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

Seeing Thom in the corridor, the young doctor visibly shrank back. He knew at once what Thom wanted, and waved his hands in a flutter of helplessness, stammering nervously that he couldn’t talk now, he could not speak with Thom now, he was very busy—“Please excuse me, I cannot. I am sorry.”

In his face an expression of guilt and sorrow. But determination as well. So Thom retreated, reasoning that he had no choice: if he caused a scene in St. Vincent’s security officers would be called.

Instead, through a series of discreet calls, Thom determined what Azim Murthy’s hospital schedule was, and the next evening positioned himself at the rear of the building, where Murthy was likely to pass on his way to the staff parking garage.

Was this “stalking”?—Thom didn’t think so.

A stalker was an irrational person, mentally unbalanced. Most stalkers were thwarted lovers.

Seeing Thom, Murthy would have hurriedly retreated back into the hospital, but Thom adroitly out-maneuvered him so that both men were outside the revolving doors, at the rear of the hospital. It would have been very awkward for Murthy to try to press past Thom, and he did not try.

How could Azim go back on his word to Thom?—How could he betray Whitey? These were questions Thom asked frankly. He did not accuse Murthy of deceit; he spoke as if only just puzzled, and hoping for an explanation.

Evasively Murthy said it had all become very complicated. He’d had to realize that he wasn’t sure any longer what he remembered, and what he had surmised, or invented, or dreamt. He could not swear that he’d actually seen Gleeson and Schultz beating and Tasering Thom’s father—he could not swear with 100 percent certainty that the officers he’d seen at the edge of the highway were the very officers who would be in the courtroom as defendants. “You see, I was on the ground. My eyes were beaten, my head was beaten. My ears were beaten, one of my eardrums had burst and I could hardly hear. I had not seen the police officers’ faces clearly. I could not pick them out of a crowd. If it comes to a court trial and I am questioned by their lawyer, he might force me to take a vision test which I would fail, for my eyes are nervous eyes—if I am agitated, my eyes water so badly, I really cannot see well, and I cannot read. It could all turn against me—I could be charged with perjury! I have looked up the law, there are terrible things that can happen. So you see, Thom, I am so very sorry—I cannot testify after all.”

Murthy spoke rapidly, chaotically. He was smiling at Thom as one might smile at a snarling dog in a futile hope of placating it even as the ghastly smile infuriates the snarling dog further.

“Azim, wait. Please, let’s talk…”

“We have talked! We have talked but on a confused subject. I was not in full possession of the situation, of my impaired knowledge of it, as I am now. I am certain of this.”

“Has someone threatened you? Is that it?”

Thom loomed tall over the slender young man, intimidating him without knowing what he did. Murthy’s dark eyes were widened, shiny, showing white above the rim of the iris. Murthy was desperate to escape Thom, hurrying to his vehicle in the parking garage, all but running as Thom followed close behind him, trying to reason with him.

“If I could promise you that you would not be hurt—by anyone—that would make a difference, wouldn’t it?”

“No! There could not be such a promise. Good night.”

“Azim? Wait. You know that my father saved your life, don’t you? How can you betray him, now? You would not really betray my father, would you? Azim?”

“I am telling you, please—no. And now I must leave, I cannot talk further. I have said everything that I can say, I have explained to Mr. Hawley—no.”

Very close, Thom loomed over the smaller man. His eyes swerved in their sockets, he felt such a powerful yearning—to seize hold of the man, to grip him intimately and punishingly as a brother, to shake him, to make him listen, to make him come to his senses. With a cry of fear Murthy pushed from Thom, losing his balance but managing to half-fall into the front seat of his car, causing the horn to sound.

“No no no no. I am telling you.”

Murthy was terrified of him. Absurdly, of him.

No choice, Thom had to let Murthy go. The last thing he wanted was a physical confrontation, a public scene. Had to stand there fucking helpless as Azim Murthy, his sole witness, his brother who’d betrayed him, drove his dark-silver compact Nissan jerkily out of the St. Vincent’s parking garage, and out of Thom McClaren’s sight.

“One thing I can do. I will do.”

Rid his mother of the feral tomcat that had entered her life out of nowhere.

From his sisters Thom had been hearing for weeks of Jessalyn’s adopted stray, mysteriously named Mackie. Thom had yet to have a confrontation with the tomcat, which was rarely in the house when he stopped by; only once, as he’d entered the kitchen, and called for Jessalyn, he’d been startled by a blurred shadowy shape rushing out of the room and he’d heard claws frantically striking the tile floor as the animal fled through a part-opened door at the rear of the house.

He’d smelled the cat, though. Unmistakably.

He’d seen the plastic food bowls set out for the cat, on newspaper on the kitchen floor. A water bowl in which the cat must have dipped a bloody snout, or dipped bloody paws.

What a pathetic sight! His mother setting out food and drink for the wild creature, like an offering at an altar.

Never before had there been anything like this in the kitchen of the beautiful old eighteenth-century house on Old Farm Road.

Of the sisters Beverly was the most incensed. She called Thom to complain that their mother had taken in an ugly, scarred, dangerous and probably diseased stray animal—“You know, feral cats have all kinds of diseases like feline leukemia, parasites, rabies. This one is psychotic as well! It looks at me with its evil yellow eye and I just shudder. It should be taken away and euthanized before it attacks Mom.”

Lorene complained that the animal was hostile to her though she’d tried to befriend it—“I don’t like cats much, so I’ve been making an effort with this one, for Mom’s sake. But it’s always baring its teeth at me, and hissing. Mom is afraid of it, I can tell. It has scratched her arms terribly. It should be taken away and euthanized before something tragic happens.”

Both sisters wanted the tomcat euthanized but (Thom took note) neither was volunteering to take it to an animal shelter. That was for someone else to do.

Sophia told Thom that she’d been surprised to see a large black tomcat at their mother’s house, part-feral and part-domesticated. So far as she could gather, the cat had appeared a few weeks before on the rear deck of the house, very hungry, and grateful for food Jessalyn set out for him.

“Mom hasn’t had a pet since she’d been a girl, she says. Dad never wanted any pets. She has become very attached to Mackie even if—to us—he isn’t very attractive, at least at first glance. He’s large and stocky and not very graceful. One of his eyes is a scarred socket and the other is tawny yellow, and squinting. His fur is thick-matted black with white markings like dabs of paint. His purr is very loud—like a motor. When you first hear it you can’t quite figure which direction it’s coming from. I think that, most nights, Mackie sleeps with Mom, on the end of her bed, which maybe isn’t such a good idea if he has some sort of feline disease. I’ve told Mom that he should be taken to a vet’s as soon as possible and given shots. If he hasn’t been neutered, he should be.”

Thom waited for Sophia to suggest that the cat be euthanized, but she only added, as if Thom had already raised an objection, “Mackie seems to make Mom happy, and a little less lonely, and that’s all that matters.”

“Really? Couldn’t Mom be ‘happy and a little less lonely’ with another, nicer cat? A normal-sized cat? Why a stray with only one eye and a habit of clawing her?”

“I don’t think that Mackie has a habit of clawing Mom, exactly,” Sophia objected. “He can be nervous if you touch his head the wrong way, or pet him at the very end of his spine, by the base of his tail, so he reacts, and sometimes with his claws—but he doesn’t do it deliberately, you can tell. Lorene says he’s vicious, and will never be housebroken, but I’ve seen him just a few times, and each time he has been better adjusted. He has obviously been an abandoned, stray cat for a long time, living a rough life. He might be younger than he appears—feral cats don’t live nearly as long as house cats. But he does make Mom happy, and she was so sad before.”

A debased sort of happiness, Thom thought. What if our mother contracts rabies!

When Thom asked Jessalyn about the cat Jessalyn said defensively that he’d come into her life by chance, and that must mean something.

Thom wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. Must mean something?—What was Jessalyn saying?

An ugly old stray tomcat wandering into his mother’s life, allowing her to feed him, invested with meaning?

Thom thought, with a shudder—Jesus! Is that pathetic.

Just as well that Whitey couldn’t know that his wife whom he’d loved so very much had succumbed to a morbid fixation upon an ugly tomcat missing one eye.

“Well. You should take him to a vet, to be examined, in any case. I could help you.”

“No! Mackie would be very upset if anyone tried to put him into a carrying case. I don’t think that’s a possibility.”

Jessalyn spoke excitedly. Her hands fluttered like wounded birds.

A vet would surely want to euthanize the feral cat, Thom supposed. Jessalyn must have been thinking that, too.

It fell to him to provide the solution, Thom thought. His mother wasn’t able to think clearly on the subject of the cat, as on other subjects since Whitey’s death, and it did no good to press her.

Quickly Thom formulated a plan: he would “euthanize” the cat himself, and no one would know.

So far as Jessalyn could know, the cat would have disappeared. As mysteriously as it had appeared in her life, it would disappear.

Thom determined when Jessalyn was going to be away for an evening, at an event at the Hammond Arts Council, and that evening he went to the house on Old Farm Road, which was darkened, and brought his baseball bat with him. He wore gloves, and he carried a burlap sack.

In stealth Thom entered the house in which he’d lived for so many years as a boy. He did not call “Mom?” as usual; instead, he called “Mackie?” in what seemed to him an affable and affectionate voice. “Kitty-kitty-kitty!” If the wily tomcat was in the house he did not come to this stranger calling him by name.

Calling “Kitty! Kitty! ‘Mack-ie’!” Thom prowled through the downstairs rooms switching on lights. He might have gone upstairs but decided against this.

The spirit of his father brooded here. But more obviously upstairs than downstairs.

“Mackie? Kitty? Come here.” Thom shook a small bag of dry cat food, to entice the cat; but still no cat appeared.

Jessalyn had happened to mention that she still left food for the cat outside, on the rear deck. There were times when the cat seemed fearful of entering the house, for no reason that Jessalyn could discern, and so she made sure that there was always plenty of food outside for him.

Quietly, Thom let himself out onto the rear deck. Since he no longer lived in this house, but recalled it intimately, there was a curious doubleness in his experience—he was both an inhabitant of the house, and a visitor; in this case, a surreptitious visitor. He was sure that, in all of his life, he’d never entered this house, or any other house, in such a way: invisibly.

Thrilling to him, such a state. His heart beat lightly in elation.

Overhead, a faint quarter moon. It was a predator’s moon—not too bright, veiled, ideal for hunting. The day had been unpleasantly warm for May, rife with seeds and pollen, a smothering density to the air. But night was different.

A cat is a nocturnal predator, Thom thought. Of course “Mackie” would prowl by night.

Thom would hide in the shadows against the wall of the house, and wait for the tomcat to appear, to approach the bowls Jessalyn had left for him; he could linger here at least an hour, or a little longer. Jessalyn was attending a fund-raiser dinner that would last a minimum of two hours. He intended to be gone well before she returned.

Thom was noticing how, since Whitey’s death, all things that Jessalyn did seemed but random acts, of no significance. If she attended the Arts Council dinner, or if she did not—it came to the same thing: nothing.

A widow is one to whom things happen, but randomly.

Jessalyn hadn’t told Thom this. Not quite. For Jessalyn would never share such a terrible truth.

Fact is, if Whitey were alive, and had accompanied her to the event, it would have been a festive occasion, shimmering with significance.

For Jessalyn was one of several Hammond women being honored at the dinner, for their effort in overseeing the council’s funding campaign, now nearing its (triumphant) end. She would be warmly applauded by the gathering. Her picture would appear in local papers. Whitey would have been enormously proud of her.

Without Whitey, however, the occasion meant nothing to Jessalyn. Words of praise and affection lavished onto her meant nothing, or suggested mockery. One more thing for the widow to endure.

Thom would rid her of the loathsome disease-bearing tomcat, at least. Though other matters in his life and in the life of his unhappy mother were not in his control, that he could manage to do.

Like a predator, Thom hid in shadows against the wall of the house. His gloves were on his hands, and his hands gripped his baseball bat. He was prepared to wait, and took pleasure in waiting; he had no doubt that the animal would appear, if he was patient enough. He would be patient.

Twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes… The faint quarter moon moved in the sky, in and out of a thin cloud-layer like an eye that is veiled, yet still vigilant. When he roused himself at last, hearing something close-by, at least forty minutes had passed.

He strained to see in the darkness, like a nocturnal creature himself. There it was—the husky tomcat: so quietly had it crept up the steps to the deck, and along the very edge of the deck, Thom had nearly missed it. And now, quivering with hunger, it began to eat from one of the plastic bowls.

Swiftly Thom acted, swinging the bat down onto its head. There came a shriek, horrific, hideous, as the creature tried frantically to escape, while Thom brought the bat down again, and again, shattering bone—vertebrae, skull—even as the terrified animal tried to crawl away on its belly; then it convulsed in an expulsion of blood from its gaping mouth, and ceased struggling.

The bat was slick with blood. The deck-slats were slick with blood. Thom wished he’d laid down burlap, or newspaper, to soak up the blood. What had he been thinking?

The creature lay lifeless, a mound of wet dark fur. Without looking at the body too closely Thom pushed it with the bat onto the strip of burlap, and wrapped it up securely, and shoved it into a garbage bag; he was panting, uncomfortably warm, beginning to feel regret for what he’d done. The tomcat was not nearly so large as it had seemed but rather diminished in death, pitiable. Thom was stricken with remorse. The cat had only wanted to live. Now you have taken its life from it.

He dragged the garbage bag around the house to his car in the driveway, and lifted it into the trunk—the creature’s lifeless body was surprisingly heavy, like something sodden. In the trunk, the bundle lay unmoving; yet Thom imagined he could hear a faint, irregular breathing inside. For a full minute or more he stooped over the bundle, listening, not knowing if it was his own breathing he heard, or the tomcat’s; finally, he decided that it was his own breathing, and not the cat’s.

Next, he had to clean the deck, wipe it down with paper towels, with hot water, soap, disinfectant. He worried that Jessalyn would see that the roll of paper towels beside the kitchen sink was badly depleted; it was like Jessalyn to take note of such small household matters. (“Thom? Did you use up that entire box of Kleenex so soon? I just put it in your room last week.”)

He was moving swiftly, yet numbly. He was feeling sick with regret. Ridding his mother’s household of the diseased stray had seemed like a very good idea, a necessary idea, in fact it had been his sisters’ idea, not Thom’s; but now, he had changed his mind. The doomed cat had tried to live, desperately, valiantly—its cries had been terrible to hear, like the shrieks of a baby.

(Thom hoped to God that no neighbors had heard, and had called 911 reporting shrieks at the darkened McClaren house.)

(Of course, that was unlikely. No one would call 911 for such a reason: predator animals killed their prey frequently here in the country, in the night. Raccoons, owls, prowling cats, coyotes. This killing had been one of these.)

Thom wiped the dampened deck with a final swath of paper towels, and threw the befouled trash into the garbage bag with the animal corpse. There! A fait accompli.

By this time it was almost 9:00 P.M. He must escape!

On his way back to the apartment he was renting in North Hammond Thom deposited the garbage bag in a Dumpster behind a 7-Eleven.

“Never again! Jesus.”

Felt like hell. His soul burnt and wizened like something moist that had been left out in the sun.

But then, he consoled himself: “Don’t be ridiculous. You did the right thing.”

(Was this so? Euthanizing the diseased, one-eyed cat?—the right thing?)

(If Jessalyn knew, she would never forgive him. But if Jessalyn truly knew how her son wished to protect her, she would certainly forgive him.)

Not that night but the following morning Thom called Jessalyn to ask about the Arts Council dinner. Surprisingly, she said nothing about Mackie being gone. Thom was reluctant to ask her about the tomcat, and Jessalyn did not volunteer; instead she told him, with a rueful laugh, that, at the dinner, virtually no one had mentioned Whitey to her, though the last time she’d seen most of these people had been at Whitey’s memorial.

“It’s as if he has stepped off the earth. Just—gone.”

Thom listened sympathetically. He could hardly tell his mother—Yes, that is what Whitey has done. Stepped off the earth.

They spoke for a while longer, but not about Whitey, and not about Mackie. By the time Thom broke the connection he’d sweated through his shirt.

Already he was at McClaren, Inc., in his office, early. But too late now to return to his apartment to take another shower and put on a fresh shirt.

Next day, guiltily, Thom called Lorene. He told her that he’d seen Jessalyn just before the Arts Council event but they’d spoken only casually. He said nothing about the feral cat, and he said nothing about the murder; and Lorene said nothing about a missing cat, if she’d heard about a missing cat.

Another day, and Thom called Beverly, who’d attended the Arts Council dinner and spoke at length about it, at much greater length than Thom wished; but Beverly had nothing to say about a missing cat.

Another day, and Thom could bear it no longer: he returned to see Jessalyn in the evening. His pretext was to speak with his mother about the court case, which Thom was determined not to give up, though he’d had a setback, and McClaren, Inc., the family business which seemed (to Thom) like a vehicle that had been moving along a roadway at a steady speed but had now begun to accelerate, to descend a near-imperceptible hill, moving ever faster, and faster, inadvertently, but irresistibly. How to jump off? Should he jump off?

But as soon as Thom stepped into the kitchen, before even calling for Jessalyn, he saw, to his horror, the squint-eyed black tomcat there before him, lapping water from its bowl on the floor.

“Jesus! You.”

Unperturbed, Mackie lifted his head and fixed his single, tawny eye upon Thom. A defiant look seemed to pass from the cat to Thom—Yes. Here I am. This is my home.

Jessalyn hurried downstairs to greet Thom and saw that he was looking distracted, anxious. “Thom! Hello, dear. Please come in…”

Hugging him, tight. He could feel her ribs, the frailness of her being. No!

It was a delicious cold supper Jessalyn had prepared, served to Thom in the kitchen, which appeared to be the only downstairs room Jessalyn inhabited now. He’d brought a bottle of red wine which he drank entirely himself. Though Jessalyn called Kitty-kitty! Mack-ie! several times, wanting the tomcat to come and be petted by Thom, and demonstrate for Thom his remarkable purr, Mackie kept a wary distance, and did not purr; most of the evening he spent curled up on a chair in a corner of the kitchen, licking with surprising daintiness at his big forepaws and washing, in brisk circular motions with these paws, his big furry head.

Visions at Dutchtown

It is not a dream exactly, this conviction that her eyelids have been ripped from her eyes. So that she is awake continuously. Visions flood her brain.

“MA’AM? Anything I can help you with?”

Yes, probably. Soon.

No. Not ever again.

Shocked to see the face of someone she’d known, in that other lifetime. Saturday afternoons at the Dutchtown Farmers’ Market across the county line in rural Herkimer County, a forty-minute drive from the house on Old Farm Road.

The woman, a farmer’s wife, had grown gaunt and wizen-faced where once (as Jessalyn recalled) she’d been solid-bodied, flushed with health. She’d never hesitated to lift heavy packages to load into Jessalyn’s car trunk, not stooping to lift the packages but bending her knees in a practiced motion, gripping with the crooks of both arms, unerring. She’d been very friendly, and may have seemed to the (older) McClaren children just slightly simple-minded, being so very friendly, and always asking their names, which she would never recall; always calling Jessalyn “ma’am” though she was older than Jessalyn by as many as twenty years.

Today, the farmer’s wife wouldn’t have been recognizable to Jessalyn if Jessalyn had met the woman elsewhere. Nor was Jessalyn, white-haired and alone, diminished in widowhood as a plant after the first frost of the season, recognizable to the farmer’s wife.

And where was the farmer?—an older man even at that time, now certainly long retired, vanished.

Shawcross—that had been the name. Jessalyn knew better than to ask where Mr. Shawcross was.

“I’ll take this. And this. Oh, this is beautiful—thank you…”

Lush, wet-bright-green romaine lettuce, red-leaf lettuce, spinach with veined and sand-flecked leaves, crinkled dark-green kale…

She was feeling giddy, selecting these greens. As she’d have felt if she were going to prepare a lavish meal that evening.

For if you have bought such beautiful fresh produce presumably you are planning to prepare it for others to eat, and if you are not planning to prepare it for others to eat, why have you bought it? Jessalyn supposed that she could drive by Beverly’s house, and give the greens to Beverly; but this was risky, for her daughter would certainly insist that Jessalyn stay for dinner with the family, and Jessalyn preferred to be alone.

(In fact, there was nowhere Jessalyn felt more alone than at the Benders’ where she was obliged to impersonate “Granma Jess” and where Beverly and Steve spoke cuttingly to each other as the children bickered at the dinner table until such time as they were released, to run upstairs to their rooms and beloved electronic gadgets.)

“Oh, you’re lucky! Or very brave. No one in my family will eat kale. Especially not my husband.”

At these airy playful words Jessalyn glanced around, and saw a woman smiling at her, a woman not unlike herself, casually dressed, yet tastefully dressed, a woman with glittering rings, blond-rinsed hair, manicured nails. The woman had spoken in such a way that Jessalyn might acknowledge her remark, or ignore it altogether, without being rude.

“My husband hates kale. He prefers iceberg lettuce to red-leaf.”

Jessalyn heard herself speak lightly, entertainingly. It was to make the woman laugh, or at least smile; and the farmer’s wife, gaunt and wizened Mrs. Shawcross, she too was invited to laugh, except preoccupied Mrs. Shawcross was putting the greens in bags, and may have been hard of hearing.

“My husband thinks there are just five dogs in our house but in fact there are nine.”

What was this? Dogs? Jessalyn had no idea what the woman was saying and felt the need to move away, and move on.

“I should explain—we have a large house. The dogs are never in one room at a time.”

“Oh yes. That’s—good.”

Jessalyn smiled vaguely, paid for her lavish, lush greens and edged away from the friendly woman with blond-rinsed hair and five dogs, or was it nine. The woman remained behind to engage hard-of-hearing Mrs. Shawcross in conversation, and to make purchases of her own.

Dutchtown Farmers’ Market in the rain. A strange place to be alone.

There were not many customers at this hour, in the early afternoon. Jessalyn estimated that only about two-thirds of the usual number of farmers had set up their stands along the asphalt strip near Dutchtown Pike, Herkimer County. Bins of fresh produce and some meat (steaks, pork chops, chicken, turkey, beef sausage) protected by strips of rain-splattered tarpaulin, but not very well protected.

Why did you come to this dreary place, darling? What are you hoping to prove?

Feeling for a moment that she would faint! Recalling walking here with Whitey, on a sunny autumn day, hand in hand. Along the rows of farmers’ stands. A purchase of fresh-cut flowers—those flowers with myriad curly petals, soft-pastel-colored, what was the name?—a hybrid chrysanthemum, Whitey had selected. She remembered Whitey striking up conversations with farmers and their wives, how amazing to her, how wonderful, that Whitey could talk to anyone, and enjoyed talking to anyone; like a politician, though Whitey hadn’t (in fact) been a very adroit or ambitious politician, he’d remembered names, he’d remembered the names of children, where people were from, what their interests were. If you’d asked Whitey why, why on earth, why expend so much energy on strangers who did not overlap with your life, who had not the faintest idea who you were, Whitey would have said that was exactly why: to no purpose.

Jessalyn remembered chickens in large cages, for sale. White-feathered, red-feathered, gray-speckle-feathered. And smaller, beautifully feathered game chickens. Their excited clucks when they were fed seed. Now there were only dead, defeathered chickens for sale hanging upside down.

The smell of manure, Whitey had claimed to like. At a distance, like skunk.

Even in the rain, huddled beneath a tree, a half-dozen ponies were waiting to be ridden. But who would ride them in the rain? Jessalyn wondered. Who were the parents who would allow their children to ride ponies in even lightly falling rain?

The farmer who owned the ponies had had to herd them into his truck very early that morning, Jessalyn supposed. All of the farmers began their days very early, when everyone else was in bed. You had to have faith, if you had a stand at the Dutchtown Farmers’ Market, that rain would lighten in time; if your competitors left early, or failed to come at all, you would persevere, for that was your life.

Beneath a dripping tarpaulin Jessalyn stood, watching the ponies.

Their slow-swishing tails, thick manes and somber eyes. Why does a pony or a horse seem so much more somber than (for instance) a cow, or a pig? These were compact, comely animals, not beautiful as horses are beautiful, their bones not so easily shattered. Or so Jessalyn thought.

The children had loved pony rides when they’d been young. A pony ride was so thrilling! Jessalyn recalled Sophia clutching at the mane of a palomino pony—but the child’s face had been tense with fear. Jessalyn recalled Thom, seated in a saddle on a pony’s back, lowering his toes to the ground, stretching his legs to demonstrate how tall he’d become.

The children hadn’t seemed to mind swarms of flies tormenting the ponies, even the pony’s eyes. Or possibly, the children hadn’t noticed.

Thom had been the first to lose interest in ponies. The first to lose interest in coming with his mother to the Dutchtown Farmers’ Market to buy fresh produce and flowers.

In those years Whitey hadn’t time to accompany Jessalyn but he’d liked it that Jessalyn bought things at the farmers’ market, not at local food stores like everyone else they knew. One more (small, significant) fact about his dear wife that made her special.

A birthday outing for Lorene, that was to begin with pony rides at the Dutchtown Farmers’ Market and end at the Zider Zee Inn a mile away on a bluff overlooking Lake Ontario. Thom, Beverly, Virgil, Sophia—and Whitey had promised to join them at the inn for lunch.

Always Jessalyn would remember waiting for Whitey—the children waiting for Daddy—at the inn, at the special window table Whitey’s secretary had reserved for them; the older children growing peevish, and especially Lorene whose (eleventh) birthday it was; and finally a call came for “Mrs. McClaren”—it was Whitey, apologizing for being unable to join them after all.

Jessalyn gave the phone to Lorene, who listened sullenly to Daddy’s excuses. From Lorene the phone was passed to Beverly, to Virgil, to Sophia, to Thom, and to each of them Daddy apologized profusely, and made Daddy-jokes at which they laughed. (Though Lorene had not laughed.) And so back to Jessalyn who assured Whitey that no one was angry with him but yes, they were disappointed.

And Lorene said, smirking, “Listen to you, Mom! You never say anything you mean because you don’t mean any damn thing you say.”

So startling an outburst for a girl of eleven, Jessalyn could not think of a reply. Fumbling with the phone, which was a cordless phone brought to her by the Zider Zee hostess, as the other children looked on in embarrassment.

THAT FINAL TIME JESSALYN DROVE the children out to Herkimer County to buy pumpkins for Hallowe’en, in Whitey’s new SUV in which five children including two teenagers could fit easily. No question of Whitey accompanying them on such an excursion any longer, his work at McClaren, Inc. had become far too pressing.

Family life had become the mother’s province almost exclusively. The father’s province was outside the home.

Of course, the older children were almost too old now for these drives into the countryside. Long sloping hills, cornfields, wheat, soybean, forests. Cows, horses, sheep grazing in fields, like creatures asleep and dreaming on their feet.

Billboards proclaiming “historic” Dutchtown (founded 1741)—“It’s a sure sign that a place is totally boring,” Lorene remarked dryly, “if it has to boast of being ‘historic.’”

The mother laughed. For Lorene was witty, funny. The mother did not dare not laugh, for fear that her dislike of her middle daughter would become too evident.

Beverly said, in rebuke, “You’re boring.”

In the backseats the children squabbled. In the front seat, beside the mother, Sophia, the youngest, stared out the window silent and mesmerized. Especially, horses fascinated the child. It was like a fever to her, imagining their pounding hooves.

Sophia was the child the mother most loved. Was this obvious? The mother hoped not.

Hallowe’en. How quickly it came each fall! No sooner were the children back in school, and it was Hallowe’en.

The mother had not ever liked Hallowe’en. The most discomforting of holidays, if that was what it was.

All Hallows’ Eve, but now just Hallowe’en. No one knew what it meant and so it meant nothing. Skeletons, witches, black cats, death. Filmy cobwebs strung across front porches, cloth-bodies hanging by their necks from trees like lynching victims.

As if children have the slightest notion of death! And if a child did have such a notion, it was to understand that death was not funny.

Jessalyn had lost her own mother when she’d been in high school. The brick facade of the school festooned with ghostly figures, bright orange pumpkin cutouts, plastic skulls with hollows for eyes.

She’d helped put up these childish decorations, for Jessalyn was one of the good girls, and there is solace in such goodness.

She lacked the courage not to be good. Not even Whitey knew that.

Thinking how Hallowe’en encouraged young children to imagine that something exciting was imminent but the excitement never materialized. Your masks and costumes were just silly. Looking through the eyeholes of your friends’ masks were their eyes. You saw them.

She’d lost the memory of her mother. A woman’s face, a presence, a voice—fading like a Polaroid photo.

Though sometimes a vise tightened around her heart, she could scarcely breathe for yearning, grief. Don’t be silly. You are the mother now. This is what has happened to you. At such times praying that she would die before Whitey, for she could not bear such a loss another time.

Ah, Whitey! He had claimed her as his, he had made her his young bride, he had promised never to abandon her.

“It was a more innocent time, when no one put razor blades into apples to give to children.”

At the pumpkin market telling the children about her memories of Hallowe’en when she’d been a child.

A more innocent time: Had it been? Was any time innocent, except in retrospect?

So many pumpkins, and some grotesquely misshapen like gigantic goiters. The largest pumpkin resembled an obese person, orangey flesh melted to a circumference of five or more feet, weighing beyond thirty—fifty?—pounds; someone had carved clownish eyes, nose, mouth into this monstrosity, at which the children stared with repugnance.

In mockery Thom whistled.

“Looks like some fat lady. Christ!”

There was a sexual overtone to Thom’s whistle, the mother did not care to acknowledge. Beverly retorted: “It looks just as much like some fat man.”

But no, the misshapen pumpkin more resembled a female than a male. At fourteen Beverly was particularly sensitive to remarks about fleshiness, breasts and hips. Jessalyn drifted away, so that the children would follow.

Virgil was asking anxiously why did people put razor blades in apples?—to cut the mouths of trick-or-treaters? Why?

“Because some people don’t like trick-or-treaters. Or children,” Lorene said.

“Yes, but—why?”

To Jessalyn Lorene said, “Mom, I don’t think that ever happened, razor blades in apples. Someone just made that up.”

“Of course it happened! We read about it.”

“Yes, you read about it, but it was all invented.”

“My goodness, why?”

“Why? Why’s anything invented?” At twelve Lorene was easily exasperated by her sweetly naive mother. “To get attention. To get the attention of credulous people.”

Beverly too was easily exasperated, by her sister, whose fancy words she resented: “You’re ‘credulous.’”

Thom pointed out that there were “copycats” every Hallowe’en. Once the razor blade story began to circulate.

“So if there are copycats, there have to be actual razor blades,” Beverly said loudly. “That proves it.”

“Oh, stupid! Proves what?”

Like knives in a drawer, knocking together. The older children did not seem to like one another yet could not resist one another, vying for the attention of a parent—the mother, the (usually absent) father.

She did not like them, though she loved them. She loved them, though she did not (much) like them. They were all actors in a script who inhabited distinctive roles, that could not change.

Well, this was hardly true of the youngest children. They would change, the mother was sure. In unpredictable ways.

The little girl nudged against the mother’s thigh. In public places Sophia liked her hand held, as if she might become lost from her mother otherwise. A small soft pliant hand, and the little girl nudging against her leg, in a way that broke the mother’s heart.

Virgil had chosen a subtly misshapen pumpkin without a carved face. “His name is Jimmy Fox.”

“Oh, you’re so silly, Vir-gil! Why Jimmy Fox?”

“’Cause that’s his name.”

Thom lifted a heavy pumpkin, that slipped from his grasp, and shattered on the ground. “Damn! I’m sorry.”

How casually Thom murmured damn!—as his father would have done. Jessalyn did not entirely approve yet felt a kind of pride in her adolescent son, for whom adulthood would be not much more difficult than putting on a succession of new clothes.

Beverly winced, and made a fastidious face. The shattered pumpkin was like a shattered head, the spilled seeds like brains.

There followed then some discussion whether Jessalyn would pay for the pumpkin. The farmer assured her that it was all right, just an accident, she did not have to pay; Jessalyn insisted of course she would pay. Thom said again that he was sorry, and offered to pay for the shattered pumpkin himself. (Thom had an after-school job bagging groceries and was intent upon saving his money.)

Primly Lorene said: “I think Thom should pay. He’s always lifting things, showing off how strong he is, and breaking things. He should learn responsibility.”

Thom said, hurt, “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was just going to put it on that cart.”

“You were showing off. You always are.”

“I was not. I was helping Mom.”

Jessalyn had been watching several girl bicyclists walking their bicycles at the pumpkin market. Their faces were flushed from the bright, chilly October air and their physical exertion. In fact they were not girls but women in their late twenties or early thirties, attractive in colorful tight-fitting spandex that fitted their lean bodies like gloves, and on their heads were shiny safety helmets, straps beneath their chins. Their bicycles were sleek, Italian-made, with low handlebars and raised seats and behind each seat, a bottle of Evian water.

One of the young women wore fingerless gloves! Jessalyn had never quite understood fingerless gloves.

These were serious bicyclists on an outing of many miles in Herkimer County, very likely along the cliff at Lake Ontario where the beauty of the choppy dark-blue water as well as the perpetual wind could take your breath away.

Jessalyn stared, and smiled. She saw the bicyclists’ eyes move over her and the children, with only mild interest.

She thought—I could be one of you.

She felt a surge of elation. Heedless, mindless, thrilling. So staring, Jessalyn could scarcely look away from the bicyclists, to pay attention to what Sophia was saying, tugging at her hand.

Wait. Wait for me…

But the bicyclists were moving away. Three of them, conferring together. No pumpkins for them, with their sleek lightweight bicycles, and no wire baskets, and no children to impede their motion.

She had married the man who’d loved her. She had rejoiced in the man’s love, she had allowed herself to be adored as a woman who was someone other than herself, and this woman she had become, to please the man who loved her. What was wrong with that? What was the mistake in that? Otherwise, the children would not exist. Virgil with his “Jimmy Fox” pumpkin, little Sophia squeezing her hand. Thom with his wallet in his hand and a wounded expression on his face, seriously intending to pay for the pumpkin he’d dropped onto the ground as his sisters looked on, bemused, jeering.

“Don’t be silly, Thom. I’ll pay.”

“THANK YOU.”

“Thank you.”

She’d bought so many things at the farmers’ market, her arms ached pleasantly.

Fresh produce, fresh flowers, jars of honey—she hadn’t been able to resist. At each farmer’s stand she’d said she was having a “large, family dinner” that weekend. At one stand she said that she and her husband were celebrating their fortieth anniversary.

“Congratulations, ma’am! Forty years…”

Important to her too, to distribute money among the farmers on this rainy market day. Seeing in their faces when they thought no one was observing expressions of disappointment, tiredness.

She had outlived her life, she thought. She had not been a mother to children who really needed her for many years. When the last child, Sophia, had left home years ago she’d wept but also drawn a deep breath of relief, or resignation.

Her life had come to a halt. So long as Whitey had been alive, she had not realized.

Like cotton candy in the rain. Easily melting, sugary and silly, of no consequence. Her soul.

NOT AT THE ZIDER ZEE Inn but at the smaller Dutchtown Café she’d met Thom, without Whitey knowing, or Brooke knowing. For Thom had said he had to see her, it was crucial.

Thom was in his early thirties at this time. His hair was still a burnished red-brown rising thick from his forehead. He had the look of a boy who’d wakened to find himself a young husband, father. Speaking with Jessalyn he’d rubbed his knuckles against his eyes in a way he’d done for most of his life, that made Jessalyn cringe, and want to snatch his hands away from his face.

She didn’t feel that she could do that, any longer. Reach out and touch any one of her children, now “grown up.”

Gravely he was saying to her, he didn’t think that he could do it. He wasn’t the one. Whitey had other, more suitable relatives—nephews, cousins.

“I don’t love the business the way Dad does. I tried but—I just can’t.”

“Don’t tell him, Thom! That would break his heart.”

Jessalyn remembered now, with a pang of guilt.

The tarpaulin coverings flapped in the wind. A sad sound as of weak applause.

“NINE DOGS. SHELTER DOGS. Each one is precious to me. Each one is a life I have saved.”

The rinsed-blond woman was named Risa. Earnestly she spoke to Jessalyn as if (almost) she wanted to take Jessalyn’s hand.

She’d called out to Jessalyn excitedly as Jessalyn was being led to a table in the Zider Zee Inn. For an instant Jessalyn had been tempted to turn away, pretend she hadn’t heard; she’d asked the hostess if she might be seated out in the glassed-in porch where long ago she’d taken the children for Lorene’s birthday, and where she and Whitey had sometimes dined. But Jessalyn was too polite to reject the rinsed-blond woman, who was looking so hopefully at her.

“Hel-lo! What a coincidence! Will you join me?”

Jessalyn smiled faintly. Of course.

“Or are you meeting someone?”

“I—I—I am meeting my husband, but not until later. He’s working, in Hammond and is joining me later…”

“My husband isn’t working, and he isn’t ‘joining me later.’”

The rinsed-blond woman laughed as if she’d said something witty, if obscure.

Risa Johnston. Jessalyn McClaren. As they introduced themselves Jessalyn saw the woman frown slightly hearing “McClaren” as if (perhaps) she recognized it; but she said nothing which was both a relief to Jessalyn and a disappointment.

Risa was having a glass of wine. Would Jessalyn join her?

“I don’t think so, thank you.”

“Oh, come on! Our husbands won’t know.”

Jessalyn laughed, hesitantly. She could not escape the conviction that Whitey knew everything about her including much that she did not (yet) know herself.

It was Risa’s second glass. Very dry white wine.

“I love this old inn. Didn’t General Washington or some other patriot stay here, once? Or did the British have a garrison here? Also I love the farmers’ market. I feel that those are real people, real Americans—like those poor whites in Walker Evans’s photographs. And their fresh produce is so superior to anything we can get in Chautauqua Falls in a store.”

Chautauqua Falls was an affluent suburban community not unlike North Hammond, nearer Rochester. Jessalyn had no choice but to remark that she lived in North Hammond.

“Oh, North Hammond! We’d almost bought a house there, on Highgate Road. D’you know it?”

“Yes… I think so.”

“You must know—”

There followed some minutes during which the women sought to determine whom they knew in common, in their respective towns. Quite a few persons! Jessalyn lifted her wineglass to her lips but took only the smallest of sips. Oh God help me. No.

Badly she did not want to be here. She felt like a blundering moth that has become entangled in a spider’s web, all smiling and unknowing. Yet she could not escape the cheerily animated Risa Johnston for such behavior would be not only impolite but also desperate.

Risa was telling Jessalyn how she’d started adopting shelter dogs a few years ago. Not when the last of her children had left home—that had been years earlier.

“Oh, what peace! Everyone said, ‘Your house is so large, why do you need such a large house, don’t you miss your children, it must be awfully lonely, that place is practically a mausoleum’—but I just laughed and said, ‘I love my own space!—lots of it.’”

Jessalyn smiled, for she saw (to her relief) that the rinsed-blond woman meant to be entertaining, and not serious. And the lunch would not last beyond an hour or so, if Jessalyn hurried it along.

“There was an advertisement on television about abandoned dogs. Especially pit bulls. How most of them are euthanized because there are not enough homes for them. And pit bulls most of all—a misunderstood breed associated with drug dealers and dogfighting.”

Jessalyn listened as Risa related (airily, laughingly) a complicated tale of bringing dogs home, and her husband’s reaction—“‘As long as you take care of them, and keep them away from me’—that was about it. Pike isn’t the most observant of men.” After several dogs the husband told Risa no more; but Risa (cleverly!) kept the dogs in separate parts of the house, so that the husband never quite realized how many dogs she had adopted.

Risa laughed, delighted. Jessalyn smiled, for in a way it was delightful.

“Our house is large—‘French Normandy.’ It is like a mausoleum on wet, dark days. The dogs have the entire third floor to themselves—and the rear lawn, which is about two acres, so they can run, and run. And sometimes I run with them, when Pike isn’t around to observe.”

Pike. Jessalyn assumed that this was the husband’s name, uttered with a downward twist of Risa’s crimson lips.

“Do you like dogs, Jessalyn? Do you have pets? They bring such happiness into our lives.”

Jessalyn could not say the bleak words Yes. I have a cat.

“The relationship between a human being and an animal—(so-called: we are all ‘animals’ of course)—can be as profound as human relationships. And since human relationships are unreliable, and never fail to disappoint, relationships with animals can be more meaningful.”

Risa had begun speaking pedantically, and ended almost vehemently. She signaled the waitress for another glass of wine.

“Maybe we should order lunch… It’s very late, the kitchen will close.”

“Nonsense. They should be grateful that they have any customers at all for lunch here on this dreary day, in this dreary place.”

Jessalyn was thinking that it had been a mistake to come to the Zider Zee Inn for such a sentimental, futile reason. Her last visit here—Lorene’s birthday lunch—hadn’t even been a very enjoyable experience. But she had not eaten yet that day, and worried about being light-headed on the drive back alone to the house on Old Farm Road.

Her health, on the whole, did not worry her. Vaguely she felt a tug of guilt, that she had not sickened, collapsed, died long before now. For after all, Whitey had died: why was she (still) alive? (This question seemed to her reasonable, and she did not doubt that many others thought it reasonable, too. She did not doubt that most widows felt exactly this way.) A relatively mild attack of shingles had come and gone in November leaving only striations in the flesh of her upper back that sometimes quivered with pain like a zipper being rapidly unzipped; there were headaches, at unpredictable times; more often there was shortness of breath, an airy lightness in the brain that felt like a window shutter being rapidly opened and closed.

She’d been unpleasantly surprised, the historic old Zider Zee Inn must have been sold to new owners. The gray shingleboard exterior that had once looked romantically weathered as a barn in an Ansel Adams oil painting had been replaced with stark gray asphalt siding; the old lattice windows had been replaced with plate glass; crabgrass flourished along the meandering front walk of cracked paving stones. The building was attached to a windmill with painted pale-gray blades, and these creaked in the wind like arthritic limbs. The interior, that had once been decorated with nineteenth-century artifacts and old, sepia photographs of windmills, was now decorated in a bland, generic style, with full-color photographs of Disney-looking windmills.

Even the waitstaff seemed wrong somehow, too young, not so very well dressed (pullovers, jeans and khakis, even shorts) and at this hour of the afternoon (past two o’clock) clearly waiting for the few, straggling customers to leave.

Through a window Jessalyn could see the shadows of the windmill blades, haltingly moving on the scruffy grass. The sky was splotched with rain clouds like daubs of gray paint. One look at this Zider Zee “historic” Inn and Whitey would have rolled his eyes and said OK, we’re out of here. Not even sentiment would have drawn Whitey back to their old favorite place in all of Herkimer County.

If they’d had a final meal here, Whitey would have been distracted by his cell phone. For Whitey was never not connected, as by an umbilical cord, with his office, with his work. Always there were crises at McClaren, Inc.—failed or unsatisfactory printings, deliveries, inexplicable behavior on the part of a client, financial urgencies of which Whitey, on an “outing” with his dear wife, did not care to speak.

Obliquely, Whitey might complain of Thom to Jessalyn. For he would not—ever—complain of his son to anyone at McClaren, Inc.

His heart just doesn’t seem in it. He’s making money, why isn’t that enough? Does he ever talk to you, Jess?

Jessalyn was finding it difficult to pay attention to Risa’s chatter which was having the effect upon her of hearing fingernails being tapped, rapidly against a tabletop.

“Do you have a family, Jesamine? Children?”

Jessalyn didn’t trouble to correct the mispronunciation. What did it matter who she was, of course it did not matter.

“Yes. But they’re all grown up.” Trying for a flippant tone, to deflect this line of questioning.

“Well—I should hope so! At our age, we hardly want children.”

Risa was being flattering, perhaps. For she must have been younger than Jessalyn by as many as ten years.

“Grandchildren?”

Jessalyn shook her head, no.

And now Granma Jess was denying her own grandchildren? Jessalyn could imagine Beverly’s look of incredulity and disapproval at such a betrayal.

Oh but it was too much effort to speak of the grandchildren to a stranger, to register the proper enthusiasm and pride in them required on such occasions! That she might be spared seeing the grinning grandchildren of others, she did not proffer pictures of her own.

But Risa laughed, and lowered her voice. “Lucky you, Jesamine! My grandchildren are terribly boring, and expensive. One is a bossy little spoiled thing and the other is a bossy little spoiled thing. My daughters—(I have two, both have young children and one is missing a husband, and that is expensive)—seem to think that I owe them something, just for having babies.” Risa paused, frowning. A glint in her eye announced an imminent witticism. “You’d think they were pandas, having babies is such a feat.”

Jessalyn laughed, uncertainly. The rinsed-blond woman seemed eager to be entertaining, and Jessalyn had not the heart to withhold an animated response.

“I’ve been married for sixty-six years.” Risa laughed, and shook her head. “I mean, it feels like sixty-six years.” Like a stand-up comedian pausing for a beat to add: “To the same husband. You don’t get prison sentences that long even for homicide, if you’re white-skinned.”

As if encouraged by Jessalyn’s response Risa went on to confide in her that she and Pike had not made love—“in any identifiable way”—for the past eleven years; possibly longer, for Risa had not been “paying strict attention.”

Jessalyn laughed, now giddily. It occurred to her that she had not laughed since the previous October.

For what is laughter? Without hope, there is none.

At last their food was brought. Cups of creamed asparagus soup, salads heaped high on plates. The meals were served by a smirking young waiter in sandals, bare feet. Young enough to be a son—no, young enough to be a grandson, or nearly.

Neither woman was eating with much appetite. Jessalyn regretted the thick, clotted asparagus soup that clung to the spoon like paste.

“Waiter? One more glass of wine, thank you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Fuck ma’am. Just bring the wine—two glasses, in fact.”

The smirking young waiter ceased smirking, and staggered away in shock. Jessalyn could not quite believe what she’d heard, and so decided that she had not heard it.

How had her wineglass emptied? That was unexpected.

Whitey had often complained, his dear wife so rarely drank. Not much fun to drink (at home) alone, was it?

No wonder they had to go out with others, who drank. Often.

Whitey would’ve winced, seeing his precious whiskeys, gins, bourbons poured down the sink. But the widow did not dare keep such lethal medication close at hand.

Handful of sleeping pills, several shot-glasses of whiskey. We’re out of here!

Risa was making witty remarks about their rings. Jessalyn’s, and her own.

“Yours are very beautiful, Jesamine. But mine aren’t bad, either.”

“No. Yes. Your rings are lovely.”

Risa held out her left hand, that was slightly tremulous. Her engagement ring was a large square-cut diamond in an old-gold setting, that matched her wedding ring.

“It’s the least we expect of rings, that they cost somebody something.” Risa laughed, heartily. The skin on the back of her hand was blue-veined and creased with myriad small wrinkles.

When Jessalyn failed to laugh at this remark Risa leaned forward against the table, to peer at her.

“Jesamine? What did you say your husband does?”

“I—I didn’t say.”

“Well—what does he do?”

“He’s—retired. He’d been in a family business for most of his life and—he—has decided to retire.”

“Oh, that’s a mistake! You shouldn’t have let him retire. Without anyone to boss around, a man just mopes.”

Jessalyn wanted to protest, her husband had not ever bossed her around. He had not ever moped.

“Did you say that your husband is coming here? Coming to meet you at the inn?”

“Coming to meet me?—no.” Jessalyn couldn’t recall what she’d told the rinsed-blond woman. “I mean—I think—I am going to meet him—soon…”

“He’s coming to Dutchtown? Will you introduce us?”

“No! I mean—he won’t be here for—a few hours… We’re going to spend the night at the inn, it’s an anniversary.”

“That’s very sweet. Which anniversary is it?”

“Our thirty-eighth.”

“Thirty-eighth. That’s tinfoil, I think. No—Styrofoam stuffing.”

Jessalyn frowned at the other’s mirth. Her wineglass was in her hand, and her hand was trembling.

“We’re—we’re waiting to hear—this afternoon—if I will be allowed to donate blood marrow. Bone marrow. If my husband is strong enough for the operation. If I am strong enough.”

Jessalyn spoke softly, near-inaudibly. These breathless and totally unexpected words issued from her mouth with a taste of something dry and smarting.

Wide-eyed Risa stared at her. For the first time Jessalyn saw that the rinsed-blond woman had fine, near-invisible scars at her hairline, like commas. And her hair, sleekly blond against her head, was a dull, dim hue at the roots as if her soul were oozing out of her scalp.

“Ohhh. You must be very brave.”

Quickly Jessalyn stammered: “Not—not brave at all. I guess—I am desperate…”

Laughing, for the wine had gone to her brain. Her laughter was the sound of something small, shattering into smaller bits.

(But why was this funny?) (It was not funny.)

Soberly Risa said: “I hope that the surgery turns out well, Jasmine. A bone marrow transplant can’t be fun. And yes, to me you are brave. Desperation can make people brave and perhaps that is the sincerest kind of bravery.”

What fantastical remarks! Why were they saying such things?

The very marrow in the widow’s bones had turned to ice.

Risa persisted, with a cooing sound: “That is sooo generous of you, Jasmine. I would not have that kind of courage. And my husband, well”—the woman laughed, lowering her head—“he doesn’t deserve it, maybe. He’d never do anything remotely so selfless for me.”

“Oh but I’m sure that he would…”

“Really! You’re sure? But you don’t know my husband, Pike, and you don’t know me.”

Jessalyn knew herself rebuked. She was feeling stunned, distracted. She had very little idea what she and the rinsed-blond woman were talking about.

Thinking: in fact, her blood was (probably) not so good. Not hale, hearty. Iron deficiency anemia.

Sophia’s friend Dr. Means had suggested this, gently. He’d run his fingertips over her nails when they’d shaken hands, and remarked that they seemed “brittle.”

A rare occasion indeed, when Sophia allowed her mother to meet a male friend of hers. (“But you must not tell anyone especially Beverly and Lorene. Please, Mom! Promise.”)

Alistair Means might have been twenty-five years Sophia’s senior, a gentlemanly man with a distinctive Scots accent. He was not much taller than Sophia. He’d been very courteous to Jessalyn. He’d seemed somewhat ill at ease as Sophia’s companion, perhaps because of the difference in age, and Sophia’s oddly stiff, awkward manner with him in the presence of her mother.

Jessalyn had prepared a meal for the three of them. To a neutral observer she and Means might have been the staid parental couple, Sophia the schoolgirl daughter with shy eyes, wary smile.

SOPHIA HAD BEEN EMBARRASSED that her friend had been so forward with Jessalyn but Jessalyn had not minded at all—she’d been touched. The kind of forwardness that is protective, Whitey would have appreciated.

Blood work. Means had urged her to make an appointment with her physician, soon. For it seemed that Means was a doctor as well as a distinguished research scientist.

And Whitey hovered near. In the beating of her blood she could hear him, trying for a lighter tone.

Take care of yourself, darling! You are all I have.

The hostess at the Zider Zee was a stranger. Much too young to remember the couple, from years ago.

They had held hands. They had talked and murmured together, laughed together. (But what had they said? All lost.)

She’d worn a wide-brimmed hat made of a fabric like black lace, though thicker and more durable than lace. She’d worn a pearl-colored dress with thin black vertical stripes. Around her slender neck, a strand of perfect pearls. Her face, lovely and inconsequential, for it was a face that could not endure, was partly hidden by olive-tinted glasses. This had been a time when Jessalyn had looked chic, or what had passed for chic.

She must try not to laugh at herself, the innocent vanity of the young, thirty years later.

The lake was shimmering choppy water, an inland sea. Like molten flame at sunset. He’d said he was so happy, sometimes it scared him—like reaching to grasp a fallen wire, a wire through which electric current is flowing, that might kill you, but how can you resist?—you cannot.

My dearest wife. I will love you—forever! Into the next world. I swear.

Vaguely she’d thought, before Risa had called out to her, that she might take a room at the inn. As she and Whitey had fantasized they might but had not. Not once. She would lie on the unfamiliar four-poster bed, on a quilt. Fully dressed, for she would not have the energy to remove her clothing. Antique furniture, showing its age. A single window overlooking rain-pocked, choppy Lake Ontario, with sun-faded drapes. Would there be a storm? Lightning?

Hurricane lamps, musty-smelling embroidered pillows, horsehair mattress. On the walls silhouettes of long-ago women, pioneer women, gentlemen with white lace at their cuffs. In the eyes of the long-deceased, that look of shared bewilderment—Who were we? Who did we imagine we were? What has become of us?

All this while Risa was chattering. Or was that grating sound Risa’s (crimson-polished, just slightly chipped) fingernails drumming against the tabletop.

Risa was impressed with Jessalyn, it seemed—the brave selfless wife eager to donate bone marrow for a sick husband. But Risa was becoming impatient with the wife’s goodness, possibly.

She’d excused herself, to veer in the direction of a women’s room. Jessalyn felt the relief of a brief respite, the rinsed-blond woman’s (welcome) absence.

Thinking: you are not, strictly speaking, a “widow” at such times when your (theoretical) husband is not present. So long as the husband is (seemingly) elsewhere, his absence/non-existence is not detectable.

Rehearsing to say to Risa—Oh but please don’t worry! My husband is traveling in—Australia… He is not here but that does not mean he is not somewhere.

Fact is, she’d betrayed the husband. Her desperate need to leave the house on Old Farm Road.

But then, once away from the house, her desperate need to hurry back.

Except: she’d been having trouble breathing. Increasingly in May, in premature heat. Whitey had no idea, he’d never had any idea, how he sucked up the oxygen in any space he inhabited.

She’d found herself desperate for air. Driving in the countryside away from Hammond. In motion, not yet where she is headed, the widow is undefined, like a face blurred by water.

The Dutchtown Farmers’ Market had not been a bad idea except she’d bought too much. Wanting to make purchases, give away money, see faces lighten, that had been dimmed by Saturday rain.

Whitey had always liked to spend money, leave large tips. He’d quoted—was it Hemingway?—making people happy is easy to do, just leave large tips.

The Zider Zee Inn had been a mistake but an innocent mistake. Such beauty in the long rolling hills of northern Herkimer County. Derelict farmhouses, abandoned farm equipment, hulks of automobiles and pickup trucks in front yards. PRODUCE AUCTION—a billboard just outside Dutchtown. Newer houses with asphalt siding, “ranch” houses and A-frames. Mayflower Movers, Rent-a-Truck. Late May, the season for house sales and for moving. The effort of a new life, new furniture and Formica-topped kitchen counters, not-yet-scuffed hardwood floors—these filled the widow with despair.

Driving restlessly. Scarcely knowing, or caring, where she was headed. Goaded by impatient drivers behind her into accelerating her speed, taking turns above the speed limit. When she’d been alive the widow had never behaved in such a way.

Mom for God’s sake, what are you doing so far from home…

What would Daddy say!

“All I really want is to avoid self-pity.”

(To whom had she made this pronouncement? Herself? Whitey?)

It was at the Zider Zee Inn that Whitey had first told Jessalyn, elated, yet somewhat frightened, that his first full year at McClaren, Inc. had been profitable beyond even his own optimistic expectations.

(Of course, Whitey McClaren wasn’t an optimist. If you knew Whitey, you knew that the man was a pessimist. His poker playing habits made this clear. But a pessimist can play at optimism better than any optimist, for a pessimist has no expectations to defeat him.)

By cutting back on their many small clients, cultivating just a few rich, prestigious clients, predominantly pharmaceutical companies, McClaren, Inc. would itself become rich, maybe. Looked like it. Maybe.

Like skiing down a steep slope expecting to fall on your ass, or break your neck, Whitey had said, gloating. But you don’t. Instead, applause.

She’d wanted to protest no. Please no. We don’t need to be rich—we need only to be happy.

(She’d had a suspicion that she was pregnant, on that very day. A big baby it would be, seven pounds, husky and hale, they would name Thom, for one of Whitey’s beloved brothers who’d died a young and pointless death in Vietnam.)

“There is no door. There is not even a window. The wall is all there is.”

(To whom had she said this? Not Whitey, for Whitey disliked pompous-sounding remarks.)

Everywhere the widow goes, alone accompanies her.

Creaking windmill blades. Paralytic limbs, barely moving.

Why had they ever thought this place charming? Had it been charming, once? Whitey wouldn’t have consented to return, he had better things to do. His favorite restaurants were dark-paneled steak houses attached to upscale hotels where the best malt whiskey was served.

It was a posthumous life, this masquerade. She knew better.

She’d missed the opportunity to end it. The masquerade. That night at the creek, a rushing current in which she might have drowned, she’d been prepared but had lacked moral courage. Whitey had too easily dissuaded her.

An easy way of dying, a cowardly way, would be to simply cease eating. But she hadn’t even the courage for that, probably. When she forgot to eat, or was nauseated at the thought, a headache began to take shape behind her eyes, like a metallic flower opening.

Symmetrical, beautiful, yet sharply metallic, opening inside her brain. An exquisite pain that, once begun, had to be allowed to open fully—it could not be stopped by Tylenol or aspirin.

No. If the widow tried to starve herself she would end up devouring anything edible she could get her hands on. Eating like an animal, shameless. Like Mack the Knife when she’d first put out food for him on the rear deck. Quivering animal, squint-eyed and his ribs protruding through his matted fur. That squinting yellow eye.

The rinsed-blond woman had returned to their table. There was a jut to her chin Jessalyn hadn’t noticed before. Doggedly Risa would return to their subject as if she’d been rehearsing an argument in the women’s room. But Jessalyn said:

“People do things you don’t expect. Sometimes.”

Hoping to encourage her companion who’d drained her second, unless it was her third, glass of wine—urging the woman to think generously of herself, in the matter of bone marrow transplants, organ donations. But Risa seemed to have lost her effervescence, or her capacity for humor. Almost, Jessalyn could smell her companion’s soured breath.

“Real-ly! You think so, ‘Jasm’en.’”

“Well—yes. I think so.”

Jessalyn was sounding uncertain. Something about the other’s wetly steely eye was disconcerting.

“What’s wrong with your husband, exactly, Jasm’en?”

“What’s wrong? I—I’m not sure—a rare kind of blood cancer, that attacks the marrow…”

“Something like lymphoma?”

“Y-Yes.”

“But lymphoma attacks the lymph nodes. Maybe you mean myeloma?”

“I’m—not sure…”

“Could be leukemia.”

“I think—yes. That’s it.”

“My first husband died of leukemia.”

“Oh.” Jessalyn was stunned. The vision came to her of one of her own children, very young, caught in a blatant lie.

“It was a generation ago, and more. He’d be the age of my son now, and he wouldn’t cast a second glance at me. The bastard.”

Jessalyn groped for something to say. “That’s—very sad. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Oh, don’t be! You’re too damned polite. What the hell do you care about my husband, if I don’t? Water under the bridge.”

Risa laughed, wiping at her mouth with a napkin, and leaving a rude lipstick smudge on the white linen. In a bemused, gravelly voice she continued: “Just on TV or in movies, or old-fashioned novels, where people donate blood, or bone marrow, or kidneys to one another. Hardly ever in real life where you see one another every damn day and run up against one another like damn bumper cars. And if you use the same bathroom, forget it”—Risa drew her finger swiftly across her throat.

Jessalyn seemed to consider this, respectfully. Her heart beat hard in opposition but she would not reply.

Daring to hope that this stressful and interminable lunch was ending, or had ended. She began to reach for her handbag as Risa spoke scornfully:

“Y’know—you think pretty highly of yourself, Jesamine, don’t you? Your husband you want to donate bone marrow for. Man, we are impressed!” Risa mimed applause, glancing about the near-emptied dining room. “Think he’d do the same for you?”

Jessalyn was baffled by the rinsed-blond woman’s sudden hostility.

“Y-Yes. He would.”

“You’re sure of that? Love rhymes with smug—don’t it?”

Jessalyn groped for her handbag—grasped it. Time to leave!

She’d come to wonder if Whitey had thrown away his life, possibly. For her. Traded his life for an ideal of himself, the man he’d wished his dear wife to admire. He had not been that man, perhaps. But he’d fashioned himself into that man, brave, reckless, so manly a man, daring to brake his vehicle to a stop on the Expressway, to confront two police officers young enough to be his sons, to halt a murderous rampage.

For you, darling. All that I did, I did for you.

He was not accusing her. Never would Whitey accuse her.

“Let me. Please.”

Desperate to escape she was appropriating the check. She would pay with a credit card, not even glancing at the bill. For it was like Whitey to appropriate restaurant bills. But Risa did not appreciate the gesture. “Think you’re pretty damned superior, don’t you. Every damn word you’ve uttered, boasting and gloating. Think I can’t pay for my own fucking meal, I have more money at my disposal, Jez-lyn, than you—I bet! And know what?—You should cut your ‘snowy-white’ hair, you look like a hillbilly. You are not chic.”

Quickly, fearfully, Jessalyn paid the bill. The hostess was staring at livid-faced Risa, and then trying not to stare, trying not to overhear.

But in the parking lot Jessalyn could not escape in time. The rinsed-blond woman pursued her, coming very close to her. Slurred words, accusations. Jessalyn was utterly astonished, frightened.

“You have no respect for other people, do you? People less ‘blessed’ than yourself. D’you know how it feels, hearing you boast about a husband you’d die for, and he’d die for you, bullshit, nobody dies for anybody else, d’you know how it feels to hear such bullshit, for other people? And who are you? Wait! Don’t you walk away from me!”

Jessalyn was trembling badly. She had not—ever—been so confronted by another person in her life; certainly not in her adult life.

Her car keys were in her hand but the rinsed-blond woman drew near quick as a cat, and snatched them from her, and tossed them into a path of tall wet grasses with a little cry of malice.

Jessalyn had to search for the keys in the grass, trying not to break into tears. Risa stomped away, to her car.

On her knees in the sharp-bladed grass. The air was wet, a light rain continued to fall. Whitey had abandoned her after all, he was nowhere near.

A creaking sound of the windmill blades turning in the wind. The very sound of futility, vanity. And in the distance a raucous sound of crows. She was groping with outstretched fingers in what appeared to be marsh grass, for the car keys without which she could not return to her home.

Something black passed over her brain. A black-feathered wing, a flash of talons. Months ago she’d been frightened of going mad, of something in her brain cracking, shattering like glass: but that had not happened. At her most unhappy, she remained sane. Was that her punishment?—an irrevocable and implacable sanity.

ON HER HANDS AND KNEES, groping for the keys.

She slips, falls. She is so very tired. The keys are lost, she must abandon the keys. Retaining her life is all that matters.

Thick sinuous tendrils of mud. Mud like writhing snakes. In her throat, in her lungs. The lungs are a mysterious organ—organs. So suddenly, the lungs can collapse.

Can’t breathe. Choking, suffocating—her mouth is parched with mud.

But Whitey is beside her, quick and capable. Whitey has never been away but Whitey has been observing.

He has a pocketknife—his Swiss Army knife, he’d had since he’d been a boy. With the sharp point of the knife he performs a tracheotomy on his dear helpless choking wife—(she recalls: he’d been an Eagle Scout, he’d learned first aid).

Blood spurts through the hole in her throat but it is therapeutic, it will save her.

You can breathe through this hole, darling Whitey consoles her. Just to make sure, I’ll insert this.

An ordinary straw pushed into the little bloody hole, into her trachea. The wound is so small, the knife blade is so sharp, she hardly feels pain only just a comforting numbness like ether.

Within a few seconds the congestion thins. She is breathing, if barely.

Through this straw you can breathe. It is all that you need. Do not ask for more.

Keziahaya

In his bed uttering the name aloud—Keziahaya.

Marveling at the sound—Keziahaya.

Not a soft or a weak or a wishing-to-please sound but harsh strident singular syllables—Keziahaya.

Others at the farm called the boisterous six-foot-four young Nigerian Amos but that was a weak-seeming name, a biblical name. The true name was the African—Keziahaya.

Sleepless in his bed in the cabin with a tin roof hammering rain and in the most exquisite misery—Keziahaya.

In the anguish of muted love uttering the name aloud—Keziahaya.

“NEED ANY HELP?”—casually he’d asked the young black man with the scarred cheeks.

The answer had not been yes but it had not been unambiguously no.

Mumbling thanks, maybe later. OK?

It was a speech-habit of Keziahaya to amend virtually all his remarks with OK.

Could be a flat statement—OK, or a question—OK?

Like punctuation. A verbal tic. So that no remark of his was truly final but provisional.

And the broad quick smile that stretched the lower part of his face. The squinting gaze that puckered skin at the corners of his eyes.

Is he wary of me? Fearful of me? Because I am white? Because I am a stranger?—Virgil wondered.

That luxury of wonder the love-object evokes. Luxury of anticipation, anxiety. Luxury of dread, yearning. Luxury of not-knowing.

Virgil was offering to help others pack their things, to bring to the Chautauqua Arts & Crafts Fair in his Jeep pickup. It would not seem exceptional for Virgil to invite the Nigerian who was new to the sprawling farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road and whose first exhibit at the fair this would be.

It was Virgil McClaren’s reputation locally, to be a friend to other artists. You did not have to like Virgil’s work, nor did Virgil have to like your work, for him to befriend you in a common cause.

Some thought Virgil McClaren not a serious artist because he was (rumor had it) the heir of a well-to-do father, others thought him a serious artist because (rumor had it) he’d been disinherited by this father who’d been a wealthy businessman.

Some knew the name McClaren. Some knew how John Earle McClaren had died, or it had been charged he’d died, as a consequence of police brutality. Some knew that a lawsuit had been filed against the Hammond police by the McClaren family but no one could have said what had happened to this lawsuit, if it had been settled, or dismissed, or continued still in that subterranean way of lawsuits after their first spiking news in the media.

Not even Virgil’s closest friends knew whether Virgil was involved in the McClaren lawsuit for Virgil rarely spoke of his family. It was a belief of his that the family is but the personal expression of the spirit, and it is only the impersonal expression that prevails.

So rarely did Virgil speak of his family, it was a surprise to some who knew him to realize that he had a (still living) mother, and several siblings.

Once or twice a younger sister came to visit Virgil in his cabin behind the farmhouse. But Virgil had not introduced this young woman to anyone and no one knew her name.

Several times a year as if in compliance with a mysterious algorithm Hammond County sheriff’s deputies raided the farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road with a warrant empowering them to search for “controlled substances.” Their claim was invariably that they’d received a tip from a confidential source but they had not yet found anything incriminating beyond a few marijuana cigarettes scattered amid some thirty or more residents. A virulent strain of crystal meth was rumored to be manufactured in the scrubby hills of the Chautauqua Mountains in derelict farmhouses resembling the farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road but no crystal meth, nor the paraphernalia involved in its manufacture, had ever been found in the farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road, or in the sparsely furnished cabin behind it.

Virgil feared that, if sheriff’s deputies raided the farmhouse at the present time, they would single out the young Nigerian artist/teacher for particular harassment. Virgil had seen videos of (white) cops beating, Tasering, choking to death (black) men that filled him with dismay and outrage.

Virgil knew: Amos Keziahaya had been born in Lagos, Nigeria. His father had been a politician who’d come to a “bad end.” Remnants of the family had fled the capital city of Abuja when Keziahaya was a child of two; they were Christian converts, and they were granted political asylum in the United States. Keziahaya had lived in various cities in northern New Jersey and had attended several colleges without graduating. He’d become a graffiti artist, so-called, in Paterson, New Jersey, who’d been one of the primary subjects of a PBS documentary on such artists. He was twenty-eight and looked both younger than this age and, in moments of repose, older. He could have no clear memory of Nigeria, Virgil supposed, yet, seeing him, Virgil felt a sweet, sinking sensation as if he were gazing into a past not his own.

So far as anyone knew Amos Keziahaya had no family in the vicinity of Hammond. He attended a local Christian church but he did not appear to be unusually religious. He’d had a New York State arts grant and taught printmaking and lithography at the State University at Hammond as an adjunct instructor with little possibility of a permanent job, like so many of the young instructors of Virgil’s acquaintance.

Like Virgil McClaren, when Virgil had a job at all. Which wasn’t often.

Keziahaya’s skin was very dark, somewhat roughened, even pitted and scarred, whether from acne or some other more violent means wasn’t evident. He had a big, blunt, affable face, thick-lashed protuberant eyes, a way of laughing that was hearty and explosive. His voice was a boy’s voice, virtually a tenor, issuing strangely from that big body. He was shy, or shy-seeming. He could be loud, out of a kind of nervous excitement. He could be silent, sucking at his lips and watchful. He must have weighed at least 230 pounds and he stood a head taller than most of the residents in the sprawling farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road, and several inches taller than Virgil.

Strangely thrilling to Virgil, to be obliged to crane his neck and look up at Keziahaya.

To look elsewhere at Keziahaya, to allow his gaze to drift downward, past the muscled torso, in the area of the thighs and the groin, the imagined genitalia solid, heavy, smooth-skinned and darkly beautiful, was to risk feeling a sensation of weakness, faintness like a breath too swiftly exhaled.

“No. You will not.”

So Virgil chided himself, lightly.

For there was still lightness in this—he had not yet acknowledged his desire, not another soul knew.

Alone of the residents of the farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road Keziahaya frequently wore white shirts, clean pressed khakis. He owned a navy blue blazer, and sometimes wore neckties.

Neckties! Virgil had not worn a necktie since high school graduation when ties for boys, and white shirts, had been obligatory. Even then, he’d had to borrow a tie from his father.

Keziahaya’s dense-dark lusterless hair was trimmed short and shaved at the back and sides. His boy’s smile was wide and yellow-tinctured. On his left wrist, a digital watch with a stretch band and on his right wrist a bracelet that looked as if it were made of braided straw.

Keziahaya wore sandals, running shoes, hiking boots. His feet were of a remarkable size, like his neck, his hands, and his wrists.

Often, he wore a khaki-colored baseball cap bearing a logo incomprehensible to Virgil—(sports team? rock band?)—likely to be turned backward on his head.

“Amos! Can you give a hand?”—Virgil would hear someone call to Keziahaya and the vision came to him, Keziahaya extending his large strong dark-skinned hand for another to seize in gratitude.

At their first meeting in the most casual of circumstances in the sprawling farmhouse Virgil had experienced that sweet slipping-down sensation as if he wanted both to cry and to laugh; as if he wanted to fling himself forward, to grasp the other’s hand, or to shrink away, to flee.

He’d been unhappy, then. In the aftermath of his father’s death.

Kept a discreet distance from the other residents. As some residents, for instance his (former) friend Sabine, kept a discreet distance from him.

(Virgil wanted to protest, he had not meant to hurt Sabine. He never meant to hurt anyone. He was blundering, blind. He was clumsy, stupid, clueless. Forgive me!)

Even when he and Keziahaya shared meals at a long communal table Virgil took care not to appear over-eager to speak with the Nigerian as others did, or to linger after a meal in his company. Excused himself early, disappearing into his cabin behind the farmhouse.

It was the last thing Virgil wanted, to embarrass another person with the rawness of his emotions; especially, he did not want to embarrass Amos Keziahaya who was new to Hammond, and whom he scarcely knew.

Also, he feared making an utter fool of himself. That mocked, jeered-at, despised “effeminate” boy of middle school, high school whom he liked to think he had outgrown by an act of will.

All desire is ephemeral, rising and falling, fading, passing.

Of all desires carnal desire is the most treacherous for it is the serpent that sinks its poisonous teeth into its own being.

These were words of caution, wisdom. Virgil had given himself up to such wisdom and wished to feel that he was protected by it as a lead vest shields us from radiation.

It was true, Virgil’s attraction for Keziahaya was not neutral. It was not Platonic though not (he told himself) physical, or carnal; he had not ever had a lover who was male, and (he told himself, hotly) he did not wish to have a (male) lover.

His feeling for Keziahaya was sheerly emotional. Sharply and crushingly emotional and not to be reasoned away in moments of calm.

Any damn freak, Virgil will fall for. Count on it!

So Whitey would say in disdain.

Or, rather Whitey would say in dismay of his younger son who had so disappointed him.

But Amos Keziahaya was no freak. Whitey would have been in awe of him if they’d ever met.

Anyway, the hell with Whitey. It was just Virgil now.

“DON’T LET THOSE DEADBEATS TAKE advantage of you, Virgil. You know how naive you are.”

Deadbeats was his sister Beverly’s word for persons unlike herself, whose standard of living was well below hers.

Naive was her word for foolish, stupid.

Virgil wanted to protest: his friends were not deadbeats but individuals, each unlike the others. In a loose and shifting commune they shared the sprawling farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road. Some of them were artists like Virgil, some farmed the property, a few were teachers and tutors. Their employment was likely to be part-time, seasonal. Their employment was not permanent, and did not provide medical or hospital coverage. The youngest was a college dropout of nineteen, the oldest an intermittently employed physical therapist, a woman, whose age hovered perennially just beneath forty. Who was involved with whom, which individuals were couples, or lovers, married, about-to-be-married, divorced—Virgil had no clear idea, and no actual interest, except in terms of Amos Keziahaya who lived alone and appeared to be unattached.

Keziahaya had come to stay in the farmhouse with friends originally, a married couple who’d taught at the college. Now this couple was gone, and Keziahaya had stayed.

How had it happened?—Virgil had become one of the longtime residents at Bear Mountain Road. He was thirty-one years old!

He’d assumed, when he’d first moved into the derelict cabin behind the farmhouse, and appropriated an even more derelict outbuilding for a studio, formerly a corncrib, that he would stay only a few months before “moving on.”

Yet, that had not happened. Why, Virgil wasn’t so sure.

(His older sisters were sure: Virgil was over-attached to their mother who, in turn, was over-attached to Virgil.)

(To a sibling, a sibling is “over-attached” to a parent if this “over-attachment” seems to exceed the “over-attachment” of the rival sibling.)

(Virgil did not dignify his older sisters’ claims that he’d been “leeching”—or was it “mooching”—money from Jessalyn for years, without Whitey’s knowledge. He did not attempt to rebuke his brother Thom’s claim that he’d failed to grow up, be a man as Whitey had wished and [of course] Thom had done with such success.)

How furious his older siblings would be, if they knew how, with his inheritance from their father, Virgil had purchased a Jeep pickup which he made available to virtually anyone at the farm who needed it—a pack of deadbeats.

So long as the keys resided with Virgil, he could think of the vehicle as his.

Of course, few who used his truck filled the gas tank when they returned it to him. Often, the gas needle was delicately poised at just above empty—a kind of feat, Virgil had to admire.

At thirty-one he was magnanimous enough to understand: some individuals would exploit his generosity. He knew who they were beforehand, usually. And he’d allowed them to take advantage more than once. But he reasoned that he’d many times exploited others, including friends and lovers, including his parents, and so he could not reasonably object to being exploited himself.

Virgil paid more than his share for groceries and often did the shopping himself. He paid for upkeep on the property which was a rental property in which the (absentee) landlord had lost all interest.

He helped pay for a fellow resident’s dental work, and he paid for another’s emergency medical care following a tractor accident in one of the fields. He helped pay for, or indeed paid for, supplies for fellow artists including his (former) friend Sabine who now despised him. He’d even paid for what he assumed was a woman friend’s abortion at a Rochester clinic. (Virgil hadn’t asked questions, and he hadn’t been provided with details.) He gave money to a local animal shelter, a wildlife sanctuary, a hospice. He volunteered hours each week at the animal shelter and at the hospice, bringing therapy dogs to be petted by the dying who sometimes mistook him for a son, a grandson, a brother or a husband.

Always it pierced Virgil to the heart, when one of these dying persons expressed surprise and hurt that he was leaving—“So soon? Oh, where are you going?”

Yet, he’d been avoiding his own family. His own mother whom (he would have said) he loved very much.

It was just that her widowhood was devastating to him. Her loneliness, the raw loss in her eyes, her face, the tremor of her touch—especially her effort to be cheerful, upbeat, “recovered” for his sake. He could not bear it, he was not that magnanimous.

And it was risky to him, how close he’d come several times to confessing to Jessalyn that he was the one who’d caused his father’s death, not washing his hands adequately. Virgil, and the brutal Hammond cops…

Wanting to tell Jessalyn, but fearful of doing so. For she would forgive him—of course. He knew he did not deserve to be forgiven.

But one thing was clear: he hadn’t ever accepted money from Jessalyn for himself. For others, but not for himself. He knew that his sisters were furious, that Jessalyn gave him money. He had too much pride to confront them, to deny this. They wouldn’t have believed him anyway, they so resented him.

But now, with Whitey’s money, he was set for (the remainder of his) life. He’d have liked to tell his family except here too, he had too much pride.

Squandering our parents’ money. Deadbeat!

There were persons at the farm who had only to hint to Virgil that they were in need of financial help and he would give them, that’s to say “lend” them, money. Family emergencies, college tuition, interest payments and mortgages, fines and fees… He was running through the money his father had left him, fascinated by its disappearing as he’d been fascinated as a boy by an hourglass in his father’s office through which sand flowed very slowly, thinly—inexorably.

“The difference between an hourglass and an actual hour,” Whitey had said, “is that you can set the hourglass upside down and repeat the flow of sand. An actual hour, you can never repeat.”

Virgil had thought—Good!

Age twelve or thirteen you know you will live forever. Who could care about reliving an hour?

Virgil’s volunteer work brought him no income, of course. From time to time he worked at about the minimum wage for local employers, or taught a course at the community college, as a way of forestalling the day when his inheritance would run out, inexorably.

He’d said to Sophia that maybe, just maybe, the money from Whitey had been meant to last his entire life and when it ran out, his life would run out, too.

Sophia had not laughed. Sophia had looked away from Virgil, upset by what he’d said.

He’d had to assure his sister, he wasn’t serious.

Sophia had not seemed placated. Wiping irritably at her eyes saying the same terrible thought had occurred to her about her own inheritance but of course it was unthinkable.

Yes! Unthinkable.

Not serious.

Still, it was something to consider. For he’d caused his father’s death, and no one knew.

Thinking such thoughts while driving the Jeep pickup. On the steep foothill road traversing Bear Mountain. Descending to the Chautauqua River. A sensation of weightlessness, elation. Imagining that the steering wheel and the brake pedal have been disconnected from the engine and there is no control over the speeding vehicle, you are in free fall…

In a dream Virgil wrenched at the steering wheel, pressed the brake pedal to the floor. Nothing happened, the vehicle careened and plunged off the road but it was not Virgil’s fault.

Then, Amos Keziahaya entered Virgil’s life and life became suddenly precious to him again.

SINCE HIS FATHER’S DEATH. This new self pushing through.

Like buried statuary of the ancient, Hellenic world. Shifting of earth, astonishing shapes of beauty and terror emerging out of the rubbled earth at Pergamon.

His newest work mimicked this emergent being. He’d modeled a waxen-white figure after the Dying Gaul: the dying self, bound with twine, wire, aluminum strips.

Suddenly then his sleep was haunted by heraldic art. Heroic art.

He’d driven to New York City to see classic Greek statues at the Metropolitan Museum, he’d felt his heart pierced and numbed by such beauty, and more than beauty. Transcendent art, so very different from his scrap-metal art… And mixed in with his feeling for the young Nigerian which was a kind of white-hot welder’s tool, galvanizing, liquefying all that it touched.

A succession of bodies. Humanoid figures, scarecrows, mannequins overlaid with wax. Bound tightly as in a straitjacket. Faces obscured like something that has melted. (Male) genitalia obscured beneath bandage-like swaths of coarse white cloth.

His body: the white man.

The paradox: you do not know that you are “white” until you encounter the other—the “black.”

Recalling the sculpted Greek hermaphrodite figure, a beautiful smooth female back, limbs; male genitalia visible from one side. Could he, Virgil, dare such a transgression, in Hammond, New York? To be displayed at the Chautauqua Arts & Crafts Fair?

He had to laugh. Ridiculous.

He had to laugh. The prospect was terrifying.

Many nights too excited to sleep. Lights in his studio, in his cabin, through the night. Blindly he worked, his vision was inward, inchoate. His previous work, junk-metal sculptures, collages of domestic utensils, clothes, images from popular culture of decades ago and many in the shapes of animals, affable to the eye, charming, saleable, now seemed to him childish, trivial.

Whitey’s death, and the emergence of Amos Keziahaya into his life.

Never had Virgil encountered any presence like Keziahaya’s—he could not have said why. Never anyone who so inspired him as an artist, whom he scarcely knew and often tried to avoid.

“Don’t you like Amos, Virgil?”—a friend asked; and Virgil retorted, “Of course I like Amos, everyone likes Amos!”—coming very close to saying Everyone loves Amos.

So parched for life, for joy, for hope since Whitey’s death! Sometimes Virgil’s heart pounded with tachycardia, scarcely could he bear this happiness.

Observing Keziahaya leaving the farmhouse in the morning. Striding to his car. In cold weather, breath steaming. The tall big-bodied figure boyish in eagerness. Keziahaya resembled Muhammad Ali when Ali had been Cassius Clay—that young. A kind of young-male bravado in the reversed baseball cap as there was a kind of melancholy-adult formality in the navy blue blazer and necktie.

Was Virgil jealous when he saw Keziahaya speaking with others?—walking with others? Driving away with one or another individual in his car, headed for the state university campus?

Women were attracted to Keziahaya, of course.

A look of almost dazzlement in Keziahaya’s face, confronted by a woman, or a girl.

Did Keziahaya see them as white? Virgil wondered. Or did he see them as female, and the color of their skin not relevant.

The issue of Keziahaya’s sexuality. Do not go there.

Sometimes it did happen, to Virgil’s embarrassment, that Keziahaya noticed Virgil and lifted a hand in greeting, and smiled, or grinned—if they were outdoors, and each headed for his vehicle.

How’re you doing? OK?

OK. And you?

Virgil was the one to turn away. Trembling, and his jaws rigid with smiling.

Keziahaya went on, oblivious.

(Yet sometimes whistling to himself. Virgil strained himself to hear but could not identify the melody.)

Wondering: Did the young, six-foot-four Nigerian know that someone was likely to be observing him, much of the time? Did he know, and did he care? Did he bask in such knowledge, or did he shrink from it?—not visibly, of course. For Keziahaya comported himself with dignity, even a kind of stiffness.

It was a season in which, in a sudden reversal of mood, Virgil might destroy much of his work.

Because he had the energy, the insight. Because he was angry with himself, or disgusted. Because what ravished him for days in succession might suddenly repel him in the raw unsparing light of an early morning.

Not discarding but reshaping, recasting. Art is tonal, he was thinking.

Tonal, spiritual. The exterior of the artwork is but a means to the interior.

He wasn’t sure what he would call it. Work-in-progress was often a title he used, a sort of useful non-title, but he had used it many times, and this work felt different.

Something to suggest mortality, and yet transformation; a title like Metamorphosis, but not so pretentious.

Seeing Virgil’s new work his friends appeared baffled. They did not exactly recoil from it—not exactly. Mostly, they remained silent. One or another might murmur an uneasy Wow.

He didn’t take offense. He wasn’t easily wounded by those whose opinions he didn’t much value as he was not easily flattered by these same people who (unfortunately, ironically) constituted most of the people Virgil knew.

Hoping that, if Keziahaya saw his work, he would like it. But even this, Virgil did not dare to expect.

AND NOW. AND AGAIN. And another time he will ask—Need any help?

Nothing more likely than Virgil helping the young Nigerian load his framed lithographs and paintings, some of them quite large, into the rear of Virgil’s truck as he’d helped others bring their work to the Chautauqua Arts & Crafts Fair in the past. His work, like Virgil’s, was to be exhibited in one of the larger tents, for which Virgil was an overseer. A scattering of crafts, photographs, sculpture and paintings.

Virgil has seen to it that Keziahaya is exhibiting in “his” tent.

You trust in chance, if you are fated to meet. But chance can be amplified. Chance can be accelerated.

OK?

Untitled: Widow

Flaps of the tent stirred in the wind. Rain had subsided, that was a blessing. And wooden planks laid down in the muddy grass, for visitors to the fair to use, awkwardly moving from tent to tent in gusts of surprisingly chilly wind.

Oh, here was Virgil’s tent, and here was Virgil’s exhibit.

Jessalyn stared in dismay. What was she seeing?

She’d come to the Chautauqua Arts & Crafts Fair alone as she went most places alone, not knowing how long she would want to stay. And how fortunate she hadn’t come with a friend, or a relative, or one of her daughters, for Virgil’s new sculptures were distressing, surprising—to say the least. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to show her beforehand.

Mortality & The Stars was the title of the exhibit. The artist’s name was just Virgil.

Virgil had long signed his artworks with only his first name, with a sort of innocent vanity, Jessalyn thought. As a boy he’d signed his Crayola drawings with a flourish—Virgil.

(“Kid thinks he’s Rembrandt,” Whitey had observed wryly. At the time Whitey hadn’t yet become annoyed with the artiste.)

She’d never gotten over her anxiety on his behalf. A mother’s fear that her child will embarrass himself in public long after the child has grown up and has assured her many times that he didn’t care in the slightest about a public reputation, let alone making money.

Still, it was noted by the McClarens that Virgil took quiet pride in his work, and in the fact that it did sell, at modest prices. You would never get him to admit this, of course.

Most of the sculptures in Mortality & The Stars were stunted humanoid figures shaped out of coarse material like burlap, mannequin parts, Styrofoam and wax dribblings, bound tight with twine, wire, and strips of aluminum; faces were minimal, lacking distinctive features. There was a succession of waxy-white figures, evidently male—(you could see male genitalia flattened beneath crude bandages); only the last figure in the sequence was free of its bondage, having risen to its knees, with an upturned, blank-minimalist face and a smooth bald eggshell head.

In a parallel series was a succession of black figures of the same approximate size, and the final figure was also on its knees with a similarly blank-minimalist expression and a smooth bald dark-eggshell head.

Jessalyn tried to comprehend the exhibit. Mortality she could see, yes—but The Stars? Were the kneeling figures gazing up at (invisible) stars?

“What do you make of this? Weird, in’t?”

“Kind of, what’s it—‘prevert’-looking…”

“Maybe it’s a race thing.”

“It is, sure—some kind of ‘race thing.’”

Jessalyn was relieved, these overheard remarks were more bemused than offended.

Others drifted by, staring. Teenagers smirked and giggled. A young child shrank away in fear—“Mom-my!”—and had to be gathered up in his mother’s arms.

“This is Virgil McClaren’s work? This?”

A tone of repugnance, disapproval. Obviously these individuals—both women of youthful middle age—were familiar with Virgil’s more characteristic work, and were feeling betrayed.

“What’d you even do with something like this? Even for Hallowe’en you couldn’t hang it out on the porch, it’d look just weird. Like something you’d see in an art museum like in New York or what’s it—that ‘Albright Gallery’ in Buffalo.”

“That place! Too weird.”

The women glanced at Jessalyn with complicit smiles but Jessalyn pretended not to see. It was such a habit of hers, to concur with whatever another person was saying, to smile and nod in instinctive complicity, she had to force herself not to join forces with them against weirdness.

She was feeling sorry for Virgil. No one was going to buy these new pieces.

The main attractions at the fair were a children’s puppet show, a local potter demonstrating his skill at the wheel, a weaver with a nineteenth-century Irish loom. Watercolors and paintings by local artists—landscapes, sunsets, reflections in water, children. Glazed pots, wall hangings, macramé planters, handmade jewelry, candlestick holders, every sort of knitted, crocheted, carved item. The most popular displays were in other tents, which Jessalyn could avoid.

It was her custom now—(she knew: people spoke critically of her)—to avoid being seen by people who knew her, who might call out happily—Jessalyn!—the effect was of a fishhook through the lip, trapping her and reeling her to shore.

And how are you? We have not seen much of you lately…

No. They had not seen much of Jessalyn McClaren lately. She could not explain why and was upset at being asked.

It was instructive for Jessalyn to examine Mortality & The Stars and try to comprehend how the artist was her son. Nothing in the stark anguished images suggested the Virgil whom she knew, or believed she knew. Son did not really identify this Virgil, which might have been upsetting to her, as (probably) it would have been upsetting to Whitey; but that was for the good, Jessalyn supposed.

We are all so much deeper than we know. Deep is where pain abides, and this is what we don’t (always) want to know.

Virgil’s previous works of art had been playful, even prankish. He had used bright colors to liven scrap metal. He had distorted the shapes of things in ways that had not offended the eye, or provoked the viewer to think. It had been on the whole a decorative art people could fit into their households—Jessalyn had fitted it into hers. But—these humanoid figures! It was painful simply to see them.

“Powerful”—you might say. “Original”—“striking”—“thought-provoking.” Jessalyn rehearsed these words to describe Virgil’s new work.

Whitey had not ever come to the Chautauqua arts fair, so far as Jessalyn knew. She’d invited him many times, pleaded with him to come see Virgil’s exhibits at least; but Whitey had not ever had time. And just as well this year, for if Whitey had seen Mortality & The Stars he’d have been unsparing in scorn. And alarmed.

Prevert?

Sharing space in Virgil’s tent with the more serious local artists was a Nigerian man of whom Jessalyn had never heard, with an unpronounceable name—“Keziahaya.” His work was boldly colorful, abstract; he too had created odd, quirky sculptures, out of (African?) fabrics, not immediately identifiable as human, or animal. Visitors seemed to admire these exotic works, and were buying smaller pieces. His lithographs were densely detailed, resembling the dreamscapes of—was it Henri Rousseau? Jessalyn noted that “Amos Keziahaya” had been living in the Hammond area since 2009, and taught part-time art classes at the state university. She wondered if Virgil knew him.

Jessalyn wondered what could have brought Keziahaya to this obscure city in upstate New York. Whether he had friends here, or knew few people and was lonely.

Still. You could know many people and still be lonely.

She returned to Virgil’s exhibit which was now deserted. She was feeling a mother’s anxiety, that her son would be devastated not to sell a single work of art—not that Virgil would tell anyone of course.

Fortunately Virgil had included several smaller pieces, though they lacked the playfulness of his former work. His scrap-metal roosters, goats, oxen and horses painted in festive colors had been popular items at previous fairs; once, he’d displayed patchwork-quilt human figures with wings, that had sold briskly; charming birds, butterflies, bats, frogs and toads. Every friend of the McClarens owned at least one of these, displayed on lawns or garden walls. Of course, Jessalyn owned many. So very different from these corpse-like figures on their backs on the ground naked and vulnerable, tight-bound as in straitjackets. What could Virgil be thinking, forcing people to gaze upon such horrors?

His father’s death had unmoored him. That was it. But—what could Jessalyn do about that? She was unmoored herself.

When she saw him Virgil often seemed excited—she didn’t want to think manic. He’d spoken of being insomniac—but happily, for it allowed him to get more work done.

He’d gone on a spending spree—(for Virgil, who hadn’t bought anything for years except at rummage sales and flea markets)—purchasing the Jeep and proper art supplies. He’d even made an appointment with a dentist.

(Did Virgil still have his old, ugly bicycle?—Jessalyn hadn’t seen it in months.)

Jessalyn stooped to look closely at the tight-bound humanoid figures. If you took care, you could see that each figure was less tight-bound than the preceding; at the end, the bounds had loosened and fallen off, and the figure was “freed.” Was that the point? Out of bondage, into a kind of shaky freedom? Their eyes lifted to the stars? The problem was, no one would want to purchase a single figure, which wouldn’t make sense out of the sequence; and no one would want to purchase all of them—at least twenty figures. (Well, maybe a museum. But no museum had ever bought anything of Virgil’s, and it was not likely that a museum would buy anything at this point.)

Jessalyn saw: the black figures, close behind the white figures, were meant to “shadow” them, perhaps.

Or was this a racist notion, of the kind only a white person might have?

Or—was it a satire of a racist notion, of the kind only a white person might have, but a black person might accept as a legitimate vision?

Apart from being freed of their cruel bindings the “freed” figures did not inspire much hope in the viewer. Each looked quite desolate on his knees, gazing away from the other and upward toward the ceiling of the tent, which had begun to drip. Jessalyn supposed that this was deliberate: what Virgil would call a “stratagem.” He had deliberately not made the final figures obviously very different from those that preceded out of a fear of seeming sentimental, or too obvious. Since pubescence when he’d first encountered the phrase art for art’s sake Virgil had expressed contempt for “happy” endings in art or in life.

If Whitey had been beside her Jessalyn would have shielded his eyes with her hand. Never mind, darling!

Jessalyn counted the cash in her wallet. It was always a surprise to her—she never knew what she might have. A few single-dollar bills, or much more. Thom had shown her how to withdraw cash from an ATM machine and this she did in modest allotments. She spent so little on herself, basically just food, and gas for her car which she used sparingly… If she wanted to buy something of Virgil’s she would have to pay cash, reasoning that if she paid by check or credit card Virgil might discover who’d made the purchase; but she had to buy something, for it looked as if no one else would. To her surprise she discovered several twenty-dollar bills in her wallet, as well as a fifty-dollar bill.

On a shelf Jessalyn discovered a scrap metal sculpture of Virgil’s painted oyster-white, about two feet in height, that was not so ugly or accusing as the newer work. Flower Shock resembled a daisy that looked, if you examined it from a certain angle, like a screaming mouth—but Jessalyn could avoid examining it from that angle.

Jessalyn had to search for a saleswoman. All were volunteers, and not always within earshot.

“Excuse me? Hello? How much is this flower?”

“‘Flower’? That’s what it is?”—a pretty young blond woman in a caftan and flaring white pajama-pants hurried over to peer at Virgil’s sculpture. It seemed clear that she didn’t think much of Mortality & The Stars, and was frankly surprised by Jessalyn’s interest. “Oh gosh! Let me look at the label.”

How like Virgil to scribble a price on in pencil, already faded so you couldn’t figure out what it is.

“Maybe—fifteen dollars?”

“Oh, it must be more than fifteen dollars!” Jessalyn was shocked.

“Fifty?”

“Even fifty seems low, for such a—an—interesting piece.”

Dubiously the young woman eyed Flower Shock. “I guess you could say it’s ‘interesting.’ Not so depressing as these dummy-things lying on the floor, we were worried might cause the exhibit to be shut down—you know, if people complained they were ‘obscene.’”

“Oh no—‘obscene’? Really?”

“You didn’t look too close at them, ma’am. Just as well.”

Jessalyn ignored this remark, murmured in a lowered voice.

“The artist lives right here in Hammond. You’d think he’s from some city where there’s—you know—‘race’ issues…”

Quickly Jessalyn said that she had a tote bag, the clerk didn’t have to wrap up the flower.

“You’d almost think, y’know, that this ‘Virgil’ is a black person—but I saw him install the exhibit, and he’s white. But, like, a white ‘hippie’ or something—kind of weird, with a sweet, sad face, with long hair.”

With Jessalyn’s assistance the young woman set the unwieldy metal flower into a cloth bag imprinted with the words HAMMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY 50TH ANNIVERSARY GALA. The sculpture was surprisingly heavy and smelled strangely, like a sweaty coin.

Where could she put Flower Shock, that Virgil would never discover it? Or—should she allow Virgil to discover it, in a few months? Probably, Virgil would just laugh to see who’d bought one of his sculptures.

(But would Virgil laugh? He might be offended by his mother purchasing his work surreptitiously, as if he had to be humored like a child.)

Impulsively then, since her wallet was out and opened, Jessalyn decided to buy something by the Nigerian with the unpronounceable name. This, an egg-shaped curiosity constructed of layers of emerald-green fabric interwoven with white feathers, of about the size of a basketball, was more favored by the young woman clerk. “Now, this is pretty! You could use it as a throw pillow or a cushion, you know—on a bed, or a sofa. This artist is a black person—an African—I saw him. But he was wearing a white shirt, and spoke English like he really knew it. He was very polite.”

The emerald-green egg had no name or title and was reasonably priced, Jessalyn thought, at thirty-five dollars which she paid with her credit card. Unlike Flower Shock it was very light to lift.

Jessalyn was feeling gay, giddy. How tempting it was to make other purchases at the fair—works of art that few customers would want. If only she had more money to spend!—spreading it among local artists to raise their spirits. And best to buy in secret, so that no one knew who their benefactor was.

Whitey would approve, she believed. Lately, Whitey had been approving of her more reckless behavior.

Proper and good, sweetheart. Though you are not happy yourself you can make others happy, that’s what life is all about.

If only she’d gone home now. But, she had not.

Photography exhibits were in an adjoining tent. Here too the most popular sale items were of familiar images: smiling children, frisking dogs, sunsets and sunrises, blossoming trees, shadow-silhouettes on grass. Several of the photographers were locally known, and known to Jessalyn. But the major exhibit was titled The Mourners by a photographer named Hugo Martinez, of whom Jessalyn had never heard.

Amid the local photographers Martinez was clearly exceptional. You could see at a glance that his work was—well, “serious” was too weak a term. Beautiful, profound, captivating? Very professionally printed and mounted, the largest measuring at least four feet in length, three feet in height.

Martinez seemed to have traveled a good deal: here were photographs of a Tibetan “sky burial,” brightly clad Indians bathing in the Ganges, corpses burning in a funeral pyre. Churchyards, funeral processions, black-clad mourners on a boulder-strewn island off the coast of Scotland. In a gaudy Mexican cemetery, a spirited celebration of the Day of the Dead; on a Greek island, solitary mourners, female, black-clad, kneeling at graves. Jessalyn was appalled to realize what she was seeing: Roman catacombs exposing skulls, bones amid rocks. So many!

The photographs were sharply focused, intimate and unsparing. Death has no dignity, the dead can have no privacy. How different from our way of life in the United States, Jessalyn thought, where death is terrifying, and shameful; people hide away to die, and are buried or burnt and their ashes buried. To the very end, and after, we must believe that we matter.

Wanting to protest—Oh Whitey. I can’t accept it, you are one of so many. Please no.

Her husband’s death was singular, Jessalyn must believe this. She could not surrender this belief. She could not even surrender the notion that he was (somehow) not really gone, not close beside her, aware of her every thought and fleeting emotion.

Whitey, help me! I know that it is ridiculous, I am ridiculous but I know that you are with me, you will never abandon me…

At the end of The Mourners were a number of less spectacular photographs, not so large, their colors muted, taken in the United States.

Jessalyn found herself staring at one of these, which she thought heartstoppingly beautiful, and made her want to cry—Untitled: Widow. Here was a woman in a black coat stooping above a grave, on which there was a small, meager marker, unlike larger gravestones on neighboring graves; the woman had her back to the camera, oblivious of the photographer’s presence as if totally absorbed in grief. The photograph had been taken at dusk, the atmosphere was misty, dreamlike; it reminded Jessalyn of nineteenth-century photographs by Julia Cameron.

The widow’s posture was awkward, as if supplicant; as if she were speaking to someone in the earth below, making an appeal. She was in profile, but not clearly; you could not see much of her face. Yet the sobriety of the photograph, its melancholy mood, was qualified by a swath of mud on the side of the woman’s black coat, and (if you looked closely) on her legs. Jessalyn thought—Oh! She has no idea.

Other photographs of Martinez were similarly solemn but “flawed”: a fat-bellied man in a dingy white clinician’s coat, seated spread-legged outside a doorway marked EL DEPOSITO DE CADAVERS, and smoking a cigar; a glamorously made-up obese woman in a church pew, blowing her nose into a handkerchief; twin boys in twin suits beside a hearse, with identical crossed eyes; high-school-age girls giggling together, with bare midriffs, bare legs and bare feet in flip-flops, flirtatiously posing for the photographer in a cemetery. Jessalyn looked again at Untitled: Widow and recoiled with shock: “Why, that’s me.”

It was so. The widow of Untitled: Widow was Jessalyn McClaren.

For a very long time Jessalyn stared at the photograph without quite seeing it. She could feel blood draining out of her head, she was becoming faint, stunned.

But—how could this be? Jessalyn, in her black winter coat, at Whitey’s grave…

One of the volunteer clerks approached her, smiling. Could she be of help?

Jessalyn stammered no, not at the moment.

Wanting to hide her face. Wanting to run away…

It must have been the man in the cemetery months ago, who’d helped her when she’d fallen—he’d taken her picture, secretly. Helped her wipe mud off her coat and legs, and helped her find Whitey’s grave. He’d been an older man in a Stetson-like hat, a stranger. He’d had a mustache, a soft voice, he’d seemed calm and wise when Jessalyn had been agitated.

Had he been carrying a camera? He must have concealed it.

“Mrs. McClaren? Hello! I thought that was you. How are you?”—the smiling volunteer inquired.

Jessalyn could not meet the woman’s eye. She murmured something polite and eased away.

A hot blush swept over her, that everyone who saw the photograph would recognize Jessalyn McClaren.

What a shock! She was feeling exposed, betrayed. By the stranger who’d seemed so kindly to her.

Had to escape. The fair was ruined for her now.

Poor, piteous Jessalyn in her mud-smeared clothes—exposed in Untitled: Widow.

On the drive home recalling the mysterious calla lily someone had sent her—she thought the name had been “Hugo.” This had been months ago, probably after the cemetery encounter. Obviously, this had been the photographer who’d taken advantage of her—“Hugo Martinez.”

He’d known who she was, evidently. From the grave marker—JOHN EARLE MCCLAREN.

Martinez must have looked up her address, in order to send her the calla lily. A gesture of reparation, perhaps. An acknowledgment of guilt.

She was hurt, and she was angry. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Had this “Hugo” dared to thank her, in his note? In a kitchen drawer she found it:

Your friend. How had he dared!

CAREFULLY VIRGIL SAID: “The photograph is a work of art. It isn’t about you.”

And: “Even if it’s about you, it’s just a photograph—a ‘likeness.’ It’s not like the photographer has stolen your soul.”

Virgil was trying to speak in a comforting, cajoling voice. Though Jessalyn was sure she’d seen him wince when she pulled him by the sleeve to stand in front of Untitled: Widow.

So agitated by the photograph, so unable to expel it from her mind, Jessalyn had to seek out Virgil in his cabin on Bear Mountain Road. She’d insisted that Virgil accompany her back to the fair that very evening.

It wasn’t like Jessalyn to be so upset, Virgil thought. His usually mild-mannered mother, biting her lower lip to keep from crying, her eyes leaking tears of something like humiliation…

There were more visitors to the fair in the early evening. A sizable number drifted through the photography tent, and lingered at Hugo Martinez’s more spectacular photographs. Virgil saw how Jessalyn cringed, in fear that they would see Untitled: Widow and discover the widow a few feet away, stricken.

“This awful man, this ‘Hugo Ramirez’—”

“—‘Martinez’—”

“—he must have been hiding in the cemetery to take pictures of people at graves—‘mourners.’ He must have seen me when I was visiting Whitey’s grave. This was last November, I think. It wasn’t a good time for me, I may have struck him as—unstable.” Jessalyn had more to say but wasn’t sure that she should continue. Virgil was looking at her with alarm, she’d spoken with such emotion.

How much was Martinez asking for Untitled: Widow? Unframed, a print measuring two feet by eighteen inches, one hundred fifty dollars which seemed to Virgil a reasonable price.

Even if Jessalyn bought the damned print to hide it away, or destroy it, there would be other prints. The photographer owned the original, the purchaser could own only a print.

“Is that the way I look to other people? Sort of—stooped, stunted? With mud on my coat and legs?”

It was her vanity that had been injured, perhaps. Her pride.

Your mourning is tragic to you but not to others.

Virgil was admiring Martinez’s other photographs. His favorites were the Tibetan “sky burials”—thinly swathed corpses laid atop rock-pedestals—altars?—to be devoured by vultures. What a scene! You stared and stared, you could not look away. There was nothing in his own work, Virgil had to concede, that could compare.

“A photograph is a work of art, Mom. A photograph is not life. No work of art should be confused with life. This is a fleeting glimpse of something that looks familiar to you, but has no existence any longer. It ceased to exist within a moment. Certainly, the figure in the photograph isn’t you.”

But what did this mean? Was it meant to be mollifying? Was Virgil humoring her? Jessalyn could not be comforted so easily.

Virgil added, somewhat reluctantly, “I know him. Hugo Martinez.”

“You know him? The photographer?”

“Many people know Hugo Martinez.”

“Don’t tell me he’s a friend of yours!”

“No. But I’ve admired him, from a distance.”

“Oh, why? Why would you admire him?”

“He’s very talented but has trouble getting along with people. He’d had a professorship at the state university at one time. He’s been Poet Laureate of Western New York. He’s won awards with his photography—he’s been involved in political protests. He’s a ‘local figure of some controversy’—like me, I guess. But more so.” Virgil laughed.

Jessalyn was embarrassed to have never heard of this “local figure.”

“Is he a—respected person? Did Whitey know him?”

“Yes, and no. He’s respected if not universally liked. But no, Whitey wouldn’t have known him.”

“Is it like him to take a picture like this in stealth? Without asking permission?”

“He wasn’t taking your picture, Mom. I’ve tried to explain.”

“You’re defending him? Against your own mother?”

Virgil was astonished, Jessalyn continued to be so upset. She was virtually beating her fists together. He had not seen his mother so agitated even at the time of his father’s death.

“Mom, try to understand: this isn’t a picture of anyone specific. It’s a composition. A study in contrasts—light and dark, solid blocks of black, an almost complete absence of color, mist. The pale sliver of the woman’s profile mimics a sliver of a moon, you can barely see through clouds. The miniature marker on the grave has a very faint color, like copper. So there is color in the photograph, though it looks like a black-and-white picture. You don’t see that immediately—you have to wait. The photograph evokes mourning and it’s very beautiful, actually. Though I agree, maybe the photographer shouldn’t have taken it surreptitiously, I think with a long-distance lens.”

“Can we ask him to take it down? Please?”

“Well—you could try.”

“Would you try?”

“I—I—I don’t think that I can, Mom. I wouldn’t feel right. Hugo Martinez is a serious artist and I don’t believe in censorship. The photograph is about a ‘widow’—not about you.”

“But that ‘widow’ is me.”

“No. The figure in the composition is not you.”

“But people don’t think that way. The woman in the photograph is me—Jessalyn McClaren—I am the mourner, you can see it’s me.”

“No. Your face is turned away, Mom. There is no ‘face’ to the mourner. We don’t own ourselves when we are in public places—you have no reasonable expectation of privacy when you are in a public place like a cemetery.”

“But I know it’s me, that’s my coat, that’s my leg, splattered with mud. Is the photographer laughing at me?”

“Of course not, Mom. The photographer is not laughing at you. He has created a work of art, that will outlive you and him both. That is what he has created.”

Virgil spoke with such passion, Jessalyn was finally silenced. She felt so foolish, so diminished and so—left behind.

“I suppose it is beautiful. But it hurts so.”

HERE WAS ANOTHER SURPRISE FOR VIRGIL: Jessalyn’s purchase of the emerald-green fabric-and-feathers egg by Amos Keziahaya.

He’d come back to the house with her, for she’d seemed so upset he didn’t want to leave her alone, and she brought the curious object out to show him. Turning it in his hands he’d laughed with pleasure and a little stab of something like pain. “What led you to buy this, Mom?”

“I—I don’t know. It caught my eye. I thought it was—it is—unusual…”

“It is. All of Keziahaya’s work is unusual.”

“Oh, do you know him?”

Virgil considered. “No. Though he lives on Bear Mountain Road, in the farmhouse.”

A brooding look came into Virgil’s face that Jessalyn could not interpret.

“Do you think he’s lonely, being from Nigeria? Or is he—does he—have many friends?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t—know much about him.”

With a mother’s instinct Jessalyn said impulsively, “Would you like to invite him to dinner sometime, at my house? I’d like that.”

Virgil looked at her, startled. “Y-Yes. Maybe. Sometime.”

“Well. Just let me know.”

Jessalyn settled the emerald-green egg, woven with white feathers, onto a cushioned chair in the living room where it seemed to subtly rearrange the room, like a soft explosion.

Dear Hugo