Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

Enemies

“Lorene-y? Come sit right here!”

Beside Daddy, that was. Her.

HER ALL-TIME FAVORITE FILM WAS PATTON.

Just a girl maybe ten or eleven when she’d first watched it in the basement TV room.

Daddy had said here’s a great film, kids. Great performance by George C. Scott.

Seated close beside Daddy she’d watched enthralled. Whoever was sitting on her other side, quite possibly Beverly, maybe Thom, she didn’t remember, just a blur. Wanting to think—maybe—it had been just her and Daddy, for a change. Not everybody else.

Five children in a family is too damn many. Ask anyone who’s been there.

Ideal number?—Lorene would have said Just one.

But which just one?

Obviously, some parents stop having kids with just one. But that would have been her damn big bossy brother Thom, not her.

Some parents stop having kids after two. Especially if one’s a boy and one’s a girl. But that would’ve meant that her damn big bossy sister Beverly got born, not her.

Fact is, Lorene was number three. Two older siblings, two younger. (Not that the younger siblings counted for much, being younger.)

Still, Lorene felt like an only child. The center of gravity in the McClaren family.

An only child is likely to identify with parents and authority figures; younger children are likely to rebel. This was a popular psychology theory of the 1990s with which Lorene (who had a degree in psychology) did not agree.

Lorene identified with parental figures, particularly fathers. Particularly Daddy who was Whitey McClaren and no ordinary father.

As a girl she’d have said she wanted to be him—but since she couldn’t be him, she could be what Daddy might’ve been if he’d been her.

(Did that make sense? It made plenty of sense to Lorene.)

He was the one who called her, at special times, Lorene-y.

No one else would ever call her, at any time, Lorene-y.

Six times she’d seen Patton since that first time squeezed close to Daddy on the sofa. Six times she’d been enthralled by the portrait of the great, eccentric general of the American forces in World War II, and had felt a thrill of satisfaction when he’d slapped the trembling young soldier in the army hospital as the medical staff looked on in horror.

Coward! Patton had recoiled with fury and revulsion; he’d threatened to shoot the young soldier for desertion, with his own pistol.

Lorene had wanted to clap. This was how cowards should be treated!

But Daddy had surprised her. Daddy had not liked this scene so much. He’d said it was shameful hitting a sick soldier like that who couldn’t defend himself. And Patton a four-star general, a famous man, losing his judgment and behaving like a bully.

“General Patton just wants soldiers to be brave,” Lorene had protested. “He wants them to be men.”

“Sometimes men get sick, like anybody else,” Whitey said. “Sometimes a man gets sick and tired and fed up with being a man.”

Lorene laughed, thinking that Daddy meant to be funny. How was it possible, a man could get fed up with being a man?

Not Lorene. Not ever.

ON QUESTIONNAIRES SHE’D SOMETIMES CHECKED, half-consciously, only child.

“DR. MCCLAREN? A call for you.”

“Say I’m not in. Didn’t I tell you!”

Like a soft-centered cake, collapsing. Found herself crying in her office. Not taking calls, canceling appointments. In her secretary’s eyes, a look of surprise and alarm.

Principal at North Hammond High for nearly four years and in that time, in fact before that time, she’d scarcely had a week off and now she was thinking, since Whitey’s death, since the money he’d left her, she must take a trip, she must travel, somewhere away from this place, and soon.

Not that she wasn’t in excellent health. She was.

Certainly, she was.

Except no trips for her. She had work to do.

Instructing Iris to explain—Dr. McClaren is involved in an urgent conference call. She will speak with you tomorrow morning.

Respected, admired, feared.

And the greatest of these is fear.

IN THE BEGINNING she’d liked them. Well, maybe she hadn’t liked them, exactly—but she hadn’t disliked them.

Now, they’d become the enemy. Her enemy.

More than eight hundred adolescents enrolled in the suburban high school and in their midst, hidden and protected by their sheer number, the small, core group, names unknown to her, who constituted the threat to the principal’s authority as the presence of a virulent strain of amoeba in the human gut is the threat to human life, erupting in bloody dysentery.

What exactly did these mutinous students do, to what did they conspire, smoking in lavatories which was forbidden, smuggling drugs into the school which was forbidden, “dealing” God knew what drugs—marijuana, amphetamines, painkillers, cocaine? Heroin? Laughing at “Dr. McClaren”—“Principal McClaren”—behind her back. Challenging her authority. Graffiti on walls, sidewalks. Veiled allusions, insults in the school newspaper and online.

The most mortifying was Lorene’s head atop a squat-pig Nazi body. She-Gestapo McC .

Or maybe, the most mortifying was Lorene’s head atop an actual sow-body, with flaccid, drooping dugs and hideously raw and reddened genitals.

It was shocking to her, who so little identified with female, to be reduced to female in the grossest of ways, in derision and mockery. Why, Lorene somewhat despised female herself, and far more readily identified with male.

Yet, it was male students who were her enemies, mostly. Though there were girls also—of course. Bitches.

She knew (she suspected) who they were. Knew their faces.

As in a fever dream their faces floated past her insolent and beautiful.

So young, they were likely to be beautiful and their beauty careless as milkweed seed blown in the wind, promiscuous as it was ubiquitous.

Having sex. She knew, that was what they were doing in defiance of her also, having sex crude and graceless as guzzling cans of beer on school property, behind the bleachers or in the parking lot which was forbidden as the dealing of drugs was forbidden, so much was forbidden that had been unleashed during the years she’d become the youngest principal in the history of North Hammond High.

From her office window in the school building, through part-drawn venetian blinds she observed them, the swarm of them, deadly in their very anonymity.

Social media, a new nightmare unknown to her parents’ generation. Internet postings, anonymous websites, vile words, obscene images. Typing in the name LORENE MCCLAREN, PRINCIPAL NORTH HAMMOND HIGH had become an exercise in self-laceration akin to tearing off her skin with her teeth yet she could not resist in the hour before midnight and in the unhappy hours after midnight unable to sleep and so rising from her bed to return to her laptop determined to know who was taunting her, which of the vermin it was, the most vicious enemy, that must be extirpated.

She’d been assured by her allies among the faculty and staff that these (mutinous, monstrous) students/trolls at North Hammond were not really trying to destroy Lorene McClaren, their crude and cruel cyberbullying was hardly limited to her, best for her to ignore it.

We all have to deal with it, they’d claimed. Just don’t Google your name for God’s sake.

But she could not resist. How could she!—like trying to ignore amoebic dysentery as your bowels were being evacuated in the scalding-hot stench of shit.

And so, she was determined to track them down—trolls. Track them to their lairs. Pour poison into the lairs. Better yet, something flammable into their lairs and set afire.

Oh, she knew who some of her tormenters were! She was sure.

Never forget, and never forgive.

Within a few months in pursuit of these canny little bastards Lorene had acquired computer skills to put her into a league (almost) with the elite of Russian and Chinese hackers. She’d have liked to boast but boasting wasn’t her (public) style.

Mostly senior boys, and mostly jocks. Arrogant kids, spoiled and stupid, even the smarter ones, even those whose grades were high enough for them to apply to first-rate universities with a reasonable expectation of being accepted, even—(Lorene was sure)—an honors student whose column in the school newspaper, brimming with sarcasm, so closely echoed phrases in certain of the online postings, Lorene had no difficulty identifying him as a principal troll. His name was appropriate: “Todd Price.”

Lorene smiled. Price would pay the price.

Applications to Harvard, Princeton, Yale?—MIT, Caltech?—Cornell? The spoiled brats didn’t suspect that they had to contend with a (female) principal so skilled in computer use, she had little difficulty altering their precious transcripts and letters of recommendation to assure rejection by any “competitive” university to which they applied.

Among the girl-trolls she’d been able to identify one just the other day. Bland pretty face, straight blond hair falling past her shoulders, yearbook co-editor, class officer, exactly the sort of girl of whom it is said Oh but not Tiffany!—not her. But Lorene, sharp-eyed, practiced in detecting subversion, had observed this sly little bitch whispering and giggling with a friend in the very first row of the auditorium as Lorene in her cranberry-colored gabardine pants suit took the podium at a school assembly with a bright welcoming smile.

Hello! How are you all on this beautiful morning in June?

And to Tiffany, silently gloating—Bitch, you’re dead. And you don’t even know it.

From the pitiless online-adolescent world Lorene had acquired a macho swagger that was contemptible to her and yet—perversely—intensely enjoyable. It was the atmosphere of the video game, she suspected, though (of course) she’d never glimpsed an actual video game, soundly condemned by educators of her generation as time-wasting, soul-abrading.

All that she knew of the adolescent soul was repugnant to her. Though she had to keep her knowledge safely hidden.

(Of course! That was the delight of it.)

Adolescents were devious, sex-obsessed, gross and smelly.

Sniffing the corridors of the school you could smell their monkey-stench. The boys jacking off (as they quaintly called it) and the girls on the rag (ugly).

Sperm, semen. Vaginal juices, menstrual blood.

No wonder they became druggies, many of them. Smoking dope had started for them in middle school, she’d just inherited the problem.

“Drug users” had no one’s sympathy. All you needed to do was wait patiently for them to self-destruct: over-dose.

No matter what she said publicly, the principal of North Hammond High did not believe in rehabilitation for the young. It was too expensive, and its results were unreliable. Recidivism was high. Better to accept that with a few exceptions the young were an accursed generation, frontal lobes stunted from video games, cell phones, TV, sex-gratification by the hour. They had no sense of history and so could have no sense of the future. Equipped with state-of-the-art computers—(North Hammond was an affluent school district)—they had never to think for themselves, facts and pseudo-facts were at their fingertips, free, thus of little worth. Equipped with calculators they had never to add up a column of numbers, multiply or divide. They were volatile, impressionable. They had the scant memories of fruit flies and would have bred as promiscuously except they were canny enough to use condoms. (Condoms! High school! Excellent idea so that they didn’t breed but how disgusting when you thought of it, and how hard not to think of it.) They cheated on their homework of course, and tried to cheat on their tests. They could not very easily cheat on state-mandated exams, though they tried. Can’t trust them, and can’t put anything past them. This generation!

Once adolescents got into drugs, that was the end for them. They had not the intelligence or the stamina or willpower to resist. Their lives went up in smoke—literally! Lorene wanted them out of the school, gone. Hosed out. Gone. No regrets. The ones identified as drug users did not merit leniency, mercy. How would General Patton have reacted? Lorene didn’t believe in mollycoddling drug users any more than the great four-star general believed in mollycoddling the unfit and the “malingerers.” Oh yes, Dr. McClaren was concerned when she spoke with the parents of such miserable offspring, sympathetic-seeming, encouraging them to send their addict-sons and -daughters to rehab clinics out of state—West Palm Beach, Florida, was a favored place, lately a notorious place, for several teenagers had died of overdoses there in the midst of being “rehabilitated.”

Well, not on her watch. Not her responsibility. Caught with drugs on school property, a single marijuana cigarette or prescription pill for which the culprit had no prescription—out.

“Sorry. You have all been warned. Many times. North Hammond High is a zero-tolerance school. No drugs. No negotiations. No exceptions. Out.”

It was an extreme position for a school principal to take in these over-therapized and mollycoddled times and there were those (her enemies among the faculty, whose names Lorene knew well) who were sure that it would precipitate the tyrannical woman’s downfall, but no, Principal McClaren’s “zero tolerance” stance was met with approval by an overwhelming majority of parents, taxpayers, and civic leaders. She was doing her job, she was “weeding-out” the unfit from the fit, casting the unfit into oblivion, preserving the stellar reputation of the school. It did not escape general notice that among the unfit were a disproportionately high number of “minority” students—that was how it was. In the affluent and career-obsessed suburban setting such law-and-order firmness was desired.

You could always find dark-skinned mothers to praise her. Hispanic parents, Asians. This is what our children need. This is America.

Driving the school’s ranking up, upward. That was Lorene’s obsession. When she’d begun as principal four years before, North Hammond High had been ranked thirty-sixth in all of New York State, out of more than 2,100 schools; through her effort, the school was most recently ranked twenty-eighth. In all of the United States, North Hammond High was ranked 416, up from 422, out of more than 23,000 public schools.

For this, and other accomplishments as an educator, Lorene had been awarded a Hammond Citizens’ Award for 2011; deeply touching to her, for John Earle McClaren had received this same award in 1986.

At the awards ceremony it was observed that North Hammond High principal Lorene McClaren, that brisk dynamo of a “little woman,” tough, laser-smart and no-nonsense, with a face sharp as something hacked out of stone and hair razor-cut short as a Marine’s, had to fight back tears when the award presenter reminisced about “Whitey” McClaren and what he’d done as a Hammond citizen.

Liking to think that Whitey would have indeed been proud of her.

Liking to think that indeed she was weeding out her enemies at the high school. One by one and eventually none would remain to defy her.

Whitey had often said, mysteriously laying his finger alongside his nose like a sly Santa Claus—Revenge is a dish best served with no witnesses.

IT WAS TRUE, Lorene’s clock ran fast. Like her heart.

A pulsebeat more rapid than normal. Quick darting thoughts like piranha fish. Since childhood she’d been a schemer.

“Mackie! Why, hel-lo.”

First damn thing you encountered at the house on Old Farm Road—the ugly squint-eye black tomcat standing squarely just inside the kitchen door like a guard dog, stubby tail erect, single tawny eye glaring. The creature drew back its lips to expose sharp yellowed teeth and discolored, dingy gums in a soundless hiss. Lorene was frightened, but held her ground. The thing was only a cat after all!

Why hadn’t Thom solved the problem of the stray cat that was taking advantage of their soft-hearted mother? He’d promised that he would, and he had not.

She could not bring herself to murder the damned thing, Lorene thought. Even poison, a cowardly sort of murder, was not for her. And poor Jessalyn would be inconsolable from another loss.

Discreetly Lorene avoided the ugly tomcat. If the creature was spoiling for a fight, Lorene was too practiced in public-school-administration quasi-diplomacy to be suckered into a confrontation.

“Would you like to take a trip with me, Mom?”—Lorene heard herself asking.

“A trip—where?”

Jessalyn was sounding dubious. Seemed like each time you tried to talk to her about something serious that implied a future Jessalyn edged away, or changed the subject, or smiled at you with that sweet tense smile that all but begged—No! Whatever you are asking of me, please don’t.

It was as Beverly complained, their mother who’d once been so social and so outgoing had become morbidly attached to the house; you had to pry her away just to go shopping at the mall.

(You would think—you would not want to think—that Whitey was still living here, somewhere upstairs.)

“I was thinking—Bali. Thailand. Somewhere far away, exotic.” Not adding—Where thoughts of Whitey can’t follow you. Where Whitey has never been.

“We’ve never traveled together, Mom. You’ve hardly traveled at all, and I haven’t left North America in twelve years.”

“Did you say—Bali? That’s the far side of the world…”

“It’s supposed to be very beautiful, and not so spoiled like other Pacific islands.”

Practically pleading with her mother! Why?

Had Lorene no one else with whom she might travel? At her age of nearing-thirty-five? So—alone?

“I would make all the plans myself, Mom. Of course!”

Instead of greeting this remark with enthusiasm Jessalyn shivered. Lorene felt a stab of rage at her widowed mother clinging pathetically to her narrow safe life—resolutely self-blindered, haut-bourgeois, massively-boring-suburban-hausfrau life as Lorene thought it. More pointless now than it had been when Whitey had been alive.

Jessalyn said, “You used to say that you didn’t ‘believe’ in vacations, Lorene. Even as a young girl. Just like your father—Whitey didn’t ‘believe’ in vacations either…”

Lorene said, exasperated, “Well, I’m older now. I’ve been working damned hard and I think I deserve a break and even Daddy would concur. He used to say—‘They will suck your blood and wring you dry if you don’t keep up your guard.’”

“Whitey said that? When?”

“When I first started teaching. Public school. He knew what a rat race it is and how the young and idealistic burn out fast unless they can protect themselves.”

“Really! Whitey said that?”

“He did, Mom. Maybe not to you, but to me.”

“It doesn’t sound like Whitey, somehow. He was the idealist, all his life.”

“Not really. Daddy was no fool. He knew where the bodies are buried.”

Jessalyn reacted with a startled look as if, indeed, real bodies had been buried, really. And Whitey had known where?

“To be a public school principal is like trying to keep order in a banana republic. Even your allies, the ones who owe you everything, can’t be trusted; and your enemies are waiting to slit your throat.”

“Oh, Lorene! You’re being funny, I hope.”

Jessalyn laughed, distractedly. Something strange tonight, Lorene thought: her mother seemed to be paying only partial attention to her as if her mind were elsewhere.

Even glancing about as if she expected to see—who? Lorene didn’t want to think She is missing Whitey.

Usually on such occasions Jessalyn could be counted on to dote on Lorene’s every word: grateful for her daughter’s tales of incidents at North Hammond High, bad student behavior punished, faculty detractors and “ingrates” outmaneuvered at staff meetings. Budget crises invariably ended with Lorene triumphant for (as Lorene liked to boast) she’d made North Hammond the most “winning” school in the district and the superintendent of schools admired her—and maybe feared her.

In each of the tales Lorene was the pure, selfless, educator-warrior-woman who prevailed, triumphed against forces of ignorance and meanness. (Though Lorene spared her mother details of the ugly cyberbullying.) These exploits Lorene laid at her mother’s feet like Mack the Knife bringing back mutilated prey with an expectation of praise.

“Well, I am very busy right now, Mom. These are frantic weeks, coming to the end of the school year—I feel that I am ‘on’ at least one hundred hours a week. That’s why I’ve been thinking of a trip when it’s all over. And taking you with me, Mom.”

Thank God, graduation was next Monday. As principal Lorene was to preside over the commencement ceremony which would last approximately ninety minutes and which would be, except for those minutes when Lorene herself was speaking, the very quintessence of boredom.

Self-congratulations, praise. Earnest student speeches, the deafening student band with its thumping beat like a gargantuan beast waddling from side to side. The senior prom would have taken place the previous weekend—God knew what awful things would happen at, or after, this ghastly spring sex-ritual about which adults were not supposed to know, and Lorene had not the slightest interest in knowing. These several hectic days were the culmination of the school year that gathered momentum as the end approached like a train whose brakes have failed rushing down a steep grade.

Eight months since Whitey had died, and yet it seemed like eight years—so long.

It seemed like eight weeks. Eight days—still breathless.

The prospect of graduation, so many hands to be vigorously shaken, such a barrage of congratulations and farewells—Lorene was feeling drained of spirit beforehand, like a general walking a corpse-strewn battlefield in polished boots.

Worse, she had to pretend to care.

And if troubled parents engaged her in confidence amid the festivities, baffled and disappointed that their seemingly bright offspring had failed to get into their first-choice universities, Lorene would feign indignation on their account, and promise to see what I can do. (That’s to say, nothing.)

About this at least, Lorene felt good. You had no need to confront the enemy openly when you could (secretly) cut them off at the knees, aged eighteen, and play the role of sympathizer, commiserator. Revenge had to be the best remedy for any sort of malaise.

“It would do you good, Mom. A change of scene.”

“Oh but—why? Why would I want the scene—‘changed’?” Jessalyn was looking stricken. “I—I couldn’t go away and leave Mackie…”

“Of course you can go away and leave that cat! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say, Mom.”

“But who would take care of him?”

Lorene laughed, this was preposterous. The creature was a feral cat and could take care of itself.

“Maybe—Virgil? He’d be perfect. He loves animals and he has virtually nothing to do. If you could rely upon him to drop by the house, of course. That’s a big ‘if.’”

Midsentence, Lorene was casting doubt on the reliability of her brother. There was something like a knot in her brain, she sometimes thought. She could hear herself say these self-harmful things but could not always control herself. Fortunately, Jessalyn would never notice.

“Well—it’s too soon. I wouldn’t feel right.”

“‘Too soon’—meaning what?”

“After—you know…”

“No, Mom. You tell me.”

“Well, I mean—it’s hard to explain. Bali is so far away…”

“Yes, you’ve said. ‘Far away’ is the point.”

“I’m not a good traveler. I never have been. There are reasons for me to stay here…”

“Really? What reasons?”

Jessalyn fell silent. Her eyes were lowered, evasive. Her mouth moved as if she were about to cry.

Lorene felt a wave of exasperation for her mother, and for herself. For God’s sake leave the poor woman alone. It’s Whitey she can’t leave, of course Bali is far away.

NEXT MORNING a call came from Beverly, sounding agitated.

“Lorene! I know you’re there, God damn pick up.”

Lorene hesitated. It was not her usual custom to pick up when her excitable older sister called her, which was too frequently.

Lorene was preparing to leave for school and she did not want to speak with her sister particularly at this early, unspoiled hour of the day—that would be like starting a ski run in pristine-fresh snow a short distance above a tangle of rocks and underbrush.

“Lorene! Do you know that our mother is seeing someone?”

Lorene fumbled to pick up her phone. “‘Seeing someone’? You mean—Leo Colwin?”

“No! For God’s sake, that’s been over for months. This is a new person—a stranger. But Virgil seems to know him, he has said. An artiste. And Hispanic.”

“Wait. How do you mean, Mom is ‘seeing’ this person? I had dinner with her just last night, and she didn’t tell me.”

“Because she isn’t telling us! Because she feels guilty! Because it has been only seven and a half months since Daddy passed away, and this is too soon, and the identity of the man is shameful to her—some sort of Hispanic.”

Each time the word Hispanic rolled off Beverly’s tongue the sound glittered with sarcasm like saliva.

Lorene was stunned. Jessalyn had behaved deceptively with her?

There was a small Hispanic population in the Hammond area, and virtually no overlapping with the “white” community except for house cleaners, lawn crews, service people. An ever-increasing number of Hispanic students at the high school but not one Hispanic faculty member.

Well, yes—there was an Hispanic custodian who greeted “Dr. McClaren” with exaggerated courtliness whenever they met in the corridor.

Beverly was saying, incensed: “Thom has had his suspicions, he told me. Last week he went over to visit Mom and said it was very upsetting, he could detect the presence of a stranger as soon as he stepped inside the door. He could practically smell this intruder, Thom said.”

“Do you mean—someone is living there? A man? In our house?”

“No! That would be outrageous.” Beverly paused, breathing audibly. “It hasn’t come to that—yet. We don’t think.”

“But—who is this person?”

“His name is ‘Hugo Ramirez’—or maybe it’s ‘Martinez’—he’s a Cuban.”

Lorene listened in disbelief. Their mother, with a Cuban! The McClarens didn’t know any Cubans, she was sure.

“How would Mom ever meet a Cuban? Our housemaids were Filipino and the lawn crew men are Mexicans, I think. This doesn’t seem plausible.”

“I told you, Virgil knows this person! He isn’t a laborer! Mom must have met him at the Chautauqua arts fair. She hasn’t said a word so far to me.”

“But how does Virgil know about this?”

“Who knows how Virgil knows? For God’s sake, Lorene. That isn’t the issue.”

Beverly spoke rapidly, not very coherently. Lorene couldn’t quite follow the nature of her sister’s grievance but understood clearly—they’d all been betrayed.

For unmistakably, Jessalyn had deceived Lorene. Even if the relationship with the “Cuban” was utterly innocent, Jessalyn had certainly not informed her.

Wasn’t omission a kind of deception? A failure to reveal the truth? Lorene tried to recall the evening: they’d had supper together in the kitchen, a favorite childhood meal (Spanish omelet, whole grain bread) which Jessalyn had happily prepared and Lorene had hungrily eaten. Lorene had discussed with Jessalyn, admittedly it had been a one-sided conversation, the possibility of Jessalyn accompanying her on a trip to Bali, or Thailand; just once, the phone had rung, and instead of ignoring it as she usually did, quietly Jessalyn had gone to check the caller ID, but had not picked up the phone. (Had the call been from the mysterious Cuban? If so, he hadn’t left any message. Lorene had assumed that the call had been from a solicitor and Jessalyn hadn’t said a word about the call.)

Over the course of the evening Lorene had confided in her mother that, since Whitey’s death, in fact since Whitey’s hospitalization, her sleep patterns had been “shot to hell”; she found herself weeping over trivial things, like a newspaper obituary for someone she didn’t even know—“James Arness, remember? Daddy used to love him in Gunsmoke.” She had not wanted to upset Jessalyn by telling her about her enemies at the high school, still less the lengths to which she was driven to defend herself against them.

“Oh Mom, what is this weird thing?”—Lorene had discovered, on a sofa, an odd, egg-shaped object made of bright green yarn and white feathers, that looked like a TV comic’s parody of something “arty.”

Embarrassed, Jessalyn identified it as a work of art created by a Nigerian artist living now in Hammond. Lorene asked how much it had cost, which was Lorene’s usual query in such circumstances, and when Jessalyn told her, Lorene laughed heartily. “As P. T. Barnum said, Mom—‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’”

“Oh, but I think it’s very—beautiful…”

“Well, it’s green. And Mackie hasn’t torn it to pieces just yet.”

And what else? Had that been all? Had Jessalyn hinted at something further? Lorene did now remember her mother fussing more than ordinarily over a crystal vase filled with sharply sweet white flowers—lilies?—she’d positioned on the kitchen table between them, exactly in the middle.

The Dice

Whitey said, Your life is in your hands, darling.

And when she opened her hand, there on her palm was a pair of eyes.

She recoiled with horror and another time she looked, and saw—Not eyes. Dice.

THESE WERE OLD, IVORY DICE. Handed down through Whitey’s family. She’d found them in his bureau drawer among cuff links, a very old wristwatch, nail scissors. The dice were discolored, the hue of jaundice. And grimy.

Whitey said, Toss the dice, darling. Don’t be afraid.

She was hearing wind chimes at the back of the house. This was a comforting sound and yet a worrisome sound, like a smell of ether.

A wind had started in the night. Rain was flung against the part-opened windows of the bedroom. In the morning, the filmy curtains would be damp beneath her bare feet.

Something timid about bare feet. She walked mincingly, hesitantly.

She’d pleaded no. She did not want to toss the dice.

She wasn’t that sort. She had never taken risks. Her marriage had been a large, gentle net that had caught her and Whitey together and held them fast and secure and would not ever release them except Whitey had vanished, she was left to struggle in the net, alone.

She did not want to toss the dice for the dice were her life now, and not his.

And so Whitey said, Toss the dice, darling. It’s your time.

Dear Hugo

It is not enough to mourn.

She’d written him the letter which was a letter from the heart.

She’d written the letter and sent it and forgotten it.

In such haste she’d written, and the sheet of paper stippled with her tears.

It had not been calculated—Dear Hugo. There was nothing in it of deliberation, premeditation.

In the very writing, the forgetting.

IN LATE JUNE she glanced out an upstairs window of her house and saw, at the end of the driveway, a man on foot, seemingly a stranger, starting to push her large trash container on its wobbly rollers in the direction of the house.

Who was this? Not one of the county sanitation workers—there was no sanitation truck in sight, and in any case the workers never troubled to push emptied trash containers back to a house. Usually, they left the containers overturned on the road, like collapsed drunks on their backs.

Also, it was late afternoon. The weekly trash pickup was always in the morning.

Whoever this was, he was being very helpful. Jessalyn was uneasy, wondering why.

She’d been noticing how long the driveway was, and how impractical. Not a straight driveway—naturally, it had to curve, like a meandering stream; not paved, not covered in asphalt, but comprised of very small, pink-hued pebbles through which, in the absence of Whitey, miniature weeds had begun to sprout.

No longer regularly mowed, the lawn was reverting to tall grasses, and no longer grass. In season a marvel of yellow dandelions, thistles and “wildflowers.”

Of course, the property at 99 Old Farm Road wouldn’t be going entirely to seed. That was not going to happen. Included in the contract establishing the widow’s trust was an allotment for ongoing property maintenance which Jessalyn was spared having to negotiate, as she was spared dealing with taxes on the property, fuel delivery in cold weather, the cleaning of roof gutters and other routine services. The late husband John Earle McClaren had seen to all that.

In addition, the widow’s children kept a sharp eye on the property. That is, several sharp eyes. Beverly was always showing up unannounced to prowl through the house to see how it was being “kept.” (Surprisingly, the house was looking very “well-kept”: Jessalyn avoided most of the rooms.) Thom dropped by once a week to see how things were looking outside; after a windstorm, Thom ordered Whitey’s old lawn crew to return, to haul away debris and remove damaged limbs. He saw to it that the irregularly tended lawn didn’t turn into an uncouth field, that would dismay and infuriate residents on Old Farm Road who (so far) had been sympathetic with Jessalyn McClaren as a “despondent”—“mildly deranged”—widow. If and when the house needed major repairs, Thom would step in. Paying for the upkeep on the family property out of his own pocket was a sound investment, and Thom believed in sound investments.

Jessalyn was thinking that, with things so altered in their lives, Whitey himself might not care quite so much about appearances as he’d once cared.

What the hell, darling. Lighten it, eh?

Jessalyn was trying. She was!

For the worst had happened, after all. The husband had died, the wife had survived, if but barely. There was that: the worst was over.

But you have to try again, Jess. Just one more time.

Jessalyn could hear the rumbling, rattling sound of the trash container being pushed toward the house. If she hadn’t been looking out the window she might have mistaken it for thunder.

Once every two weeks Jessalyn pushed the trash container out to the curb—she had very little trash, not nearly enough for a weekly pickup; she supposed the sanitation men felt sorry for her. When the McClarens had all lived in the house, two large trash containers were required a week, at least. Now, with just the widow, there was a scarcity of trash and the recycling was even more pitiable—these squat rubbery bins Jessalyn hauled out to the curb only once a month, green for paper products, yellow for bottles/cans. Her muscles ached, and her breath came short—the containers all wobbled on their wheels and seemed to resist her. For what is hauled out to the curb is the futility of our lives, that loops back upon itself, endless.

But the curbside bins were a reassuring sign to neighbors: Yes, I am alive! I am still producing trash.

As he drew nearer to the house the stranger so affably pushing the container began to look familiar: wide-brimmed hat that obscured much of his face, drooping gray mustache that obscured the rest of his face. A white shirt, sleeves folded neatly back to the elbow.

He wasn’t young, you could see. An odd combination of dignified and just-slightly-shabby.

Tall and loose-limbed, even jaunty, pushing the container on its rattling rollers. It had not seemed to occur to this person that he might be trespassing on someone’s property, and that his presence might be a cause of alarm.

Jessalyn felt a stab of hot blood in her face. Him!

The man in the cemetery—Hugo. The photographer who’d taken her picture without her permission.

She’d written to him—of course. A hasty letter sent to “Hugo Martinez” in care of the Chautauqua arts fair, she’d forgotten almost as soon as she’d mailed it.

Well, he’d sent her a single calla lily. She did remember that.

She’d seen him (she was reasonably sure) in the Hope Baptist Church on Armory Street but (she was reasonably sure, to her relief) he had not seen her.

What had Virgil said of Hugo Martinez?—Jessalyn tried to remember.

He respected Martinez. He admired Martinez’s work, which he seemed to consider superior to his own. Virgil’s honesty was such, he didn’t spare himself such evaluations, as he did not spare others.

Not like he’d stolen your soul. Had Virgil said that?

The driveway curved off, and Martinez followed the driveway, not entering a small courtyard at the front of the house, and not approaching the front door; he was pushing the cumbersome container back where it belonged, almost as if he’d known where it belonged—out of sight, alongside the garage wall. Like a handyman!—Jessalyn thought. Or a husband.

HE’D SAID HE COULD HELP HER, if she needed help.

Being a widow. He figured, she could use help.

She opened her mouth to thank him, and to protest—she didn’t need help. But her throat closed and she could not speak.

Somehow, she’d hurried downstairs. He had been about to leave. (Had he? She wasn’t sure. Had he parked out on the road, out of sight of the house? But why?)

She’d been breathless, hurrying after Hugo Martinez. She’d steeled herself for a ringing doorbell, or a knock at the door—which she had not intended to answer; for he had no way of knowing if she was home, or, if home, if others were in the house with her. He had no way of knowing anything about her, how vulnerable she was, how lonely, how badly she had been hoping he might come to her in a way like this though never would Jessalyn have imagined that he might come to her like this.

Somehow, she heard herself inviting Hugo Martinez inside. And he was saying, Yes!—but first he had something to bring for her; awkwardly backing off, smiling in a way you’d have to call boisterous, the droopy gray mustache like Spanish moss getting in the way of his speech so that his words were blurred; Jessalyn stared after him not knowing what he was doing, if he was leaving her to return, or only just leaving; hurrying out to the road, actually half-running, but with a just-perceptible weakness in his left leg; but then returning at once in his car, a stately deep-purple Mercedes-Benz, but a badly weathered Mercedes-Benz missing chrome trim along its sides and with one mismatched tire; very carefully Martinez drove this vehicle along the pink-pebbled driveway stippled with weeds, and parked in front of the little courtyard where Jessalyn waited in a trance of apprehension not knowing what on earth she was doing, what terrible mistake she’d made, that might be irrevocable, for which her children would pity her, and grieve for her.

Out of the car Hugo Martinez emerged smiling—his smile, baring somewhat yellowed, uneven teeth, was really remarkable, triumphant. In one hand a bouquet of a dozen waxy-white flowers, Jessalyn knew to be calla lilies at a glance, even before she’d detected the exquisite, sickly-sweet odor, and in the other hand a bottle of wine she guessed to be red wine. And inside the house she took both the calla lilies and the bottle of wine from Hugo Martinez as if the visit were not a surprise, but had been expected and anticipated.

HE SAID, HE’D BEEN GRATEFUL to have her letter. It was a beautiful letter he’d read several times, and would always treasure.

He’d thought of her quite a bit. He could not say why. He had not intended to speak with her. He’d sent the lily—that was a kind of apology. But since he hadn’t been sorry, it wasn’t clear what he was apologizing for.

He had known her name from the grave marker, and indeed he knew the name McClaren. And so he’d made inquiries. It was not so difficult to discover where she lived. That was how he’d known where to send the flower.

He hadn’t intended to seek her out, personally. He had not.

He’d hoped she wouldn’t see the exhibit. Wouldn’t see the photograph in the cemetery. Usually people didn’t recognize themselves in the photographs of Hugo Martinez in which faces were turned aside and identities obscured.

It was startling to Jessalyn, to hear her visitor speak of himself in so formal a way—“Hugo Martinez.” There was an innocent sort of vanity in this, like the vanity of a child.

His English was slightly stilted, self-conscious. Yet there was no discernible accent in his speech.

He’d come to apologize, he said. That she had recognized herself, and this recognition caused her pain. She had been so lost in the cemetery, he could not leave her.

Well—he’d left the cemetery to return to his car, he said; but then he’d gone back again. He’d found her glove on the path. He’d taken her picture surreptitiously. It was a failing of his, the habit of secrecy, the illicit and the taboo. He did not want to be “open” and “honest”—that was not his personality.

He’d been thinking about her, even before her letter. He had not wanted to think that he’d fallen in love with her, in just those few seconds in the cemetery.

Fallen in love!—Jessalyn wasn’t sure she’d heard this. She began to laugh, startled and confused.

Well—why was it so funny? Hugo Martinez glared at her and demanded to know.

Quickly Jessalyn said it wasn’t funny at all—really, not at all. It was a very serious thing—if he was serious.

Martinez said, huffily, that he was always serious.

She wasn’t understanding, that was it.

He laughed and said, D’you have a corkscrew, dear? I’ll open the wine.

NO! THANK YOU but she did not drink. Usually.

Is this—usual? He’d seemed curious to know.

Kindly eyes, but bemused. Inquisitive. A face once handsome but now creased, weatherworn like old leather, with odd comma-like dents in the forehead, and a long, elegant, flaring nose like a miniature horn.

The mustache was distracting. Too large, too lank. Graying-silver stiff hairs, different in texture from the softer, thinner silver-coppery hair of the man’s head.

Smiling to see the hairs of the mustache stirring, with the man’s breath. Oh but why would you want such an encumbrance on your face, drooping over your mouth?

As a girl Jessalyn had shuddered at the very idea of a mustache—all the girls she knew did. Imagine kissing that.

Of course, you didn’t kiss the mustache. But the mustache was there.

And why was she smiling?—Hugo Martinez asked, curious.

Was she smiling?—she hadn’t known. For a moment she’d been feeling giddy, unreal.

You seem happy, Jez’lyn. Much more than I remember. But, well—El tiempo cura todas las heridas.

Jessalyn laughed startled and uneasy as if, in the guise of saying something comforting in his courtly deep-baritone voice, her visitor had cursed her.

How to reply, she could not. A stammer began deep in her throat.

She’d understood exactly what Hugo Martinez had said. Not knowing a syllable of Spanish, yet she’d known.

It is the most banal truths that endure, Hugo Martinez said, gently. (Had he seen her stricken look? Had she revealed her emotions so transparently?) But you soon learn, dear, if you are of any age, that the most urgent truths are never not banal.

Jessalyn murmured a vague yes. She had no idea what they were talking about.

Recklessly she’d climbed into a small boat with this mustached stranger. She had no oar, he was the one who had the oar, who had called her dear.

There was an air of the buccaneer about Hugo Martinez, in fact. The rakish angle of his wide-brimmed straw hat which he’d politely removed, entering the house; his shirt, open nearly to mid-chest, revealing a dense clump of silvered hair; the straightness of his shoulders, that signaled a kind of male swagger. His hair was long enough to fall languidly over the collar of his shirt and his shirt was made of a fine, soft material like Egyptian linen, worn at the cuffs.

His trousers were badly wrinkled though also of a fine fabric.

On his feet, hand-tooled leather sandals, also worn. Jessalyn had not been able to resist glancing at his feet, appalled to see that the nails of both his big toes were badly discolored, thick as horn.

Old, black blood beneath the nails, Jessalyn knew. The nails of Thom’s big toes had been identical when he’d been a teenager, from hiking boots.

Why are you crying, now, Jez’lyn?—Hugo Martinez stared at her in dismay. Please, I wish you would not.

ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE KITCHEN TABLE they sat breathless.

As if they’d climbed a great flight of steps and each ahead of the other calling Hurry!

In the center of the table Jessalyn set the calla lilies in a cut-crystal vase.

Their beauty was mesmerizing to her. Their sweet scent, sharp as a blade piercing her brain as the mustached man regarded her with bemused eyes.

Gray irises, shading to dark. Fine-burst capillaries, a faint yellowish tinge to the eyeballs as if Hugo Martinez had been ill recently, or had not slept well the previous night.

She was feeling just slightly faint: the man’s nearness.

The chair in which she sat felt as if it were at the edge of an abyss. Dared not glance downward for fear she could not see any floor.

With delight and trepidation she’d brought wineglasses from a cupboard: very clean, spotless, for Jessalyn washed such delicate glassware by hand.

The most innocent and piteous of vanities: the widow’s pride in cleanliness, order in her empty house.

With an air of zest and ceremony the mustached man poured wine into glasses for each of them. What was the celebration?—the man’s hand was not quite steady.

Yet, it was a perfect moment. Hugo Martinez had imagined it so, and it was so, and Jessalyn would recall for the remainder of her life each moment of this evening with the magnified precision with which, using the smallest possible tweezers, you would pick tiny fragments of glass out of your skin.

A special sort of red wine, Hugo said, not expensive, not showy but very good, his favorite wine from the Douro Valley, Portugal.

Jessalyn had set out a hunk of Italian cheese with a tough, dried rind, a plate of Whitey’s favorite rye crackers. A small bowl of olives (she hoped had not acquired mold from the refrigerator), and a large bowl of (seedless) black grapes just slightly past their prime.

Oh, and a container of “organic” hummus, that Virgil had brought over several weeks ago.

Smiling inside his mustache Hugo helped himself to the feast. Was her guest laughing at her?—Jessalyn wondered.

Then she saw, to her horror: she’d forgotten napkins! Never in her adult life had she forgotten napkins!

Discreetly, unobtrusively, Hugo Martinez removed a handkerchief from a pocket, on which to wipe his fingers. (Jessalyn’s stunned brain managed to register that the handkerchief was cotton, and not mere paper tissue.)

Belatedly now Jessalyn went to fetch napkins from a drawer. Very handsome mauve linen napkins they were, one for Hugo Martinez and one for her.

So sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking…

Courtly Hugo Martinez took no note of her self-consciousness, no more than he might have taken note of her nakedness if she’d appeared naked before him, in her confused state.

His manners were exquisite. Though he was eating with his fingers and cheese crumbs were accumulating in the silvery rifts of his mustache.

Next time, Hugo Martinez said, pointedly, he would take her out to dinner, for a proper meal.

Proper meal. What did that mean?

Jessalyn laughed. She was feeling giddy, unreal.

Boldly she picked up her wineglass. She knew, Hugo Martinez would be hurt if she failed to drink his favorite Portuguese wine: that was how men were.

Yet, she could not bring herself to drink. It was enough to touch her lips to the dark liquid, that seemed to give off a smoldering glow, an actual heat.

She thought—I must not get drunk. That would be a terrible mistake.

Long ago, years ago in another lifetime, wine had had a palpable effect upon her: eyelids drooping, a sensation of erotic yearning in the pit of her belly, slurred speech, inappropriate hilarity.

…a terrible mistake.

Staring at Hugo Martinez. The vulpine nose, the drooping mustache and stained teeth. Broken capillaries in his eyes. His breath sounded scratchy.

She was enthralled by him. She could not look away.

(An artiste. Whitey would laugh, in derision! Beverly would shake her head, in disgust.)

(But where was Whitey? Upstairs, in retreat?)

She was in dread of Hugo Martinez asking her about—Whitey.

She would shake her head, in silence. Nothing to say. Please.

But Hugo did not ask her about Whitey. Instead, he asked her about the house: D’you live in this enormous place by yourself?

Out of nowhere the question came, veering at her like a bat.

She could not duck. Her eyes blinked rapidly. Was this an accusation?—or just a curious question?

Murmuring no, not exactly alone. But—yes.

Recalling how she’d seen Hugo Martinez outside in the driveway, just for an instant, glancing up at the house, and at the horizontal sprawl of the house, a fleeting expression in his face of surprise, disapproval.

Don’t hate me because I am rich. Please no.

Wanting to explain to him, really she wasn’t rich! Her own family had not been rich. Her life was just something that had happened to her, virtually none of it had been her choice.

But she sat mute, abashed. Seeing that she was uncomfortable Hugo said it was a beautiful house, and must be quite old. Beautiful tall trees—he’d recognized black oaks. And tall grasses, unlike the “manicured” lawns of North Hammond.

His tone was more bemused now, and not accusatory. He did not (seem to) blame her.

But Jessalyn quite understood, how absurdly large the house was, even when Whitey had been alive, and even when the younger children had been still at home.

Hugo was asking if the house had a history?—Was it listed on the National Register?

N-No. It was not.

Properties in this area, on Old Farm Road, were Revolutionary War—wasn’t that so? Hugo Martinez was asking, not unpleasantly.

He is a Marxist. A Maoist. He will hate you, and hurt you. Mom, think what you are doing!

(Was this Beverly? Why on earth was Jessalyn thinking of Beverly at such a time?)

In a voice determined not to sound defensive Jessalyn heard herself say yes, part of the house was said to date back to the 1770s but there had been many renovations and additions in all that time, so the house wasn’t on the Register. Whitey had said—We don’t want to live in a museum!

Whitey. Jessalyn hadn’t intended to speak the name but suddenly and unexpectedly she’d spoken it, as matter-of-factly as if Whitey were in the next room.

There was a moment of silence. A crackling sort of silence it seemed, like electricity.

And then gravely Hugo Martinez nodded, and sighed such a great sigh, the hairs of his mustache stirred.

Indeed, my dear, you are correct—We don’t want to live in a museum.

BETTER SEND THIS PERSON AWAY. What are you thinking of, Mom!

Are you so lonely? So desperate? Why aren’t we enough for you?

What would Dad think?

Had not she promised the children that she would not invite anyone into the house whom she didn’t know? Didn’t know well?

Beverly was still marveling over how Jessalyn had invited back to the house an actual homeless, destitute madman we were all God-damned lucky didn’t rob and murder her and burn down the house—Mom, that’s our house, too!

(Strictly speaking, the house was not theirs. The property at 99 Old Farm Road belonged now exclusively to Jessalyn McClaren though under the terms of the trust, Jessalyn could not sell the house, nor “enter into any legal arrangement by which the house became a rental property” without the permission of the trust executor.)

(In Jessalyn’s will the property was to be left to the five children, to do with what they wished: a prospect Jessalyn would no more allow herself to consider than she would have shoved her hand into the running garbage disposal.)

But Hugo Martinez, though a stranger to Jessalyn, was not a stranger to Virgil, and was a “known quantity” in the Hammond area—Jessalyn could have explained. Photographer, poet, “activist”—(what did that mean, exactly? Political?).

Virgil hadn’t told Jessalyn anything crucial about Hugo, now that Jessalyn thought of it.

They were still hoping that Leo Colwin would return. Beverly never lost the opportunity to speak of Leo in the warmest terms—A widower, a sweetheart, plenty of money of his own and not (so far as we know) yet incontinent or demented. Mom, come to your senses!

(Had Beverly really said these words? Not quite yet. But soon, Jessalyn feared.)

In fact Leo continued to call Jessalyn. His voice mail messages had turned resentful, accusatory. He had not forgiven her for fleeing from his car, he’d been embarrassed by her abrupt departure from his life—People ask about you, and what can I say?—I’d thought you were a gracious person, Jessalyn. I spent money and time on you and you led me to believe you returned my feelings. I thought you were a LADY.

In one message, Leo had seemed to be weeping angrily, or choking back fury.

Jessalyn no longer listened to Leo’s messages but deleted them as quickly as she discovered them. She was determined not to feel guilt—not to feel guilty. No.

DAMN! WHAT WAS IT?—a cat?

So quickly it happened, neither Jessalyn nor Hugo Martinez had seen the squint-eye tomcat creep up soundlessly beside Hugo, upend himself on hind legs and swat at Hugo’s hand with unsheathed claws.

Nearly capsizing in his chair, spilling some of his wine, Hugo shoved the animal away. Red-faced in an instant he cursed in (what Jessalyn assumed to be) Spanish.

Oh Mackie!—how could you…

Appalled, Jessalyn tried to slap the tomcat away from Hugo Martinez, but Mackie paid not the slightest heed to her. He was on four legs now, back arched like a Hallowe’en cat and stubby tail erect, baring his teeth in a silent hiss.

No, Mackie! Stop that. Hugo is a—a friend…

(This was embarrassing. In the excitement Mackie seemed to be defying Jessalyn, too. Making menacing growls you could interpret as directed at her.)

Fairly quickly too, Hugo recovered from the attack. Seemed to recover. Flush-faced and laughing, wiping a streak of blood from the back of his hand onto his handkerchief.

That’s some damn-big bastard-cat you have, Jez’lyn. Man!

Unexpectedly, Hugo was sounding admiring. Indeed, Mackie was an astonishing sight, considered purely as an animal: his fur was no longer matted but glossy-black from an improved diet and brushing with a hairbrush by Jessalyn, his single tawny-golden eye glared with something like animal intelligence, ferocity.

Hugo broke off a piece of the hard Italian cheese, and held it out to Mackie, who considered it for a moment before swatting it out of Hugo’s fingers, and devouring it hungrily on the floor.

Within a moment the cheese-fragment was gone. Hugo broke off another, and after that another, each hungrily devoured by the tomcat—Jessalyn wanted to plead with her guest no, not a good idea to feed an animal from the table, especially not this animal who knew to take advantage of human weakness.

But Hugo Martinez and Mackie were rapidly becoming friends, it seemed. Hugo spoke to the cat in a low admiring voice—Mi amigo, a beautiful cat.

Jessalyn was astonished. No one who’d seen Mackie had had a good word to say about him, and her older children considered him a health hazard.

Jessalyn said that she supposed Mackie was beautiful, in his own way… His few white markings, lightning-shaped, were somehow mitigating.

Smiling Hugo dared to touch Mackie’s hard head with his knuckles—Jessalyn held her breath, expecting the cat to rake the man with his nails, but Mackie, absorbed in eating, scarcely seemed to notice.

Hugo asked about the cat’s name and Jessalyn said that his actual name was “Mack the Knife.”

“Mack the Knife”—that is this big guy’s name?

Jessalyn was at a loss to explain the name, which seemed to amuse Hugo Martinez. She could not recall where the name had come from, and had begun to think, in a way, that Mack the Knife was the cat’s actual name—how she’d learned it, she could not recall.

Had he been wearing a collar, originally?—no…

Jessalyn explained that Mackie was a stray who’d showed up at the rear of the house a few months ago. At first she’d just left food for him outside, then in the cold months she began to let him spend more time inside, and now—he spent at least half his time indoors and most of that time asleep.

(She didn’t want to add that Mackie sometimes slept at the foot of her bed, on her bed; that he sometimes nudged against her feet through the bedclothes. These were the happiest moments in her life now but she did not want to share such revealing information with a stranger even if the stranger had kindly eyes.)

She had asked neighbors along Old Farm Road if Mackie belonged to anyone. She had left flyers in mailboxes with his fierce, single-eyed picture clumsily photocopied. As the older children said disapprovingly, it was obvious that Mackie had been abandoned—exiled. Who would want such an ugly thing!

All this delighted Hugo Martinez. In the last several minutes he’d acquired a raucous sort of deep-chest laughter. He didn’t seem to mind that Mackie had scratched him—he hadn’t said a word about rabies, tetanus. The cat’s roughness and size, even the single glaring eye, that so offended others, seemed to impress and amuse Hugo, and to have expanded his estimation of Jessalyn.

That she could handle a cat like Mackie? That she could not handle a cat like Mackie, but took tender care of him just the same?

Impulsively Jessalyn confided in Hugo Martinez that her older children hated Mackie—it was very distressing, they were always after her to take Mackie to the vet’s and have him put to sleep.

Older children. Jessalyn hadn’t meant to introduce this subject just yet.

Like husband. Deceased husband. Not yet.

Oh, why’d she say older children. Hugo would have a vision of overgrown stunted creatures, wizen-faced with age, hunchbacked, like dwarves in old Spanish paintings.

But he said nothing. He did not inquire.

He, too, must have—children? Adult children?

Hugo Martinez was Jessalyn’s age, at least. His creased and leathery face suggested age yet the briskness and swagger of his manner suggested a younger man.

She wondered if he, too, despite his hearty laughter and the gusto with which he ate and drank, was living a posthumous life. A masquerade-life, like her own.

A life where nothing mattered, essentially. But there were accidents possible, like rips in a tent…

All this while Hugo was smiling, leaning over to rub his knuckles against Mackie’s hard-boned head. (The black fur on the top of Mackie’s head was thinner than elsewhere; you felt the bone of the cat-skull startlingly close.) Jessalyn would never have dared to rub Mackie’s head so vigorously, he had a way of suddenly nipping. But he’d begun to purr loudly at Hugo’s touch, like a slightly malfunctioning motor.

This purr delighted Hugo who dared to tickle Mackie beneath his chin, dangerously close to the sharp yellowed teeth.

Thoughtfully Hugo said, it was a good idea to take Mackie to the vet’s. Y’know, Jez’lyn, a tomcat has a need for—(here Hugo made a vague snipping gesture toward his crotch, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness)—if he has not yet had it.

Jessalyn bit her lower lip. Of course, she knew—Mackie was a tomcat, and tomcats had to be neutered.

It was an embarrassing subject, or an awkward subject, or ought to have been, but Hugo didn’t seem to notice unlike Whitey who (Jessalyn knew) wouldn’t have been able to resist making a nervous joke.

Oh but Jessalyn had tried. She’d tried to take Mackie to a vet. After her children had nagged her. Tried to convince Mackie to get into a carrying cage, which she’d bought at a pet store at the mall for just that purpose, but Mackie fought desperately, and caterwauled as if he were being murdered, and would have clawed her badly except she’d had enough sense to wear gardening gloves. (Jessalyn didn’t add the lurid detail that Mackie had sprayed much of the kitchen before running outside and staying away for forty-eight hours.) One of the problems was, the carrying cage was smaller than she’d thought it would be, and opened from the top, which gave the crazed Mackie an advantage.

Somberly Hugo Martinez announced he would do the task tomorrow.

He would do—what?

Assist her with the cat.

Assist her with the cat?

Jessalyn was stunned, Hugo spoke so familiarly. As if they were old friends, and he had every right to tell her what to do.

Hugo said: Since the spaying had to be done, and should have been done long ago, for the cat’s sake, and for hers—he would assist her.

Jessalyn was stammering no, she didn’t think…

Looking very pleased, Hugo poured another glass of wine for himself. He’d blotted all the blood from the back of his hand onto his handkerchief, and the scratches were no longer bleeding.

No trouble, dear. I will drop by tomorrow, I am busy but I will make time in the late morning—around noon.

Tomorrow! Hugo had not even left her house, and already he was planning the next visit.

Suddenly, Jessalyn was feeling very tired. Unwisely she’d swallowed a mouthful or two of wine and the effect was instantaneous—her eyelids were shutting.

Tried to protest to Hugo: Mackie wasn’t hers, really. She had no authority over him—his cat-body. Though she had not been able to locate his owner, Mackie certainly had had an owner, and she couldn’t interfere with him—“Mackie” wasn’t even his name.

Hugo regarded her quizzically, as if she were saying something meant to be witty—but what?

Mackie was a “free spirit”—Jessalyn tried to explain. He happened to have taken up residence in this area, but he wasn’t hers.

Jessalyn was speaking carefully and yet not clearly—she could hear her voice slurred, as if through water. Wine?

Hugo disagreed with whatever she’d struggled to say. Not true, he said. The tomcat was a creature who’d come to depend upon her. He was in her care now. Jessalyn must know that feral animals lived much shorter lives than house pets. Mackie was a “big, tough bastard” but he needed a vet’s care, as he deserved to live a long time.

Like all of us, Hugo added, pointedly.

By this time Jessalyn was feeling very—strange. Badly she wanted this man, this stranger, to leave her house, it had been a mistake to invite him inside.

Oh, what had she done! She was crushed with shame, apprehension.

It happened often to her, in this new life. A wave of terrible contrition would sweep over her, scarcely could she breathe.

Ridiculous! Why are you still alive?

Well, then—breathe through this straw. If you must.

Hugo Martinez was regarding Jessalyn with a smile you’d want to call cunning. Inside the mustache, the man’s mouth looked more intimate than it would have without a mustache—Jessalyn thought.

He’d been extolling—what? Something about the cat, his “wild spirit”—yet, he was insisting that Mackie be neutered. Had he been reciting a poem? First in Spanish, then in English. A poem by—Lock-a? Lorca?

She was remembering now, the man was a poet as well as a photographer. Somehow, she trusted a poet even less than she trusted a photographer.

For instance, in all this time Hugo Martinez had been careful not to say a word about his background. Not one word about his personal life—was he married? Or had he been married? (Of course, Hugo Martinez had been married. You could see at a glance that this was a man who’d had “relations” with women—girls—since the age of twelve. That kind.) He had avoided saying anything revealing about himself—all Jessalyn would recall afterward is that he’d boasted of being a “secretive” person—as if warning her, he didn’t intend to be “open”—“honest” with her—for that was not his personality.

He’d drunk most of the bottle of Portuguese wine, and he’d eaten most of the Italian cheese, and left skid marks in the hummus from dipping with crackers. In front of him, and on the floor, were scattered crumbs; Mackie had discovered the floor-crumbs and was licking them up greedily with his pink tongue in a way that made Jessalyn want to laugh.

Time for Hugo Martinez to leave. He had sensed the shift in Jessalyn’s mood, and knew he should not linger.

Perhaps he knew: a widow is exhausted easily. A widow is easily becalmed, lost at sea. Her sails are befouled, leaden.

Neatly Hugo folded his bloodstained handkerchief, to return to his pocket: he’d patted and dabbed at his mustache, fastidiously. Now folding up the sleeves of his shirt, deliberately. Jessalyn saw the dark, slanted hairs on his wrists, thick as a pelt on his forearms, and felt a sharp, indescribable sensation.

Yet wondering: Why is a man’s hair such different hues, arms, chest, mustache, head? Whitey too had brandished a kind of miscellany of hues as if different parts of his body were different ages and the hair of his head the very whitest—the oldest, and the most sage.

Jez’lyn, dear—what is so funny?

So funny? Jessalyn was not laughing, was she?

Her eyelids had become so heavy, she could barely hold her head erect. The effort of speaking with this man, this aggressive stranger, the effort of listening to him, and feeling his presence so close to her, only a few feet away, was a strain like pushing a heavy trash container out to the curb, on faulty rollers.

Hugo Martinez rose to his full height—he had to be as tall as Thom. Jessalyn narrowed her eyes not wanting to look up at him but having no choice.

Here was the problem: the man took up too much space. He’d been encroaching on her space.

Since Whitey had left her Jessalyn had become accustomed to space around her in the house, no one crowding near, no one looking at her in that way.

Recalling how long ago Whitey McClaren, he’d been Johnny McClaren at the time, had looked at her—his eyes moving over her, startled and yearning, seeing a girl Jessalyn herself could not quite imagine, surely not the girl she saw in the mirror…

And now, Hugo Martinez was looking at her. Not quite so helplessly, for Hugo Martinez was much, much older than Johnny McClaren had been. And Jessalyn was much older than the girl she’d been.

He did seem very happy with her. Or because of her. His big stained teeth bared inside the drooping mustache—Jez’lyn, good night! My dear.

Jez’lyn. Dear.

He took up his dapper wide-brimmed straw hat, and positioned it on his head, just so. Jessalyn could see that, in his mind’s eye, he was seeing his reflection in a familiar mirror and approving of what he saw.

At the door Hugo paused to take her hand, that was warm in his, like a living thing, and kissed the palm, lightly.

To the man’s departing back she said, in a hoarse voice, she didn’t think he should come back the next day…

Had he heard her?—Hugo Martinez turned, smiled and waved, and strode briskly to the deep-purple Mercedes-Benz parked in the driveway.

From the doorway she watched him drive away. Then, she shut the door and locked it.

Alone! Alone at last.

She was nearly fainting with relief, the man had gone. And she would not see him again.

“MACKIE! COME HERE. PLEASE.”

The damned cat was lingering downstairs in the hope that the loud-laughing male visitor who’d fed him bits of dried cheese and rubbed his head with his knuckles would return. Only late, at midnight, when Jessalyn had given up calling him, did Mackie come padding into the room with a querulous Mew! As if he was annoyed with her.

So tired! She’d fallen onto the bed with only her shoes kicked off.

The first sleep had washed over her like oily water. She was paddling with her arms to keep afloat.

Why hadn’t Whitey let her go. The creek had been swollen from rain, rushing past the dock as if it wished to tear the dock into pieces, and yes, it was likely, the rotted timbers would have broken beneath her weight, her legs trapped, lacerated, just possibly a major artery severed, she would not have felt much pain, not as pain is measured, rather a mounting numbness, for the air had been cold, the water colder, the rushing water even colder, draining away the heat of her body she’d come to understand was life itself: heat, life.

Life is beating, pulsing, thrumming—heat.

Without heat, no life.

But she had failed to act. She had known exactly what to do, but she had not done it. And now.

Waking abruptly, at only 1:00 A.M.! The bedside lamp was on. Mackie was heavily asleep at the foot of her bed with a sawtooth sort of breathing that might have been mistaken for a faint human snoring. And the rest of the night ahead.

At least, she’d sent away that man, what was his name—Hugo.

She was frightened of him. She did not trust him. Hadn’t he warned her?—he would steal her soul.

She had come close—too close. The abyss at her feet. But she’d sent the man away. She seemed to know, he would not return.

And if he returned, she would not let him into the house.

What would Whitey think! (What had Whitey been thinking, earlier?)

She would not unlock the door. She would not be anywhere in the vicinity of the door. She would flee.

(Why was Whitey so silent? Had not Whitey nudged her—You have to try again, Jess. Just one more time.)

Already Hugo Martinez was receding from her. The rushing creek at the foot of the McClaren property, bearing him away like debris.

Not good, if you live on a creek if after a storm you stand on the bank staring, for you will see, you will imagine you see, lifeless bodies rushing past, spinning in the current, faceless, human or merely animal, passing too swiftly for you to be certain.

Oh Whitey, take me with you.

But that was wrong: Whitey hadn’t chosen to die.

Whitey had chosen not to die. He’d fought like hell. He’d never have given in. He’d had to be killed. That was the only way Whitey McClaren would die.

At 2:30 A.M. trying to read The Sleepwalkers… It would go on forever, this effort. Whitey had never finished the book, and Whitey’s widow would never finish the book.

The dense paragraphs were like ether. She’d lost her place and couldn’t determine if she was reading, or rereading. She was having a stroke, possibly.

How would you even know? If you were having a stroke? If you lived alone? If you opened your mouth and uttered gibberish—Vreet vreet were sounds Whitey had managed to speak, with effort; she had not known what vreet might mean. So earnestly he’d uttered this sound, a single yearning syllable—but no one had understood.

But she’d understood H’yeh. (Hiya.) Jes’lin. L’vyeh. (Jessalyn. Loveya.)

“Oh, Whitey. We all loved you.”

Also on Jessalyn’s bedside table was a paperback copy of Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene. This book was more recent, and shorter. Whitey had (possibly) read all of it, one summer in the hammock.

Oh, she’d begun this, too! Years ago. We are machines created by our genes. A successful gene survives through ruthless selfishness. Universal love does not make evolutionary sense.

Who had to be told, to be selfish! The first law of humanity.

It was a gift, to be capable of selfishness. Whitey had lacked it—despite being a “successful” businessman. His widow lacked it, fatally.

If only her genes were more selfish! Everything she did was for someone else, or something else, and nothing she accomplished was of any significance.

At her feet the squint-eyed tomcat stirred in his sleep, mewing faintly, hungrily. Preparing to leap onto his fleeing prey.

Next morning she was feeling much better. She had slept late, for her—nearly 8:00 A.M. Mackie had leapt down from the bed and vanished without waking her, sometime before dawn. Another time, it was as if a tourniquet were untied, freeing the pent-up blood in her veins.

Especially, her head felt clearer, lighter. The heaviness had vanished.

Carefully, shrewdly she planned: she would be nowhere near the house by the time Hugo Martinez arrived. (If he arrived at all.)

What had the man said—late morning? Noon?

She would be gone by 10:30 A.M. She had no intention of allowing a stranger to “assist” her in taking Mackie to the vet; she would take Mackie herself, another day.

She would stop by the library. Today was not one of Jessalyn’s volunteer days but if someone had canceled, Jessalyn could take her place. Nothing was so comforting as volunteer work at the branch library—reading to children, shelving books and DVDs, straightening the newspaper and magazine racks that were always becoming disorganized. Everyone knew her—“H’lo, Mrs. McClaren!”—“Hi there, Jessalyn!”—and she knew everyone in turn.

Ma’am? Excuse me but I have to say—love your white hair.

Ma’am? That white hair is beautiful! I am going to let my hair go just like that, hell with people sayin I’m too old.

Got to think, ma’am, you were real good-looking when you were young.

Glowing-white hair, parted in the center of her head. Hair of the hue of radium.

For months she’d barely glanced into her clothes closet. She’d given away to Goodwill articles of clothing that had struck her as frivolous, vain, silly, sad, she knew she would never wear again. She’d given away most of her shoes. Only vaguely could she recall the frantic urgency with which she’d flung things onto the floor, how shocked Beverly had been to see her in such a state, and how Beverly had insisted upon taking away the most stylish, expensive items “for safekeeping…” Still, it was a surprise to see that most of the hangers were bare.

At the very rear of the closet Jessalyn found a pale yellow pleated dress like a Greek tunic, not worn in twenty years. It had been one of Whitey’s favorite dresses of hers, she had not had the heart to give it away.

And with the tunic-dress, a necklace of amber beads that Whitey had given her, and amber earrings, in the shape of teardrops.

Brushing her hair until it sparked electricity.

Now—she must hurry! She had come so close to stumbling into the abyss.

But as she was preparing to leave the house at 10:20 A.M. there came the battered Mercedes-Benz up the curving driveway, and there came Hugo Martinez up the front walk with an eager step. He was carrying what appeared to be a large carrying cage for an animal.

Jessalyn was astonished. How had this happened? Hugo Martinez was here.

No choice but to open the door. The man’s eye fell upon her in the pleated tunic-dress, with her brushed, very-white hair, with a look almost of alarm. On his head was the wide-brimmed hat at a rakish angle and again today he wore a shirt open at the throat, nearly to mid-chest. On his hands, trim-looking leather gloves.

How beautiful she was looking, Hugo Martinez said. In a quiet voice, not his ebullient voice, so that Jessalyn wanted to cry, she could not love any man again, that had been decided.

Well. Hugo was all-business. He’d come for Mackie as they’d planned. He’d brought a carrying cage large enough for a moderate-sized dog, and Mackie would fit inside easily.

Mackie! Mack-ie!—Hugo Martinez called for the cat in a falsetto voice, moving past Jessalyn into the kitchen, and into a hallway; Jessalyn was sure that the wily tomcat would not be deceived by such a false, ingratiating voice but there came Mackie at a trot, big head uplifted, stubby tail uplifted, suspecting nothing though the carrying cage was set in full view on the floor, its door flung wide open. Mackie did not hesitate but mewed an audible greeting to Hugo Martinez—Myrrgh.

Jessalyn was trying to explain to Hugo, apologetically: she had forgotten to call the vet, to make an appointment…

No problem, Hugo told her. He’d called a vet he knew, he’d made the appointment himself. They were expected by 11:00 A.M.

Stooping to rub the tomcat’s head with his knuckles. And still, to Jessalyn’s amazement, Mackie did not hiss and bolt away but purred loudly, and rubbed against the man’s legs even as, with a little grunt, Hugo managed to pick the tomcat up, in his gloved hands, and swiftly urged him into the carrying cage, shutting and latching the door before the tomcat could grasp what was happening—all these moves executed with such precision, Jessalyn stared in awe.

At once Mackie began thrashing about inside the cage, enraged and caterwauling. Jessalyn could see his bristling whiskers and fur pushing through the wire—the single glaring-mad eye. What have you done to me—you!

Hugo spoke in a calming voice but Mackie continued to wail. He was clawing at the wire, so violently you feared he might tear his way out. Jessalyn pressed her hands over her ears—the creature’s cries were heartbreaking. You would think the poor cat was being murdered…

Hugo just laughed. Mackie’s furious shrieks and desperate thrashings did not daunt him. Gripping the cage handle in both hands Hugo lifted the cage and managed to stagger with it outside to the Mercedes where one of the rear doors had been shrewdly opened; carefully Hugo positioned the cage atop outspread newspaper pages. Despite his gloves, and the care with which Hugo set the cage down, furious Mackie managed to rake him with a single claw on the wrist, which began at once to bleed.

Diablo bastardo! Yet it was clear that Hugo felt very good about himself; and Jessalyn had no choice but to marvel to him, he’d executed a miracle…

Jessalyn dabbed a tissue against Hugo’s bleeding wrist. It was startling how deep the single claw had sunk, so swiftly.

Hugo was boasting that it was the way you must be, with animals. You allow them to know who is master but you are always kind to them, they understand that you are their protector, even if they protest at first.

Jessalyn shook her head in wonderment. She could never have cajoled Mackie into any carrying cage, and she could certainly never have forced him. Bloody murder, that would have been.

And even if she’d managed to get the enraged animal into a cage, she could never have lifted the cage and carried it out to her car.

Well. That’s why he was here, Hugo said, pleased at being praised.

And then, Jessalyn was seated in Hugo Martinez’s car, in the passenger’s seat. (In the rear, photography equipment. A lightweight rain jacket, a pair of hiking boots, scattered books, newspapers. Crumpled paper napkins and a faint smell of something like salami, sausage.) And Hugo was driving out the crushed-stone driveway and onto Old Farm Road, and onto Highgate Road, past familiar houses and landscapes that yielded by degrees to the less-familiar and less-cultivated, and finally to a quasi-rural scrubby area (not far from Bear Mountain Road, in fact) that abutted a rushing state highway where, since she’d become a widow, Jessalyn had not dared to drive. Here were melancholy little strip malls with FOR RENT signs in their windows, gas stations and fast-food restaurants and a tire franchise with red flags flapping in the wind. And in a stucco house with a coarse-graveled parking lot at the front, HAPPY VALLEY ANIMAL DOCTOR & SHELTER.

Inside, a big, burly woman in bib overalls greeted Hugo like an old friend with a handshake and a hug and a bold swiping of her lips across his mustache—this was “Doctor Gladys.”

To Jessalyn, Dr. Gladys was very hearty. Her handshake was crushing.

Dr. Gladys then squatted, to peer into the carrying cage at the affronted Mackie. She whistled at the tomcat’s size—big as a Maine coon, though he was a short-hair. How old?

Jessalyn said she had no idea. He’d come into her life out of nowhere—he was what’s called a “stray.”

Dr. Gladys said they would check for a microchip. To see if the cat could be identified and its owner contacted. Did Jessalyn imagine just an air of reproach in the animal doctor’s tone, that Jessalyn had not succeeded in locating the cat’s owner?

Carried into the veterinary by Hugo the tomcat had ceased wailing. He’d become strangely subdued; he was behaving now with a sort of animal stoicism, resignation. Jessalyn felt a pang of regret for what they were doing to Mackie, even if it was for his own good. De-sexing, de-masculinizing—for a marauding tomcat, already battered and scarred, this had to be a good idea. She tried to comfort him by making a petting motion on the wire beside his glaring eye but Mackie only just stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. He hadn’t even the spirit to swipe at her with a claw.

Prior to neutering, which required anesthesia, a cat must be kept from eating for at least twelve hours. It had to be assumed that Mackie had probably eaten not long before he’d been put into the carrying cage, for Mackie ate often, and so the surgery would have to be postponed until the next morning, for safety’s sake.

Jessalyn was disappointed but Hugo said that was fine. In the interim Mackie would be thoroughly examined and given his shots.

While Dr. Gladys and Hugo Martinez talked and laughed together Jessalyn filled out forms at a receptionist’s counter. She couldn’t help but overhear the two speaking with such familiarity and intimacy, she felt a pang of envy as if a door had been flung open into a life very different from her own.

And was Hector still in—? Dr. Gladys asked; and Hugo said, with a heavy sigh, yes he was. Yes.

But Carlin was out. For the time being…

And how were Anita, and Yolanda, and Denis…

And Esme, and Luis…

Were these—children? Mutual friends? Spouses?

Jessalyn overheard what sounded like “Attica”—could this be the notorious maximum-security prison, a fifty-minute drive south and west of Hammond? She’d never heard of any person named “Attica.”

Now in lowered voices Hugo Martinez and Dr. Gladys conferred together and Jessalyn could no longer make out what they were saying.

Except she heard, or believed she heard, the furtive words “hearing”… “probationary”…

Jessalyn asked the receptionist what the price of the examination, shots, and neutering would be; and if she could pay for it, next day, by check.

She was uncertain of the status of her credit card. In fact she had several credit cards and had discovered recently that one had expired months ago. Before Whitey’s death she had never feared being overdrawn but now—“overdrawn” had become an obscure and continuous worry.

Well—the bill for Mackie would be quite high. Higher than she’d expected. Jessalyn could imagine Beverly’s reaction—That awful feral cat? You’re throwing all that money away on—that? Oh, Mom.

Also, a deposit of 20 percent was required, this very day.

Seeing that Jessalyn was looking dismayed Hugo came over quickly, and handed a credit card to the receptionist.

Jessalyn tried to protest but Hugo insisted.

She could pay him back at any time, Hugo said happily. No hurry!

Dr. Gladys said that they should return for their cat in approximately twenty-four hours. If there was an emergency, Jessalyn would be called.

Their cat. Jessalyn waited for Hugo to correct the doctor, but Hugo did not.

By this time Mackie had given up struggling inside the carrying cage. Even his stubby tail had ceased twitching. How sad, to see the tomcat’s spirit so broken…

When a husky girl-assistant came to haul Mackie away he didn’t give Jessalyn so much as a backward glance.

Outside, in Hugo Martinez’s car, Jessalyn fought back tears. Why was she here, why here with this man who was a stranger to her, who had so intruded into her life!

As Hugo drove the deep-purple Mercedes at a fast clip along the state highway she did not meet his frequent glances at her, that seemed to her both affectionate and coercive; she only half-listened to his exultant talk that ranged over many subjects like a man lurching on stilts. What would Whitey think of all this! Driving south on Route 29 in a stranger’s car, when she should have been at the branch library reading stories to pre-school children?

And Jessalyn was feeling a sick dread that she would never see Mackie again, she’d sent the poor cat to his death out of cowardice—she had not been able to withstand the overbearing will of Hugo Martinez.

The way he’d pushed the trash container along the driveway. Dared to position it along the side of the garage, exactly where it belonged. How had he known? Why had he taken such liberties?

She would not see the man again, after this. Tomorrow was unavoidable—she would see Hugo then. A final time. For she could not possibly carry the heavy cat into a car by herself.

But that would be the end. No more!

Yet Hugo Martinez was so very kind to her, so warmly sympathetic. His handsome, ruined face. She could not bear to look at him, to see him looking at her.

Along the state highway he drove. The Mercedes rattled and vibrated like half-heard music. Jessalyn was watching the man’s hands on the steering wheel. Large hands, with pale blue veins visible across the knuckles. At the wrists, coarse hairs so much darker than the hairs of his mustache or his head, she had to smile.

How old was Hugo Martinez? Jessalyn wondered. There were obvious ways of finding out which for some reason she’d avoided.

He was older than Jessalyn, surely. Might’ve been as much as ten years older. Or, he might have been younger.

She was no judge of others’ ages. She tended to avoid speculation. She felt a kind of pain, when people said to her, meaning to be kind, Oh how young you look, for your age!

Jessalyn McClaren is always a lady. Jessalyn McClaren has such poise. For an older woman, Jessalyn McClaren is always beautifully groomed, gracious.

But where was Hugo driving now?—turning the elegantly shabby Mercedes onto Cayuga Road, that led through back-country hills in the vicinity of Bear Mountain.

(Bear Mountain was the highest peak in the Chautauqua range, at 3,200 feet—that’s to say, not high. The highest peak in the Adirondacks was Mount Marcy, 5,344 feet.)

Jessalyn asked where Hugo was taking her?

Hugo assured her, he wasn’t taking her anywhere. He was just driving.

Just—driving?

Well, in the direction of Old Farm Road. In the general direction of North Hammond.

It had to be a very general direction, Jessalyn thought. Judging from the distance to Bear Mountain they were five or six miles from 99 Old Farm Road in hilly countryside where shadows of high-scudding clouds flew before them like giant birds.

How beautiful it was here!—Jessalyn had had a fantasy since girlhood of being stranded in some unpopulated place like this, somehow on foot, alone, and yet—absurdly, improbably happy.

Yes but you would soon be terrified. Alone, you could not survive.

Desperate, you would climb into the first vehicle that came along…

The road was bumpy, unimproved. Though soon they were passing farmland, or what had once been farmland. Old, abandoned farmhouses dignified in dereliction, part-collapsed barns bearing the faintest trace of red paint, silos, tilted fences, pastures gone to seed. From time to time, fields in which animals grazed—cows, sheep like figures in a dream.

Hugo remarked how strange it was, Cayuga Road was less populated than it had been one hundred years ago.

Jessalyn said yes, it was strange. Sad.

This recession, Hugo said, sighing. Upstate New York, that is so beautiful.

Jessalyn thought—But he lives here. He is taking me to his home.

She asked Hugo if he lived on Cayuga Road?

Hugo said yes. He supposed he did.

He laughed uneasily, as if Jessalyn had caught him out in some trickery.

Well. He didn’t live alone, Hugo said. He lived with—a family.

Adding, not what you’d call a usual family.

Jessalyn took usual family to mean a wife, children. But Hugo Martinez was too old for children to be living at home, in any case.

She wanted to ask him who this family was. What his life was. Had he been married, was he married now. Though Hugo was a spirited and indefatigable talker he’d said very little that was specific about his life.

Jessalyn supposed he was waiting for her to ask him, would he take her to his home? Would he show her how he lived?—introduce her to his “family”? Badly she wanted to ask, yet she could not. The words would not come.

Hugo Martinez appeared to be enjoying himself: he was a man who liked to drive his car, and he was a man who liked to display himself to a woman, ideally a woman seated close beside him in his car, properly belted-in.

He did not seem to mind that his passenger was reticent, uneasy. Though (probably) he took note of her nervously glancing into the distance, hoping to get her bearings in this unfamiliar place.

She was not in any danger, Hugo said, amused. Por favor, saber que!

And what did that mean? She could guess.

Jessalyn smiled. A steely sort of smile. Her hands were loose on her knees, not tight-clasped. Her palms sweated just slightly, against the pale-yellow pleats of her skirt.

She told Hugo Martinez, she did not think she was in danger of course. She was just slightly apprehensive—about Mackie, and about where they were headed.

But they were not headed anywhere, Hugo protested.

Did she think that he was kidnapping her?—or, “abducting”? He laughed heartily.

But almost, Hugo was beginning to sound hurt. Deflated. A buccaneer who has been misunderstood; a gentleman whose courtliness has not been appreciated.

Jessalyn assured him, she was very grateful for his help. Bringing Mackie to Dr. Gladys—that had been very kind of him.

Did this mollify Hugo Martinez?—he did not reply at first, concentrating upon the bumpy road. Jessalyn had the impression that he was chewing his mustache.

Terrible habit! She could not imagine intimacy with a mustached man.

Tell me one thing about yourself, dear—Hugo said, hoping to restore some measure of control.

Jessalyn considered. What to say? One thing? The paradox of life was that there is no one thing, there are only many things strung together like a cobweb. You can’t extract one from many without misrepresenting both…

Finally she told Hugo Martinez that the one thing in life, she believed, was love.

Really!—Hugo Martinez shook his head, ponderously.

Yes…

Jessalyn was hurt, annoyed. Was he laughing at her?—she asked.

No, no! Of course he was not laughing at her…

Obviously yes, Hugo was laughing at Jessalyn. Yet he was delighted in her, she could see.

(And what did he see? Jessalyn wondered. The rich man’s widow who dared not dress other than elegantly, even to drive to the branch library, or to the vet’s; the starkly-white-haired woman who was, to herself, a stuttering girl-child, a prude, a puritan, self-condemning, self-doubting and yet vain, a cowardly heart yet yearning to be bold, even reckless; not knowing what to say that was not banal and self-exposing, for these were the perimeters of her soul?)

Hugo said, he’d meant that she should tell one thing about herself that was a fact. Something actually about herself.

I—I—I am—I am a…

But what she was, Jessalyn could not utter.

The one thing about a widow’s life is that it is a widow’s life, a posthumous life; a left-over life, you could say. Yet, saying this, putting such a melancholy truth into words, made it sound exalted and profound somehow, when in fact the widow’s condition was a diminishment, like a wizened pea or a crumpled napkin, contemptible, of no worth.

But even to say this was to hope to inflate the diminishment, and in this hope there was folly.

As if he were reading her mind, the cruel whiplash of her thoughts, Hugo said, gently—Here is one thing about me, a simple fact: I was born on April 11, 1952, in Newark, New Jersey.

He was fifty-nine! Five years younger than Jessalyn.

And twelve years younger than Whitey would have been, were Whitey alive.

Hugo was teasing, that hadn’t been difficult—had it? Now, Jessalyn should please tell him one thing she thought he should know about her—something that would be helpful for him to know if he was, as he believed he was, falling in love with her. Could she?

Falling in love. Jessalyn’s face went hot as if he’d slapped it. What did the man mean, saying such things to her. He was joking, she supposed. Yet it was cruel to joke with her, she would never have joked with another, in such a way.

Rapidly her eyes darted about—the wild thought came to her, she could open the car door, escape. Hugo was driving slowly enough over the rutted country road.

Hey, no!—Hugo laughed, reaching over to seize Jessalyn’s hand, as if he’d been reading her mind.

Jessalyn laughed. Tried to laugh. Though her heart was beating rapidly, at the man’s touch.

Jessalyn said, she wished that Hugo would not say such things…

Gaily Hugo replied—he should not “say” such things, or he should not “feel” such things?

But this too was teasing. This too, Jessalyn could not take seriously.

Of course, the man was not sincere. He was a poet, an artist, a photographer. He arranged words, and he arranged pictures. He dealt in artifice, exaggeration. He’d dared to take her picture without her permission, without even her awareness. Hadn’t he warned her, he was not to be trusted.

A sexually aggressive male. A certain sort of male. A woman could have no doubt but that such a man might desire her, as such a man might desire virtually any woman. But a woman could not place much trust in such desire.

Heard herself saying that the one thing about her was that though she lived in a pre–Revolutionary War house on Old Farm Road she really didn’t have much money. Her expenses had been pared back, she lived as frugally as she could. Mackie’s surgery would be a “splurge.”

Coolly then Jessalyn repeated, so that the ardent male could not possibly misunderstand, that, despite what people might think she was not—(Jessalyn took a deep breath, the word was so awkward)—rich.

But Hugo Martinez’s response was unexpected. Or maybe she should have expected—laughter.

So? Not rich? Yo tampoco.

By the man’s jovial tone Jessalyn guessed these words meant Me, neither.

HE DID MAKE HER LAUGH. A startled laughter, like a small bird fluttering up.

Since Whitey, she had rarely laughed. (Whitey had made her laugh, often.)

Was it a betrayal of Whitey, to laugh at the whimsical remarks of another man? Of whom Whitey would not have approved?

How long had it been since Jessalyn had been happy.

How long, since she’d been angry.

Emotions had lost their buoyancy. It’s as if she’d left part-deflated balloons in the driveway and carelessly she’d run them over with her car. Glancing out to see in the pink-graveled drive a scattering of broken flattened balloons and scarcely caring what they’d been.

Yet, she was angry now.

The voice on the phone inquiring—Ma’am? Are you still on the line?

No. Yes—of course.

Anxiously she’d snatched up the receiver. Usually not coming anywhere near a ringing phone (for there was no good news the phone could bring to a widow, only just the memory of bad news endlessly echoing) but this time she’d checked to see the caller ID was HAPPY VALLEY ANIMAL HOSPITAL.

It was late afternoon, the same day. Mackie had been at the animal hospital for several hours by that time.

And here was a person informing her that, after having examined Mackie thoroughly, Dr. Gladys was not recommending that the cat have neutering surgery and shots after all but that he be put down.

Excuse me? What?—through a roaring in her ears Jessalyn wasn’t hearing clearly.

The voice repeated its words. Flat, unfeeling. But what was this?—put down?

Jessalyn fought back tears. Oh, where was Hugo?

He’d driven her back home as he’d promised he would do. She had not invited him to come inside.

She’d been relieved, sending Hugo Martinez away. He had promised to return the next day, to drive her to the vet’s to retrieve Mackie.

Now with maddening calm the voice continued. Had to be an assistant of Dr. Gladys notifying her that the examination had “not gone well.”

Her cat had mites, and parasites (two distinct types, both intestinal), and a respiratory condition, and a blood deficiency condition, and he was mean-tempered, and blind in one eye, and he “wasn’t a young cat”—

Jessalyn interrupted: Of course she knew that Mackie was blind in one eye, and that he wasn’t a young cat. She knew! But—

The voice continued: It seemed that the cat did not have a microchip embedded beneath his skin. There was no way of knowing who his owner had been, and there was no way of knowing his age. Of course Dr. Gladys would be happy to proceed with the surgery and shots but it was her policy to notify pet owners of their pets’ medical conditions so that there could be “no ambiguity” at a later date.

Also, with his many health problems, Mackie would require more medical treatment than they’d anticipated. What the final bill would be, Dr. Gladys could not say.

Jessalyn said that did not matter. Whatever it cost—she would pay.

Finally, Dr. Gladys wanted Jessalyn to know that a homeless stray like Mackie was not considered a “good risk” as a house pet, especially when so many more suitable cats and kittens were available for adoption at Happy Valley.

Her voice shaking Jessalyn said she didn’t want a “more suitable” cat, she wanted the cat that had come to her back door.

PUT DOWN. The words were blunt, insulting.

Jessalyn was too upset to tell Hugo Martinez about the phone call from Happy Valley. All she told him when he returned the next day was that she’d had a call from Dr. Gladys’s assistant and that the surgery had gone forward as planned.

No further calls had come. Jessalyn had steeled herself for a call announcing Mackie’s death, under the anesthetic.

At the vet’s they were made to wait until Mackie was ready to be taken out of his veterinary cage and transferred to his private cage. They were told that Mackie’s surgery had “gone well” and that he was “resting”—unusual for an animal recovering from surgery, he’d even been able to eat a “small breakfast.”

In one of the examination rooms Dr. Gladys showed Jessalyn and Hugo Martinez, on a magnified, full-color photograph, precisely how a male cat is neutered. With a ballpoint pen she pointed at the small organ that was the “penis” and the saclike organ that was the “scrotum” containing the “testicles” to be removed—an operation that required but two minutes.

Jessalyn half-shut her eyes, with a shudder. But Hugo Martinez looked on with a stoic smile.

There would be little recovery time, Dr. Gladys said. The anesthetic had not totally worn off yet and the cat would be groggy for the rest of the day but soon his full appetite would return and by evening he would be himself again, or nearly.

Jessalyn felt a flood of compassion for Mackie. She was grateful to be told that despite his blind eye, battered ears and broken tail, and his myriad medical problems, he was actually in “remarkably good condition” for an outdoor cat; he did not have feline leukemia, for instance. Or feline AIDS. And he was probably younger than he appeared, Dr. Gladys said. Possibly, as young as five years.

Five! Jessalyn laughed. There was a good chance then she’d have Mackie for the rest of her life.

Hugo Martinez looked at Jessalyn, shocked by this remark. Only five years? Jessalyn expected not to live even five years? What was she thinking?

Shrewdly the animal doctor had seen, Jessalyn supposed, that despite his personality flaws and his medical problems the squint-eyed black tomcat was beloved, and so Dr. Gladys was saying only positive, encouraging things about him now. No more suggestions about putting him down.

It’s good to be loyal to your kitty, Dr. Gladys said, with a throaty chuckle. Even if your kitty isn’t going to win any cat shows.

Kitty. An incongruous word, applied to Mackie.

Jessalyn steeled herself for the bill. But to her chagrin Hugo appropriated the bill—It’s OK, dear. No problem.

Explaining that this past spring he’d made more money selling photographs than he’d expected. Jessalyn could repay him whenever it was convenient.

Jessalyn protested, she’d brought a checkbook! Really, she could afford to pay for her own cat…

You could not argue with Hugo Martinez, not easily. Like throwing yourself against a stone wall, that would not yield.

He is impossible. He is domineering. This is wrong. He has no right.

When the vet’s assistant brought Mackie out in his carrying cage the neutered tomcat glared at them with his single tawny eye as if he understood very well that something essential was missing in his life. He was groggy, subdued. His tomcat-spirit seemed to have been broken in this place of torture and confinement. He even looked smaller. Sprawled on the bottom of the cage scarcely lifting his big tomcat head.

They leaned over Mackie’s cage, murmuring to him. He ignored them. Risking a sudden swift claw in their flesh they stuck fingers through the wire to touch him. Hugo managed to stroke the top of his head, and after a sullen moment Mackie began to purr a loud, harsh, crackling purr. You could hear the joy of recognition and relief in such a purr, and the desperation.

Jessalyn brushed tears of relief from her eyes, so grateful the squint-eyed tomcat had been returned to her alive.

He knows you—that you saved his life, Jessalyn.

You saved his life, Hugo.

Together, Jessalyn and Hugo Martinez brought Mackie back to the house on Old Farm Road.

The Hornets

On the underside of the drainpipe of the old farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road, a hornets’ nest of the size and shape of a pineapple.

Buzzing with hornets in a furious rant.

Danger! Hornets protecting their nest like crazed warriors.

Other hornets, farther from the hive, drifting wayward and random like bomber pilots considering where to attack…

No need to destroy the hive, was Virgil’s logic. The hornets were living creatures, not dangerous to human beings except when human beings interfered in their hornet-lives.

Among the residents on Bear Mountain Road were those who disappointed Virgil, wanting to destroy hornets’ nests as if hornets were enemies of humankind.

Just avoid the nest, Virgil suggested. Take another route to the barn. Avoid that side of the house. Hornets will not pursue you.

(Usually, this was true. Though perhaps there were exceptions.)

“A hornets’ nest is a beautiful construct, considered as architecture. Since the hornets are related, you could say that a hive is a family home.”

In his sweetly disarming way, that some found persuasive and others found exasperating, Virgil managed to protect the hornets against those residents of the household who wanted to destroy the hive and any other hive in the vicinity.

Adding, reasonably: “No toxic sprays are allowed on this property, so the hive can’t be sprayed. And I don’t recommend trying to douse it with gasoline and setting it on fire—the house will catch fire too and burn down and the insurer won’t pay. And getting near enough to knock the hive down with a hoe will take some courage.”

Among those who listened was the tall boyish-faced Nigerian whom Virgil particularly hoped to impress and for whose sake Virgil uttered such pronouncements, modestly and yet forcibly.

“Me, I’m not about to do it. Good night!”

Virgil strolled off. They would not band in opposition to him, he believed; they would disband, disperse.

Listening with the others had been the six-foot-four Nigerian—Amos Keziahaya. His height, his roughened cheeks and stark-white eyes drew Virgil’s attention like a magnet; it was all Virgil could do not to stare openly at him as if no one else were present.

Keziahaya did not say anything but nodded as Virgil spoke and smiled in approval. That quick flitting smile of his, gone before you can reciprocate.

Yes. Good. I agree. I am on your side. OK!

Often it happened, Keziahaya was on his side. So Virgil thought.

Amos Keziahaya was the only dark-skinned resident in the house on Bear Mountain Road. He appeared to be the only foreign-born resident, and he was certainly the only one from Africa. Some controversy rippled about him—Virgil didn’t quite know what it was.

People were drawn to Amos Keziahaya. But not always could Keziahaya reciprocate their interest.

Out of this, resentment. Sexual jealousy, anxiety. Dislike.

Women were attracted to Keziahaya, that was clear. But also men. Unavoidably.

Uneasily, Virgil knew this. He took care to befriend Keziahaya in the most casual, the least intense of ways.

They’d been friendly at the time of the Chautauqua arts fair. Virgil had helped Keziahaya display his work, and he’d helped him dismantle what remained unsold and load it into the rear of Virgil’s truck and bring it back to Keziahaya’s studio at the farm. Keziahaya had sold much more work than Virgil had sold, and had been in boyish good spirits as a consequence.

But since then, the two had had few exchanges. You wouldn’t say that Keziahaya avoided Virgil. But he hadn’t gone out of his way to spend time with him.

It was agony, Virgil thought. And ridiculous.

He was now—what?—thirty-two years old. Thirty-two.

In high school, he’d been immune to the tumultuous emotions of his classmates. Their desperate/ridiculous infatuations with one another. He’d been Virgil, and superior. But now.

Waiting for a knock at the door of his cabin. Still possible, after Virgil had walked away with a wave of his hand, that the strikingly tall very dark-skinned Nigerian would follow him down behind the house to knock lightly at the (opened) door.

And Virgil would glance up, frowning. Yes?

HE HAD NOT EVER BEEN in love with a man, Virgil was sure.

Rarely had he been in love with any woman—not really.

He’d been attracted to individuals, he’d felt emotional attachments—he was sure.

As a younger man he’d traveled and met persons—young women, girls—with whom he had become involved, to a degree; he’d had a pleasurably guilty sense that they expected more of him than he was capable of giving. Like a rolling stone. No direction known. It had been his custom to leave without saying goodbye—not a backward glance.

Even his parents had not seemed altogether real to Virgil, in those years. He was fully capable of forgetting them for days at a stretch, as if they’d never existed.

What are your people like?—a girl had asked him once in some faraway place like Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho; and Virgil had laughed and said he had no idea—he didn’t even understand the question. My people?

Well. You seem like a kind of, I don’t know—guy with money.

Virgil had been astonished, insulted. His clothing, his way of life, his obvious frugality—what could possibly lead a stranger to think he’d come from a background with money?

He had not ever, not once, called home to ask for money; he’d supported himself with part-time work.

You just don’t seem that worried, I guess. Like even if you don’t have money right now, it’s somewhere you could get to.

That wasn’t true!—Virgil had wanted to protest.

Now that he was older, he felt differently. To a degree.

He’d been deeply affected by Whitey’s death, which had been unexpected. He dreamt often of Whitey, who appeared in his dreams as a blurred figure of some menace, like Francis Bacon’s “screaming popes” series.

He loved Jessalyn deeply. Did not want to think how very deeply, especially since Whitey’s death.

His feelings for Amos Keziahaya were inchoate, unclear. He didn’t think (he told himself) that it was anything so simple or as simply satisfied as sexual attraction.

Though he felt a visceral jolt when he saw Keziahaya unexpectedly. A current of yearning, of sheer desire, that made him feel faint, and his mouth dry. For always, seeing Keziahaya he was taken by surprise. Like a tightrope walker he felt, gripping his long pole for balance, and suddenly there comes a gust of wind rendering him helpless.

Amos. Hey look: I think I am in love with you.

I know, it’s ridiculous—I know you don’t feel anything for me.

I don’t even mind that you don’t feel anything for me! Really.

I would not expect. I could not hope. I can only…

Amos? Jesus! I am so, so sorry.

Please forgive me if these words disgust you.

Or better yet—please forget if these words disgust you.

Back to zero? Forget? OK?

OK.

GAY, SAME-SEX, HOMOSEXUAL—these were cultural taboos/crimes in Keziahaya’s native Nigeria, punishable by as many as fourteen years in prison. Punishable by extrajudicial violence.

Back to zero. Forget.

FURIOUS BUZZ OF HORNETS. Close in Virgil’s ears.

Demanding Virgil? It’s gotten worse—Mom and that awful man.

“Awful man?”—who?

A man. A Cuban! A Communist!

Cuban? Communist?

He’s after her money, just as we’d thought. It’s shameful!

But—who—

A friend of yours—isn’t he?

No. I don’t think—

Did you introduce them, Virgil? Is that what you did?

N-No…

He’s Hispanic. Maybe not Cuban but definitely Hispanic, everybody says he’s practically black.

In Hammond? There aren’t many—

Yes! There are! If you look closely, they’re all over. Like Koreans—every damn grocery store. And Pakistanis—every damn gas station. Everywhere you look—Asians and Hispanics. And Indians.

Our mother has every right to—

She does not! She’s not in her right mind. People are seeing them all the time—in public. More than one person has called. And I’ve spoken with Mom—or tried to.

Has something in particular happened? We knew—

How can you sound so calm, Virgil? When you’ve caused this—the destruction of our family! And it’s so—shameful!

But—why?

Because they’re after her money—I mean, he’s after her money! Dad’s money! Our money! The estate! Our estate!

Wait. Who are we—

This is our mother, Virgil. This is—Jessalyn! Our lovely, beautiful, perfect mother! What has happened to her? She doesn’t have time for her own grandchildren any longer—they’re asking “Where is Granma Jess” and I don’t know how to answer them, I am so embarrassed.

Mom would have forgotten Daisy’s birthday—except I called her the day before. Can you imagine!

You forget our birthdays, too. But nobody expects you to remember.

It’s your fault, Virgil. You have never had a shred of respect for our family. The family. Normal life not—twisted and perverted…

It’s like revenge on our father—on the family…

It will probably turn out that you brought some filthy germ into Dad’s hospital room, Virgil. Caused that infection that killed him, living on that filthy manure-stinking place of yours with all the flies, Sophia told us, even Sophia was disgusted, just what Dad might have predicted since you didn’t—ever—wash your God-damned hands even as a boy, you selfish, selfish—

The cell phone slipped through Virgil’s numbed fingers and clattered to the floor. Just dimly Virgil heard the word prick in the vicinity of his feet.

So shocked by his sister’s words, and the venom in the words, the very sister who’d so seemed to adore him when he’d been a little boy, Virgil would not remember most of what Beverly said afterward. An amnesiac balm would spare him.

Soon after, the second furious sister called, with more words to sting Virgil’s eardrums, but this time Virgil knew better than to speak with her.

Virgil? Hello?

Virgil? God damn you!

It’s me—Lorene. You’d better call me back! This is an emergency.

I need to know what do you know about this—this—“artiste”-friend of yours who’s practically living with our mother? Beverly says he’s a Cuban…

We are all—stunned. We are sick with worry…

Could be Cuban, or Puerto Rican. Could be Mexican. There are Hispanics at our school—every fall, more.

Bad enough they are everywhere and having babies at five times the rate of white people—more babies than black people…

Virgil—God damn you. You’d better call me back.

Oh it’s awful. Just—obscene…

Poor Mom. They say the two are holding hands—in public… They’ve gone to the movies together! Where anyone can see. So shameful!

Mom won’t listen to us, Virgil. She is obviously having a nervous breakdown—she hasn’t been herself since Dad died.

I’ve tried to reach out to her. I have. Tried to get her to travel with me. Even with the trust, Mom has plenty of money. We could have had a wonderful, fantastic trip—to some place exotic—but Mom refused. Like she couldn’t bring herself to leave Dad. And now, this awful man—a stranger…

We hope you’re satisfied with yourself, Virgil. Your disgusting hippie friends! Now they’re moving right in our house.

You were always the weak link—Dad knew. Trying to break up our family. Always playing at being a—provocateur!

Oh Jesus, it makes me sick to think of another man, a stranger, and a Hispanic, in our house—with our mother who doesn’t have a clue about life…

Virgil? I’m warning you—you’d better call me back.

What would Dad think, how you and Mom have betrayed him!

Soon after the furious sister, a furious brother. The first time Virgil could recall his brother calling him on the phone, ever.

Was it possible? In all of their lives?

Thom could barely speak, he was so angry. Virgil shrank listening to his percussive deep-throated voice and imagining how Thom would put his hands on him, if he could.

God damn you, Virgil. Introducing our mother to an ex-convict Hispanic. You never took this seriously and now Bev and Lorene are telling me they are practically living together. And I’ve had calls from friends. Jesus! Enough to make me puke.

One of your fucking artist-friends. Lives on that fucking commune with you. I asked around and turns out, this “Hugo” who is seeing our mother was arrested in 1991, in Hammond.

Disturbing the peace. Aggravated assault.

Probably drugs. Dealing drugs. “Latino.”

He was in Hammond County Detention! He has a criminal record…

He’s younger than Mom, and he’s after her money. We have got to stop him before it’s too late…

Thank God, Dad left her money in a trust. It’s like Dad could see into the future…

His heart would be broken now.

Fuck you, Virgil. Just—fuck you…

If you actually had anything to do with this, I will break your sorry ass…

We’ve tried to speak with Mom and she just will not listen.

You’d better go over there, right now. She’ll listen to you.

Not in her right mind. Jesus!

What if they get married? What if they are already married?

A trust can be broken. But even if it isn’t broken, if she’s his wife he’ll find a way to get his hands on that money. And the house. That’s our house!

Oh Christ. What would Dad think!

Virgil was stunned. He’d assumed that Jessalyn had seen Hugo Martinez just casually, just a few times, but now—Practically living together. Married?

He recalled how intense Jessalyn had been, asking him about Martinez. How uncharacteristically emotional she’d been, that Martinez had dared to take her photograph without her permission.

Officially Virgil had not heard a word from her about Martinez, or about the photograph. He did not think that it was his right to interfere with his mother’s private life—but then, he hadn’t realized that Jessalyn and Hugo Martinez had become so involved.

He kept in contact with Jessalyn, as he did with Sophia, but not with the others, who seemed to despise him.

It had intensified since Whitey’s death, this dislike of Virgil. Since the will. Bitterly his elder siblings resented it, that Whitey had left Virgil exactly as much as he’d left them.

But their dislike of Virgil had begun when he’d been a young child. He’d been too “special”—too much fuss was made over him by adults. Beverly and Lorene had adored him initially, then they’d become jealous, resentful. Beyond the age of seven or eight he’d become too clever for them. He had not needed them.

He’d feared for his life, when his big brother Thom had advanced upon him glowering with dislike.

Couldn’t remember. If Thom had actually roughed him up, or just threatened him. How many times? Thom had never injured Virgil so that their parents could see, that was certain.

He was a dangerous person, Thom. No one knew but Virgil. No one else would ever believe how murderous Thom could be, especially not their mother.

Yet, Virgil had admired Thom when he was growing up. At a distance, he’d been proud of his tall handsome so-virile brother…

Recalling how he’d mortified Thom by asking him point-blank, just once, Why do you hate me? What have I done? Thom had backed off with a look of disgust.

The faggot kid-brother. Disgusting.

What Virgil knew of Hugo Martinez, he’d been a political activist as well as an artist and a poet. Their paths had not often crossed though they’d both taught, at different times, at Hammond Community College. Virgil was sure that Martinez had children, whom Virgil might have met—the name “Martinez” was familiar. Hugo was a hugely charming older man with a drooping mustache, long wavy hair, a flamboyant manner. He was also an excellent photographer.

Why was it being said that Hugo was after Jessalyn’s money? That was insulting to both Hugo and Jessalyn.

It was not at all unlikely that a man might be attracted to Jessalyn.

Less likely, that Jessalyn might be attracted to a man…

Virgil was certain that the relationship, if there was one, was being misinterpreted. On the phone his sisters said the most astonishing and irresponsible things. They seemed to have gotten more accusatory, more profane, more reckless since their father’s death. Beverly was certainly drinking more than she’d ever drunk. And Thom as well. Unraveling.

Without Whitey, a kind of fixture had slipped. A lynchpin. Things were veering out of control.

The sisters had whipped Thom into a frenzy. He was living in Hammond for part of the week and in Rochester on weekends. His marriage was falling apart. He was distracted by the responsibilities of McClaren, Inc. like a burning tire around his neck and he was distracted by the lawsuit he’d initiated against the Hammond Police Department, that moved with glacial slowness. He’d fired Bud Hawley and he’d hired a new lawyer. The most recent news of the lawsuit Virgil had heard, the young Indian physician who’d been the (sole) witness to Whitey’s beating by the police officers had lodged a complaint against Thom for stalking and threatening him and he’d filed for an injunction to keep Thom from contacting him. Worse, the Hammond police officers named in the suit had countered with a lawsuit of their own against Thom McClaren, charging reckless defamation.

Virgil had tried to reason with Thom in the matter of the lawsuit. Naively he’d tried to explain to him the wisdom of Buddhism: not pessimism or optimism but resignation in the face of the vicissitudes of the world. Of course there was injustice. Of course the police would not admit to any wrongdoing. Of course the current mayor of Hammond and his police chief would be shocked to learn what had happened to Whitey McClaren who was one of their own but they would not try to rectify the wrong publicly; they would suppress evidence, protract and prolong, obfuscate, try to bury the case with every ruse of the law at their disposal—exactly as Whitey would have done.

For all Virgil knew, Whitey himself had done such things. Whitey had certainly not protested against police misconduct, publicly. He’d had to work with the Hammond PD which meant accommodating what was now called “white racism”—in previous decades, keeping residents of the inner city “in their place” so that they were no threat to the white majority.

Why Whitey had quit politics, Virgil assumed. Too many moral compromises. Too much corruption. You could not be both a politician and an idealist. Most governing bodies were criminal enterprises. You could make your way through muck without getting entirely covered in it—that was the hope. When the muck begins to cover your mouth, and to get into your mouth, that is the end. From his Buddhist distance, Virgil understood.

Not that Virgil would have judged Whitey harshly. He did not judge anyone, really. Except maybe (hard to resist!) himself.

Thom had been drinking. His breath had smelled sweetly of whiskey. His voice had been slurred. His face that had once been startlingly handsome had been ruddy, coarsened. Scarcely had he listened to Virgil. He’d interrupted to say that “money was no object”—he would “spare no expense” in the lawsuit. What ominous words! Virgil shuddered.

And Thom had no doubt—“Whitey will win.”

All of the money Whitey had left Thom was going into the lawsuit.

Virgil’s most recent visit with Jessalyn had been twelve days before. She had not seemed secretive or evasive with him but had rather seemed calm, happy. She’d been spending time in her garden, she’d said. A friend had come bringing her a rosebush—a mature, sprawling bloodred climber rose planted beside the garage. In retrospect, Virgil wondered about the rosebush. Which friend, and why? Why a mature bush, which would be difficult to plant? At the time he’d scarcely listened and had had not the slightest curiosity. Jessalyn had dragged him out into the bright blinding heat of midsummer to stare at the straggly rosebush she was trying to support against a trellis beside the garage. “Isn’t it beautiful? The roses are so perfect.”

All he’d really noticed was that she was smiling, often. Possibly, too often. Her fingers were thin, her rings were loose; but that was nothing new. If anything, Jessalyn had regained some of the weight she’d lost in the weeks following Whitey’s death. Her face wasn’t so drawn. Her skin wasn’t sallow with fatigue.

She’d said nothing about having met Hugo Martinez. Neither she nor Virgil had brought up the subject of the surreptitiously taken photograph at Whitey’s gravesite.

“How are you doing, Mom?”

“Oh Virgil, you know—‘One breath at a time.’”

He hadn’t known. One breath at a time. Exactly, the wisdom of Buddhism.

They’d prepared a meal together. From the farm on Bear Mountain Road Virgil had brought an armload of produce he’d grown himself: mammoth leaves of dark kale, sprigs of broccoli, beefsteak tomatoes, carrots. (They’d laughed at the carrots, which were far too ugly to be sold commercially: spindly, like aborted fetuses with roots like coarse hairs, obscene to the touch.)

During the dinner the squint-eyed black tomcat had entered the room, silently on his soft thick pads. His stubby tail switched. His single eye glared yellow. Mackie leapt with surprising agility onto Jessalyn’s lap. She told Virgil that the cat had had surgery and had made a very good recovery. He would prowl less, and he would certainly fight less. Spared the rigors of reproducing his kind, he would live a longer life. Already, his fur was looking glossier and he purred more readily. Jessalyn encouraged Virgil to lean over and stroke the cat’s big, hard-boned head, and for an anxious moment the cat stiffened and growled deep in its throat, as if it were considering clawing Virgil’s hand; but it had not, and had purred instead.

“Mackie likes you, now. You are his friend.”

Was he! Virgil had to laugh.

He had very little interest in the damned cat, as the cat clearly had very little interest in Virgil.

Maybe, Virgil thought, his hysterical sisters were confusing Mackie with a man. An “Hispanic”—“Latino”—who’d come to take Whitey’s place in their mother’s life.

THE INVITATION HAD BEEN CASUAL—Virgil! Please come to our Fourth of July barbecue & bring a companion.

Not sure why he’d accepted. He scarcely knew the hosts—they were “friends of the arts.” He didn’t really like large parties—though he didn’t much like small parties either.

Also, he had no companion.

Driving alone in his Jeep across the Chautauqua River into rural Herkimer County. There was a Fourth of July gathering in a hillside park in Pittsfield, there would be fireworks above the river at dark. In the sky just before sunset, a rackety biplane trailing a banner advertisement for a local winery—PITTS WINES.

Rural Herkimer County evoked nostalgic memories: drives into the countryside with his mother, years ago.

Of course, Virgil hadn’t been alone with Jessalyn. Sophia had been there, and—the others.

Until those others had grown too old, and lost interest in driving over to the market at Dutchtown and having lunch along the river in the windmill restaurant… All of the windows of the Jeep were down, crazed hot air rushed about his head.

Lovesick Virgil, though wanting to think otherwise.

At thirty-two he’d become a kind of vagrant in the familial lives of others. So lonely, even working on his sculptures couldn’t assuage his conviction of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Where Keziahaya might be on this festive national holiday, Virgil had no idea. A celebration that consisted mostly of brainless loud-cracking noises, flares and simulated explosions could not have much appeal for one who’d narrowly escaped death as a boy in civil war.

Virgil had praised Keziahaya’s paintings and sculptures, sincerely.

But Keziahaya only just seemed embarrassed. Murmuring—OK, man. Good. You, too.

Virgil knew from his own experience that when people praised his work, no matter how sincere they seemed, he felt uneasy, manipulated.

Especially by women. A certain sort of woman. Eager, alone. Not young.

Strange. He’d rarely felt lonely before in his life. Maybe it wasn’t Amos Keziahaya for whom he yearned but someone else.

Shut his eyes and what did he see—(it had come to haunt him recently, bizarrely)—a smudged figure like one of Francis Bacon’s “screaming popes.”

In Whitey’s frigid hospital room. It had begun then. The slipping-down, sick sensation.

All his life he’d imagined himself indifferent to his father. But in the hospital room he’d been suddenly anxious as a child. Baffled by what was happening to his father which he could not control with the fantasies inside his head.

Just the word stroke. Virgil had never quite been able to speak it aloud.

Poor Whitey shrunken inside his body. Staring at Virgil as if trying to recognize him.

When you realize: as the life goes out in another, it is your own life that shrivels and expires.

Dad—don’t die. Don’t leave me. No.

Whitey had seemed to hear. Though Virgil had not spoken aloud.

At least, Whitey had responded to Virgil’s flute-playing. Virgil was grateful for that.

He’d never quite recovered from Whitey’s death, that was the mystery. Shut his eyes and there was a nightmare “screaming pope” staring him in the face.

(Virgil didn’t even know the work of Francis Bacon well. He’d never seen a Bacon painting on the wall, in person. What he knew, he didn’t greatly admire. Art to make your head ache like migraine. Art like a sharp stick in the eye.)

Not yet dusk but idiot firecrackers were being set off by boys in the riverside park, running with their hands over their ears. Cracking noises in mimicry of gunfire.

Each bullet seeking a target. Why was there such exulting in bullets, noise? Was it purely a masculine activity? Was it supremely a masculine activity? Virgil felt nothing but repugnance for such displays of war.

Driving through Pittstown, an enervated old mill town on the Chautauqua River, it came to Virgil with the force of a sequence of firecrackers that maybe he should extinguish himself, while there was still time. Before he became older, middle-aged and beyond. Before the stroke rendered him helpless.

When he ran through the money Whitey had left him. Which, seeing that his income was so modest, somewhere below the “poverty level,” would be fairly soon.

Or no: better before he ran through the money. He could prepare a handmade will, typing it himself and having his signature witnessed by a notary public.

Virgil’s favorite charities. He’d wanted to double-tithe but had procrastinated.

The thought of extinguishing himself, which sounds so much loftier than merely killing himself, was cheering, and just in time.

At the barbecue Virgil’s first instinct was to flee before anyone recognized him. The place was a self-styled “ranch”—a sprawling homestead on the Chautauqua River amid acres of pastureland. Many vehicles were parked in a field. Teenaged boys were offering to “valet park.” Virgil parked his own vehicle and hiked to the loose crowd of guests at the rear of the residence, to get a cold beer. Someone cried, “Virgil McClaren! So good you could come.” His hand was clasped in triumph by a lively taffy-blond woman whom he recognized as one of the local art patrons who often bought his scrap-metal sculptures.

Later, Virgil would see sleek marmoreal sculptures on the lawn, Henry Moore–influenced. Had to smile ruefully, nothing of his was in sight.

Drifted with others to admire llamas and ostriches in a pasture. (The creatures kept their distance, aloof. All were somewhat mud-splattered from beneath.) There were miniature horses, goats and sheep. Farther on, a flock of guinea fowl pecking in the dirt.

Virgil did know some people here. Virgil did shake some hands. He saw at a little distance a slender woman with very white hair worn in a plait between her shoulder blades, and with her a man in a wide straw-brimmed hat, raspberry-colored shirt, khaki shorts. The man was not a young man but his dark-skinned legs were knotted with muscle. His hair was gunmetal-gray, beneath the wide-brimmed hat. It was notable how the man loomed over the woman, considerably taller than she was. The couple was very affectionate: Virgil saw the man clasp the woman’s hand and the two leaned together, whispering and laughing.

Virgil stared. His vision blurred with moisture.

Was it—Jessalyn? It was.

For a moment Virgil stood paralyzed. Stunned. Never could he have predicted such an emotional reaction—in an instant he’d become a hurt, aggrieved son.

Without thinking he backed away. Edged away. Overcome with chagrin.

If she’d seen him. He could not bear facing her, confronting her—in the company of a stranger, a man.

How swiftly things turn random, bizarre. For in his blind eagerness to escape his mother and her companion Virgil found himself on a collision course with a young woman in a wheelchair, being pushed along a walkway—a young woman who closely resembled his former friend Sabine—(was she Sabine?—Virgil didn’t dare look too closely)—and here too, Virgil had to back off hurriedly.

A pert frizz-haired young woman in floral-print pants that hid her thin, wasted legs, wheeled along by a person whom Virgil did not recognize, possibly male, possibly female. He wasn’t about to linger to find out.

What a coincidence! What bad timing! At least, neither Sabine (if it was Sabine) nor Jessalyn seemed to have seen him.

Virgil’s romance with Sabine—if that’s what it had been—had long ago imploded. There had been misunderstandings between them which (Virgil was certain) were not his fault—entirely.

The upshot was: Sabine might not have loved Virgil but she’d perceived in him a person who might adore her—it had been a bitter disappointment to her, that Virgil hadn’t been that person.

Officially, the two were on fairly good terms. They never spoke harshly of each other to mutual acquaintances—at least, Virgil did not speak harshly of Sabine and if Sabine spoke harshly of him, Virgil was spared the knowledge.

He could not bear to encounter Sabine in his agitated state, in any case. Could not bear to hear her thin mocking drawl—Oh Vir-gil! Is that you? Don’t run away scared, I won’t bite.

Amid a tight knot of people Virgil moved to a position on the flagstone terrace where he could observe the white-plaited woman and her flamboyantly dressed companion a short distance away. His mother Jessalyn, and Hugo Martinez.

It was true, the lurid rumors his sisters had hissed into his ear. That Thom had fumed about. Their mother and Hugo Martinez!

Virgil’s face was hot, heavy with blood. Dazedly he turned and walked stumbling away.

Someone called after him—“Virgil! You aren’t leaving, are you? Have you had any ribs?”

What a bizarre question, Virgil thought. Have you had any ribs.

It was not tolerable. His mother with another man.

So soon. Too soon. Oh God! If Whitey could know…

Virgil felt it keenly, his father’s mortification. You did not really expect Jessalyn to recover from Whitey’s death. Theirs had been so special a marriage…

Vaguely Virgil had hoped that Jessalyn might one day remarry—what’s-his-name—Colwin?—the mild-mannered widower-friend who was so deeply boring, his presence was a kind of sedative. As Beverly had said, the two were of the exact same “social class”—no one had to worry about Colwin marrying Jessalyn for her money. Whitey had sneered at Colwin, but not unkindly. Whitey would (possibly) have approved of Colwin as a companion for Jessalyn, if necessary. But Hugo Martinez—no.

Virgil half-ran to the Jeep. Eager to escape. God damn! The valet-parking boys were staring frankly at him. Fortunately Jessalyn hadn’t seen him and he would be prepared to avoid her in the future if she was in the company of Hugo Martinez.

But maybe, Virgil was mistaken. Sitting in the Jeep, having turned on the ignition, behind the wheel he wondered.

Possibly Jessalyn and Hugo Martinez had just met at the party. Or, they were not a couple, just friends. Hugo had taken Jessalyn’s photograph, as Virgil recalled, without her permission…

Rapidly Virgil’s brain clattered—what? Why? Thoughts without contents came swiftly by like empty freight cars.

Every notion Virgil had, every instinct, every “hunch”—usually, he was wrong. He’d liked to think that Amos Keziahaya was (secretly, intensely) aware of him, and preparing to approach him openly, sometime soon—but Virgil had been cultivating this fantasy for months, since he’d first set eyes on the tall scarred-faced Nigerian and shaken his hand…

Well, possibly he was mistaken now. How cowardly a son, to refuse to greet his own mother.

Turned off the ignition, and hiked back to the party. Hoping that the taffy-haired smiling hostess wouldn’t greet him a second time, clasping his hand in hers and lifting it to her heart.

This time, Virgil made his way directly to Jessalyn.

“Hey Mom? Hello.”

Bounded up to his mother with a wide smile. Ignored Hugo Martinez as if he didn’t know that the two were a couple—(for how would he know that the two were a couple?).

“Virgil! We thought that was you, running away.”

Jessalyn laughed, happily. They were embracing, greeting each other as a son and a mother might greet each other on such an unexpected occasion, Virgil felt his face burn, both Jessalyn and Hugo Martinez were laughing at him and yet not unkindly. Virgil had an impression of Jessalyn’s smooth-plaited white hair, never had he seen his mother with her hair parted in the center of her head like this, and plaited down her back, with an artificial, white silk gardenia affixed to the braid; never had he seen his mother wearing what appeared to be, at first glance, a Latin American peasant’s costume—a short-sleeved blouse of some ultra-crisp, crimped white fabric covered in embroidered butterflies and flowers, and pajama-like pants in a similar, yellow fabric.

Virgil stared and stared, smelling a faint lavender scent that rose from his mother’s hair. In his agitation he could barely make out what they were saying—what he himself was saying.

“Virgil! Hello, my friend.”

Hugo Martinez came forward to shake Virgil’s hand. His manner was warm, gregarious, proprietorial.

Virgil thought: the man’s face was too broad—his skin too burnished, aglow. It was almost aggressive, how he exuded happiness. The dark bemused eyes were kindly, crinkled with humor as if he knew exactly what Virgil was thinking.

Hugo had brought one of his cameras to the party, hanging from a strap around his neck. A heavy, expensive camera, Virgil knew it to be.

Hugo had questions to put to Virgil—friendly, fellow-artist questions which Virgil might answer without stammering. For he was very distracted by Hugo, Hugo could see.

But Virgil could feign an interest in Hugo’s fancy camera—there is nothing photographers like better than to boast of their “lenses.”

He was traveling to Morocco soon, Hugo told Virgil. From there, to Egypt and Jordan. Just three weeks which was much too short.

Virgil asked if Hugo had been to that part of the world before and Hugo said yes, just once in the late 1980s. He was afraid that Marrakesh had changed a good deal. And his favorite Moroccan city—Fez.

Virgil said he’d have liked to travel more, too—but his life hadn’t turned out that way…

“We could go together!—the three of us.”

Virgil was taken by surprise. Jessalyn laughed uneasily.

It was wonderful, unless it was overbearing, how spontaneously Hugo Martinez spoke. A kind of entrepreneurial manner, hyper-enthusiastic, innocently coercive.

The man resembled Whitey, in that way. The father, the head of a family, not a bully and not exactly coercive unless you opposed him. The nicest person you would ever want to meet, the most generous, kindly, persuasive—unless you opposed him, then you saw the steel-glittering eyes, the tightness at the jaws.

In other ways, Hugo Martinez was nothing like Whitey McClaren. Imagine Whitey wearing khaki shorts and a raspberry-colored shirt at an evening social gathering, open-toed sandals, hair to his shoulders and an outsized mustache… Whitey would have stared at Hugo Martinez with scarcely disguised dislike, disapproval.

Hugo was talking enthusiastically of northern Africa where he hoped to travel by himself—like a nomad.

Virgil knew from his photographs that Hugo Martinez had traveled a good deal, to parts of the world beyond Europe. He recalled reading travel poems of Hugo’s, that had been published in a local literary magazine; long-lined, zigzagging and incantatory poems in the style of Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jack Hirschman. Hugo had taught at the community college until he’d been fired—a mild scandal, Virgil remembered. He’d been Poet Laureate of Western New York—until he’d been asked to resign, or had resigned out of principle. The kind of person whom Virgil admired, to a degree—activist, self-proclaimed anarchist, showy, self-aggrandizing. But talented, and good-hearted. Or so Virgil thought.

He was feeling a stirring of envy. He’d purposefully lived a frugal life, in resistance to his father’s wishes for him. He’d avoided acquiring too many possessions, responsibilities. He’d wanted to live a life close to the bone, like the Buddha, an “empty” life—no ambition, no desire. Even with the money he’d inherited from Whitey, Virgil wouldn’t have felt comfortable spending it on himself, on travel.

But now, in Hugo Martinez’s presence, Virgil was feeling a lesser person, incomplete. There was only pride in renunciation if there was someone to register your sacrifice. He wondered what Jessalyn had told Hugo of him, if anything.

Jessalyn said, “Hugo loves to travel. I will miss him for three weeks.”

Jessalyn spoke with an air of regret, though (possibly) it was a feigned sort of regret for Hugo Martinez’s benefit. Virgil wondered if in fact his mother would be relieved that Hugo was gone—the man was so exuberant, so vocal and expansive.

Gallantly Hugo said, “I will miss you.”

It happened then, though he’d certainly intended to leave the barbecue, Virgil remained to have supper with Jessalyn and Hugo, seated on lawn chairs on the flagstone terrace. Hardly to be believed, Virgil thought. What would Whitey say!

Even as the two spoke together companionably, even as he saw how Hugo smiled at Jessalyn, and Jessalyn smiled at Hugo, with Hugo hurrying off to get a cold drink for Jessalyn, and Jessalyn deferring to Hugo when he interrupted her, indeed it was obvious that they were a couple; not a long-married couple but a couple in the early, enthralled stages of getting to know each other.

Hugo said, “I’m trying to talk your mother into traveling with me later in the year, in the Galápagos,” and Jessalyn said, in a voice that sounded pleading to Virgil, “No. Don’t listen to him, Virgil. That’s ridiculous.” There was a flirtatious sort of tug-of-war between them; clearly this was not a new subject.

Virgil thought yes, it was ridiculous. Jessalyn in the Galápagos!

Whitey would have laughed heartily. His dear wife, totally unsuited for rough travel, primitive settings.

Virgil saw how Jessalyn glanced at him, from time to time. She was smiling in the way of a mother who knows that her child is not entirely happy, and it is her fault.

Virgil! I am sorry.

Mom, it’s OK. No problem.

But I mean—I am sorry to have surprised—shocked you…

OK, Mom. I’ll deal with it.

But, Virgil…

Damned if Virgil would be judging his mother, as his sisters and Thom did. Yes it was a surprise, something of a shock, but Jessalyn’s life was her own, not his.

Indeed it did seem too soon, as his sisters had charged. Too soon after Dad. Too soon for Jessalyn to be fully recovered. As everyone liked to say—herself again.

Virgil wondered: Is a widow ever herself again?

Illogical to think so. Cruel to expect so. Losing Whitey had been like losing a limb, Virgil supposed. Bad enough for Virgil, surely worse for his mother.

No, he couldn’t judge her. No business of his.

(Still: couldn’t help wondering if Jessalyn and Hugo were—what’s called intimate.)

(Sleeping together. Not possible!)

The likelihood did fill Virgil with distaste, repugnance. He would not allow himself to speculate—no.

That his mother could smile and laugh and seem to be enjoying herself at a Fourth of July barbecue, eight months after Whitey’s death, with big blustery Hugo Martinez: Was this commendable, or was this pathetic? Admirable, or desperate?

That she no longer looked so thin, bereft, destitute but (almost) beautiful again, with her white hair brushed and gleaming, in a plait between her shoulder blades; not in the fashionable black she’d been wearing, but in what looked like a dramatic peasant costume—how could anyone judge her?

Virgil wanted to murmur—Hey Mom. You’re great. I love you.

Jessalyn asked if Virgil had seen his sisters lately—and Virgil shook his head truthfully, no.

“They’re not so happy with me, I’m afraid. And Thom, also.”

Virgil shrugged. He knew nothing about it! His older siblings rarely confided in him, you might deduce.

“They don’t approve of Hugo, I think. On the phone they’ve been difficult to speak with and I—I don’t think—it’s time just yet to introduce them to him.” Jessalyn spoke bravely, wistfully. Hugo, smiling to himself, as if he weren’t intently listening to each word of Jessalyn’s, was devouring barbecued ribs with a pretense of delicacy.

Hugo was a handsome man with a somewhat ravaged face. Virgil knew him to be a few years younger than his mother but (to Virgil’s eye at least) he looked older. His smile exposed uneven teeth, of the hue of weak tea. His manner was just slightly abrasive, aggressive. The wide-brimmed straw hat was worn at a jaunty angle that suggested assurance, arrogance. The drooping mustache had to be an affectation, large enough to cover much of the man’s mouth. His hair too was an affectation: shoulder-length like Virgil’s but more obviously brushed, tended-to. (Virgil did nothing with his hair except, not very often, wash it. Consequently his hair was drying and fading like straw in midsummer. He would have considered it vanity to have done much more.) The raspberry-colored shirt was (it seemed likely) a companion to Jessalyn’s crisp white blouse, probably bought at the same Mexican market by Hugo Martinez. On Hugo’s big-knuckled fingers were several rings including a large dull-silver ring in the shape of a star. He wore a silver bracelet. His belt had a silver buckle. His shirt was open to mid-chest, to show a snaggle of silver-gray hairs. The khaki shorts were hiker’s shorts with many pockets and zippers and (Virgil saw with satisfaction) freshly stained with barbecue sauce.

Jessalyn had noticed the small stain, Virgil saw. But Jessalyn said not a word. As she’d have noticed Whitey with a stain on his clothing in a public place but would not have said a word.

It was dusk. Fireworks over the river, a mile away at Pittstown.

Hugo had adjusted his camera to take pictures of the nighttime sky. Exploding colors, like multifoliate roses, juxtaposed with a wan quarter moon, a filigree of clouds. Dark foliage overhead framing the view.

Beauty of the most obvious flashy kind, Virgil thought. A crowd will oooh and ahhh predictably, if not required to think.

Whitey had liked fireworks well enough though he’d remarked that you got the point pretty soon and the rest was just repetition.

Hugo wandered off with his camera, in the direction of the river. Taking photographs of the fireworks wholly absorbed him. You felt the relief—as least Virgil did—of the man’s fierce attention deflected elsewhere.

“How long have you known Hugo, Mom?”

“I—I’m not sure. It happened so—unexpectedly.”

Jessalyn spoke evasively. Virgil could see that she was embarrassed, wishing that Hugo had not left her alone with him.

Maybe she didn’t know what had happened, Virgil thought. Maybe there were no adequate words to explain. And she was determined not to apologize.

Virgil was remembering that Hugo Martinez had been one of the local activists involved in unionizing Hammond civic workers in the late 1980s, when Whitey had been mayor of Hammond. The workers had included public school and community college teachers, county government staff, even cafeteria workers and custodians at City Hall. Hugo Martinez had been the chairman of the art department at the college and he’d angered the administration by leading the strike in which, eventually, Whitey McClaren had had to intervene. Virgil recalled the excitement of classes being disrupted at school. Each night on TV there was footage of workers “striking”—a week of picket lines, arrests by police, denunciations on both sides, accusations, even vandalism. Whitey—their Dad!—had been on TV sounding harsh, unhappy but resolute. Will not tolerate anarchy. Will not give in to blackmail. So far as Virgil knew there had not been any violence against individual strikers—at least, no incidents had been broadcast by the media.

The youthful Hugo Martinez, dark-haired at the time, fiery and provocative and roundly denounced as a hippie-anarchist, had received a good deal of attention in the media, most of it highly critical. His Hispanic identity had drawn racial slurs and accusations of being a Communist. Yet glamor had accrued to him as well for he resembled no one so much as the revolutionary Che Guevara. In front of City Hall he’d shouted through a bullhorn—The Hammond city government is not going to cajole us with phony compromises, crooked dealings and slave-wage contracts any more than they are going to intimidate us with their “show of force”…

Eventually Hugo was arrested by Hammond police, along with fellow demonstrators. In handcuffs they’d been taken to the Hammond men’s house of detention in a police van. This must have been what Thom was fuming about in his phone message: their mother involved with a Communist, ex-convict.

Soon, the strike ended. The city allowed the civic workers to join the union but concessions were limited and contracts were not what strike leaders had demanded. Several persons had to be sacrificed so that a new coalition could be formed; extremists like Hugo Martinez were ousted from their positions or forced to resign.

Virgil wondered how much Jessalyn knew about this. He had no doubt that Hugo Martinez knew very well whose wife Jessalyn was.

Hugo had remained in the Hammond area. He’d continued to work as an artist and to involve himself in various activist causes, some of which overlapped with Virgil’s, though the two had never picketed or demonstrated together. Each community has such a “rebel” figure—admired and disliked in about equal measure.

Like other artist-friends, Virgil had always admired Hugo Martinez’s work. Virgil had even heard Hugo give poetry readings at the community college to which, eventually, he’d been invited back, under the auspices of a new administration. Possibly, somewhere in his haphazardly stored possessions, Virgil had a signed copy of one of Hugo’s books.

And yes—more recently Hugo was involved with “exonerating”—“freeing”—prison inmates “wrongfully convicted.” A local activist organization of which Virgil had been hearing, with a vague intention of aligning himself…

At least now, if he wished, Virgil could donate. A worthy cause, a moral impulse—never a mistake to donate.

Whitey would approve. Whitey had always been outraged by injustice. Hadn’t Whitey sacrificed his life in a (possibly futile) gesture of outrage against injustice?

“Oh! Look…”

There came a final paroxysm of fireworks, explosions of riotous color in rapid succession. Cries of excitement. How annoying fireworks are, Virgil thought, demanding to be admired!

It was dark by the time Hugo returned to Jessalyn and Virgil; Virgil began to sense that Jessalyn was becoming uneasy, wondering where her companion was. Their hosts had lit lanterns, and were urging people not to leave just yet. But the barbecue was dissolving, guests were drifting away. Virgil was half-hoping that Hugo and Jessalyn would ask him to join them, wherever they were headed next, but when Hugo did make a suggestion of this kind, with seeming sincerity, and a squeezing grip on Virgil’s forearm, Virgil quickly demurred.

Time to get home!—he wanted to get up early the next morning, and work.

Indeed, he was eager to leave before Hugo and Jessalyn left. He didn’t want to see them walk off together hand in hand—drive away in a vehicle together—presumably, Hugo’s.

Didn’t want to speculate if Hugo would stay with Jessalyn that night, in Jessalyn’s house which was (Virgil didn’t want to think!) his house. It did not seem likely that Jessalyn would stay with Hugo in his house, wherever that was.

Possibly, neither stayed with the other. It was low-minded to speculate about such matters, that were none of Virgil’s business.

Jessalyn kissed Virgil good night. In a wistful voice she asked if he would have dinner with them, soon—“Before Hugo goes away?”

Virgil murmured yes. He’d like that.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, dear. We can set a date.”

“Better if I call you, Mom. My cell phone doesn’t always work on the farm.”

“Well, all right. Call me tomorrow. Promise!”

Backing away Virgil promised.

Before Hugo goes away—the wistful words lingered in Virgil’s ears for a long time afterward.

CLUTCHING AT EACH OTHER.

And you—a coward.

In early August it happened, at last.

So long he’d anticipated. So long unable to sleep, yet he’d dreamt.

And then swiftly, as if without preparation, after Virgil helped Amos Keziahaya dismantle a small exhibit of his work in a local gallery, and loaded this work, along with his own, onto a truck to bring back to Bear Mountain Road; after he and Keziahaya stopped for a meal at a tavern, to celebrate, as Virgil insisted, Keziahaya’s having sold several lithographs and sculptures, for more than two thousand dollars in all—(Virgil had sold fewer, for less than nine hundred dollars); after Keziahaya accepted Virgil’s invitation to come to his cabin for a drink and the men talked for nearly two hours mostly about Keziahaya’s experiences in the United States, his bemusement and alarm at American life—“the not-so-hidden racism”—“the optimism like children’s balloons”; after Virgil may have had one beer too many, mistaking the young Nigerian’s exuberance and gaiety for something more personal between them, trembling with excitement, filled with happiness and hope (for at the back of Virgil’s mind was the vivid memory of his mother and Hugo Martinez bravely clasping hands) he found himself walking with Keziahaya to the door of his cabin and impulsively daring to bring his lips against Keziahaya’s startled, parted lips with a near-inaudible murmur—Good night, Amos!

It had not been a forcible kiss. It had not been a passionate kiss. It had been light as the touch of a moth’s wings. A laughing kiss, a mere caress with the lips. Not a kiss.

So Virgil would protest, afterward. If only to himself.

But Amos Keziahaya was taken by surprise by the gesture, and recoiled with a look of genuine shock—as if a hornet had stung him. However warmly he’d been talking and laughing with Virgil for much of the evening, however relaxed he’d appeared to be in Virgil’s company, he had clearly not expected this conclusion to the visit, and he had not wanted it.

Quickly departing without looking at Virgil, very embarrassed, possibly repelled, muttering something inaudible in which the only word Virgil could hear clearly was no.

Black Rush

Of course she was all right.

Of course she’d had a good week.

God damn beginning to resent these stupid questions.

If her health insurance didn’t cover twelve sessions with (aptly named) Dr. Foote she’d never have started.

Waste of time. Asinine insipid inane and inept.

Nothing wrong with me. Ridiculous!

AT FIRST her father’s death was a point of the size of a period at the end of a sentence: .

At first just a single, singular hair, or (possibly) several hairs in succession pulled individually from her head. Hardly conscious of tugging at the hairs at her right temple as she worked at her computer long after every other adult (faculty, staff) had gone home for the day without a backward glance.

(Though possibly they’d registered some mild anxiety registering her steel-colored vehicle with its grim military look in the parking space reserved for PRINCIPAL which was closest to the rear entrance of the building’s east wing.)

(What a shrewd idea, to move her office to the rear of the school! Not the front where you’d expect the principal’s office to be.)

(The bland-beige facade of North Hammond High overlooked just a bland-grassy front lawn, walkways and street.)

(Rumor was, Dr. McClaren behind the [usually drawn] venetian blinds of her office was keen to take note which of the faculty left at which time. How early? How late? Walking alone or—with whom?)

(If walking with another person or persons, surely talking about her. Conspiring, collaborating.)

(By which take note was meant literally.)

Twisting hairs around her fingers, tugging. Gently.

Oh, gently! At first.

Exerting pressure—gentle, subtle pressure!—on the roots, embedded in the scalp. And what a stab of satisfaction, relief, a little jolt of electricity-pain to wake her from the stupor of her work, like a shot of caffeine to the heart.

Oh God.

Like scratching mosquito bites or rashes until they really, really hurt and have begun to bleed. Like that.

Not knowing what she was doing, or only one-tenth knowing. And that was the pleasure of it, the not-knowing when the sudden sweet pain would strike her (sensitive, sensual) scalp.

Oh. God.

In fact she’d stared at the short, stubby, dark hairs on her desktop not recognizing initially what they were. If a hair drifted onto her computer keyboard she blew it away like dust.

No clear memory of how, when it had begun. Pulling God-damned hairs out of her God-damned head.

Except had to have something to do that smothered the black rush that had swept over her at the time of the call from the hospital from Thom—Lorene, bad news. Dad didn’t make it.

“Oh my God. What—”

“Can you get here? Can you call Bev? I’ll call Sophie.”

Fuck she’d give up precious time calling Beverly.

Soon after that terrible hour. After the cremation, and the gathering at the house where to her chagrin Lorene had had too much to drink (which wasn’t like her—everyone agreed).

She’d returned to work very soon. But the black rush in her lungs had poisoned her. Lungs, cavity surrounding her heart.

So it had begun in late October possibly. Without her quite realizing. At work, at the computer, alone, in her office at the rear of the school or in her home-office where she had an identical computer. Her fingers seeking out a single, singular hair to tug, just to ease the tension but then, when that wasn’t quite enough, hairs.

The advantage of the single hair is that there is a tiny pop! when the hair-root is yanked from the scalp. Maybe you can’t hear it but you can feel it.

The advantage of several hairs is not just the grip is easier but the frisson of pain is more profound.

Lorene? Just come. I’m hanging up now.

She’d realized belatedly that she had truly believed that Whitey would recover. Somehow, she hadn’t taken the stroke, the neurological impairment, even the infection that seriously. Daddy was tough, resilient, stoic, never complained and never (so far as they knew) worried.

A surprise of the kind when you misstep on steps. Something very startling about it, a visceral disbelief.

She’d felt just slightly—only just slightly—a tinge of what you’d have to call annoyance. Vexation. As if the fact of the death hadn’t sunk in just yet but oh! what an inconvenient time the call from Thom came, a workday, meeting with faculty scheduled for that afternoon, stacks of paperwork on her desk, online registrations and forms to fill out, could not come at a worse time.

A call that changed all of their lives. You don’t know, reaching innocently for the phone.

So swiftly it had happened. Yet irrevocable.

The entry to a black hole? Is that what it is?

“DR. MCCLAREN? DID YOU—HURT YOURSELF?”

“Hurt myself? How?”

With a flutter of her fingers Iris made an awkward gesture toward her own hairline. Deeply embarrassed to be speaking in so intimate a way to Dr. McClaren who stared at her coldly for a moment without seeming to know what Iris meant then, turning away, saying in an undertone, “It’s nothing. Some sort of skin allergy. Take no notice, please.”

A penny-sized pale spot on her scalp, just above the right temple, oozing droplets of blood. Startling to see in the mirror, and to realize that she hadn’t been aware of it until now.

(Had others, like Iris, seen? What had they been thinking?)

How the brain corrects the eye. Seeing what the brain is prepared to see and not what the eye reports.

Except: she was not a weak person. She wasn’t going to succumb to a neurotic tic.

Yet: not long afterward while working at the computer she happened to notice on her desktop several short, stubby hairs oozing blood at the roots.

(But when had this happened? Had she done this?)

She’d been commending herself for having behaved so responsibly since Whitey’s death. Keeping in contact with her mother by calling nearly every day at a fixed time (easier that way: like most administrators Lorene lived by her schedule) and taking care not to become emotional in her mother’s presence (unlike her exhibitionist-sister Beverly who burst into tears at the slightest provocation, bawling and moaning like a sick cow).

Lorene wasn’t what you’d call an emotional person, frankly.

Not sure she’d cried when Whitey died. Couldn’t recall when she’d cried last, or why.

Anyway: “raw emotion” wasn’t for her. Only made things worse for poor Jessalyn as for anyone else who preferred to mourn with a modicum of dignity.

A strong will is a strong backbone. Not sure who’d said that, possibly General Patton. Possibly Whitey.

She did not indulge weakness in herself, any more than she did in others.

Hardest on herself, she liked to think.

No more pulling out hairs from her head!—“That will stop, immediately.”

Yet: shopping at the mall despite the risk of encountering North Hammond students (unavoidably, she needed a new cranberry-colored pants suit) she happened to see, in a three-way mirror in a clothing store, the (right) side of her head where there seemed to be a bald spot of the size of a nickel… “Oh. My God. What is that.”

The saleswoman pretended not to notice but Lorene was so demoralized she left the store without making a purchase.

“My enemies are winning. Thank God they don’t know.”

Difficult to stop pulling God-damned hairs out of her head since Lorene was (mostly) not conscious of pulling them out. How could you consciously stop doing something of which you were not conscious?

Worse, she was beginning to find clumps of hair in bed.

Wearing a cap indoors? Would that prevent hair-pulling?

Yet somehow, her restless fingers easily pushed beneath the cap, as soon as her mind was elsewhere.

Wearing gloves at the computer? Thick enough so that her straying fingers couldn’t get a grip on hairs?

To Lorene’s horror then, larger clumps of hairs began to appear on the desktop and in her bedsheets. Somehow she’d been able to get a grip on a strand of hair even wearing gloves.

Patchy bald spots of the size of quarters began to appear on her head.

The gloves were useless. But mittens—impossible, she could not type wearing God-damned mittens.

Reluctantly Lorene began to let her hair grow slightly longer. Now she would look more conventional—like an ordinary woman. But it was easier to hide the bald spots with longer hair which she could comb over, flatten.

Determined to overcome the habit. A very bad habit for one of her stature and sense of self-worth.

Indeed there was a name for it—trichotillomania. (Not to be confused with the yet more repulsive trichinosis.) Certain of the young, silly girl students at North Hammond pulled out their hair, or cut themselves with razors, or starved themselves until they resembled barely-living skeletons, or gorged themselves and vomited in the restrooms so frequently that some of the sinks were stopped up—(“At least,” Lorene fumed to her staff, “they could throw up in the toilets”).

“Lorene? What on earth?”—Beverly stared at the dwarf knitted hat Lorene had begun to wear in the presence of others, outdoors and in, that covered her entire head like a swimming cap.

Flushed with annoyance Lorene told her sister that she only had some sort of skin rash on her scalp, like eczema—“Nothing worth discussing.”

“Maybe a head scarf would be better,” Beverly said. “Something like a turban.”

“I am not going to wear a God-damned turban.”

“What about a baseball cap? A Hammond High cap scarlet-and-gold? The kids would love it.”

“I don’t care to pander to high school students, Beverly. Please can we change the subject?”

Beverly laughed. The She-Gestapo of Hammond High in one of those little, pathetic knitted caps worn by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

The sisters had met for a hurried lunch with the intention of discussing what to do about Jessalyn and “that terrible man, the Communist-Cuban”—since Jessalyn was continuing to see Hugo Martinez, and to be seen with him in public places, despite her adult children’s strongly reiterated disapproval.

“I said to Mom, ‘People are talking about you!’—‘People are saying “What would Whitey say!”’ and she was just—just so quiet. And I said, ‘Mom? Are you still there?’—(I’d thought she had hung up the phone)—and Mom said finally, in this small sad voice like someone trying not to cry, ‘How I live my life is my own business, Beverly. Goodbye.’”

Lorene shook her head. She’d had something of the same experience calling Jessalyn recently. So frustrating. And so unlike the mother they’d always known.

“What will be unbearable is if this awful person moves in. Into our house!”

“D’you think he stays there? Overnight?”

“I can’t think about it at all. Please.”

“You don’t think that—Mom loves him, do you?”

“Oh, you know how Mom is—she likes too many people, and they take advantage of her.”

The sisters were silent, considering. But the very possibility of their sixty-one-year-old mother—(or was Jessalyn now sixty-two?)—making love with any man was repellent, repugnant.

As adolescents they’d been deeply embarrassed to come upon Jessalyn and Whitey kissing, even holding hands. The notion of their parents making love/having sex had made them shudder.

“Really I think that Mom is—is not—you know—‘sexually inclined.’ Any longer.”

“Jesus, Beverly! I’ve asked you to please stop.”

“One thing they do is hiking. Can you imagine, our mother—hiking!”

“No, frankly. Are you serious?”

“In Pierpont Park, up on the cliff, they were seen. This older couple.”

“Dad would be so surprised! The only walking he did was on the golf course.”

“No. Daddy walked downtown. He liked to walk at lunchtime, he said. But alone. He’d never have wanted to hike.”

The sisters were silent, considering. The thinnest of cobwebs passed over their brains, and was gone.

“Thom hasn’t been any help so far,” Beverly said grimly, “—he hasn’t even gotten rid of that diseased tomcat.”

“That damned cat! That was the beginning, we can see now.”

“I’m thinking of asking Thom to do something drastic—meet with that man and offer him money to go away and leave our mother alone. What do you think?”

“Actually—Steve thought of that. I’m not sure if he was serious or joking but he knows how we are all feeling…”

Beverly’s voice trailed off. In fact her husband joked harshly about her preoccupation with her family which he believed to be both morbid and futile.

“We would need Thom to do it. Not us. This Rodriguez is a ‘Latino’—they are very macho, and don’t respect women.” Lorene had poked two fingers up inside the knitted cap at her temple and was absentmindedly tugging at hairs. “What do you think we should offer him? Five thousand dollars?”

“Five thousand? If he thinks that Mom has millions of dollars, five thousand isn’t much.”

“Ten thousand? Twenty?”

“He might just get insulted, and that will make things worse. If he tells Mom…”

“Thom will have a better idea how to go about it. He’s a canny businessman. He knows about deals.”

“Well. It could backfire. Paying off the man is a kind of blackmail and he might take the money but then demand more. Doesn’t blackmail always escalate?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! You are always so negative. Don’t you realize—we have to do something to save Mom.”

All this while Beverly had been gazing at Lorene with widened quizzical eyes in a way that made Lorene distinctly uncomfortable. At last Lorene asked irritably what was wrong and Beverly said, hesitantly, “Your eyes, Lorene. I mean—your eyelashes. You don’t seem to have any.”

Her fifth year as principal at North Hammond High. It would be her most triumphant, she vowed.

Major (public) goal: to raise the school’s ranking to twenty-fifth place in New York State (or better).

Major (private) goal: to receive the Distinguished Educator Award from the National Council of Public School Administrators, which had never been awarded to any public school administrator in Hammond and vicinity and for which (Lorene had reason to know) she’d been nominated the previous year.

The first academic year since Whitey’s death, however. And nearing the anniversary of that death soon.

Plucking out hairs from her (stinging, smarting) scalp. Plucking out eyelashes. Experiencing small flashes of emptiness, panic. Even bouts of nausea. Oh, what was happening to her!

No. You can do it, dear. Don’t give in like I did.

“DR. McCLAREN—”

“Please, Mark. ‘Lorene.’”

Utterly friendly she was being to him. Utterly warm, guileless. He would never believe the vicious things whispered of Dr. McClaren as a consequence. He would always defend her, staunchly.

It was Lorene’s strategy each fall to select younger teachers to favor among her faculty. Usually, though not always, these were young men in their twenties or early thirties whom she found particularly attractive, respectful and admiring of her.

Usually, though not always, they were unmarried. So far as Lorene could determine, unattached.

In all there were 109 classroom teachers at North Hammond, as well as a sizable staff, under the principal’s direction.

Of these, Lorene calculated that she needed at least ten individuals resolutely, unswervingly, fanatically (but not obviously) on her side.

Most of the (older) faculty she’d inherited, of course. Belonging to the teachers’ union they could not be “terminated”—not readily. On a master list Lorene marked (evident) supporters of her with flower-asterisks and (evident) detractors with tiny daggers. It did not escape her notice that individuals in one category (supporters) might shift to the other category (detractors) but it was rare indeed that the reverse was true.

Uncanny, too, how the protégés of one season lost ground, faltered and slipped and became the outcasts, if not the enemies, of another season. Like any skilled administrator Lorene played her underlings like cards, to trump one another. A mere, single vote against a policy Dr. McClaren was pushing might be enough to result in a teacher being tossed into the discard pile; many more votes in support of Dr. McClaren would be required to get out of the discard pile. “If you are dissatisfied here, I will be happy to write you a strong recommendation to transfer elsewhere”—with seeming sincerity Dr. McClaren uttered these words to individuals perceived as disgruntled, never failing to produce a chilling effect.

But the younger instructors, all of them Lorene’s personal hires, began their careers at North Hammond High grateful to her, and eager to please her; especially since they were in competition with one another, and dependent upon the principal’s evaluations. Their loyalty was fiercely vertical, to Lorene; they could not afford to be generous with rival colleagues.

She was coming to feel like a captain at the prow of a ship, braving winds and high seas. A pitching deck, and all hands on board to do her bidding—if she never let them out of her sight.

“So, Mark—I’m hoping that you will say yes.”

“I—I would be very honored, Dr. McClar—I mean, ‘Lorene…’”

“Good. I will send the program chairman your name. I think it will be very exciting for you—and a great challenge—to represent all of the English teachers at North Hammond in just your second year with us.”

The young man was looking somewhat stunned. Smiling, but dazedly, as if Lorene had invited him into the inner sanctum of the principal’s office with its (usually) part-closed blinds overlooking the parking lot, to inform him that his contract would not be renewed for the next year.

Instead, she’d asked him to participate in a panel at the New York State Conference of Teachers of High School English, to meet in Albany in November, titled “The Future of the Printed Word in Our Public Schools: Does It Have One?”

Lorene would attend the conference also. Possibly, she could ride with Mark Svenson who would drive to Albany.

Mark was in his late twenties and North Hammond wasn’t his first teaching position. He had a B.A. degree from SUNY Buffalo and a master’s degree in English education from SUNY Binghamton. A pert, upright, sharp-eyed but deferential wirehaired terrier with an affable face, good manners. A tail of thumping enthusiasm. Not a particularly handsome young man but Lorene hadn’t much interest in “good looks”—she’d learned from experience that the more attractive a man, the less you could trust him. Also, she disliked men who were ironic, acerbic, over-informed and verbose, know-it-alls, like herself. She didn’t like short men both on principle, because they were short, and because they were likely to gravitate toward her simply because she was short. She’d always stiff-armed these guys, cutting them off at mixers, cocktail parties, life. She admired tall men, and she admired (some) tall women, except she was likely to be jealous of tall women if they were attractive, and contemptuous of them if they were not.

Her own height was five feet three. Taller than Lorene was too tall. Shorter than Lorene was too short. Unofficially, with not a soul taking notice, or so Lorene believed, she’d ceased hiring attractive women altogether. Especially not Hispanic women: they tended to be too good-looking, glamorously well-groomed, nails always polished and hair always “dramatic”—Carmen can’t be serious. And they wear high heels. Can’t help it, they make (most) other women look unattractive.

For any job opening, of course Lorene favored men (white-skinned, dark-skinned—no matter); but she was restrained from always, and obviously, favoring men, for there were guidelines in her profession which she could not violate. Publicly, Lorene McClaren espoused “political correctness”—“diversity in all its forms.” But it wasn’t difficult to reject better-looking women judging by just their application photos and, in some quarters, might’ve been lauded as a kind of affirmative action hiring, plain-faced women, overweight women, blemished-complexion women, to Dr. McClaren’s credit. As long as they were good teachers and there was a plentiful supply of “good teachers” seeking jobs.

It might have been, a good part of Lorene’s motive in favoring Mark Svenson was to dis-favor another, more senior English teacher with whom Lorene had had an (unspoken, elliptical) alliance for several years, until recently. Though married, R.W. (as she thought of him now: she did not like to acknowledge his full name) had been a protégé and a strong supporter of Principal McClaren until things had gone wrong between them, irremediably, like a shifting in tectonic plates in the earth. R.W. had often accompanied Lorene to professional conferences including, the previous fall, a conference of English and drama teachers in Washington, D.C.; yet, inexplicably, R.W. betrayed Lorene soon afterward by voting against a crucial proposal of hers at a faculty meeting, and siding with one of Lorene’s longtime adversaries on a trivial but life-shattering curriculum matter. And later by the purest chance Lorene had seen R.W. with colleagues in an Italian restaurant near the school, persons who were decidedly not pro-McClaren, all of them celebrating what looked like someone’s birthday. Unforgivable!

Of course, R.W. had tenure at North Hammond. R.W. was a popular English teacher who also advised the Drama Club, and directed plays—the most Herculean of efforts in the profession, along with coaching losing sports teams. Even if Lorene had been able to terminate his contract she wouldn’t have wanted to lose R.W., for a teacher of such quality could not easily be replaced. Still, she disliked him, and conspired to get revenge against him: one of the suspected trolls whose transcript she’d sabotaged the previous spring had been a star student of R.W.

There’d been rumors of a gala birthday party for one of the math teachers to which Dr. McClaren hadn’t been invited. Rumors of other parties, celebrations, from which she’d been excluded though R.W. had been involved… It was too complicated, too demeaning and degrading, no wonder she felt a compulsion to pluck at her hair, her eyelashes, to tug at the soft crepey skin beneath her eyes…

Suddenly she was feeling tired. It had been a singularly long and hazardous day and she had more work to do in her office, at her computer.

Mark Svenson was on his feet preparing to leave the office. His dazzling good luck had produced a glow in his face. There was indeed something reassuringly terrier-like about the young man’s affable manner; almost, Lorene would have liked to stroke his wavy, sandy-colored hair and see if he would lick her hand.

Not a tall man, no more than five feet eight. R.W. was taller, at least six feet. Arrogant, vain. But why think of him.

“I was thinking of an early dinner, at the Italian restaurant”—Lorene heard herself say impulsively—“if you happened to be free…”

Taken by surprise Mark Svenson stammered that no, he wasn’t, not that night. In his face a look not just of surprise but of regret, Lorene saw.

It had been the most casual of invitations. Hardly an invitation, just a remark. Readily forgotten.

“Well. Thank you, Dr. McClaren—I mean, ‘Lorene.’ I hope I won’t disappoint you on the panel.”

“Yes. I hope you won’t disappoint me, either.”

Heartily Lorene laughed, to indicate that this was a joke.

The departing Mark Svenson laughed also, not so heartily.

NOT LONG AFTERWARD, the first of the “incidents.”

Returning at dusk from a meeting in downtown Hammond in the steel-colored Saab she’d purchased with a portion of the money Whitey had left for her. A fine mist had spread over the flotilla of headlights with an enthralling beauty Lorene had never seen before and at the entrance to the Hennicott Expressway she heard a soft voice close beside her—Close your eyes, Lorene-y. You’ve earned a rest.

Next thing she knew her car was drifting onto the shoulder of the highway, that was littered with broken glass and debris. Her numbed foot groping for the correct pedal, not that one, not this, no it was the other, it was the brake she sought in desperation to save herself.

Jolting, thumping. Pulling up just inches short of a retaining wall.

Something struck her wetly between the eyes on that broad flat bone between the eyes that would swell and bruise to a lurid purple like a third, abscessed eye.

Could have wept with gratitude, the mercy shown Lorene McClaren she’d so rarely shown anyone in her life. Mist obscuring graffiti on the wall and making of oncoming headlights mild ghostly eyes lacking sight.

She was alive, she hadn’t been seriously injured. Just the blow between the eyes. Just the constriction in the lungs. Just the lightning-flash of pain in the spine. Just the dryness of the throat, like the fine-granulated dirt of the grave.

Oh Daddy. Why did you call to me and then leave me!

WHAT GAVE HER PLEASURE, no one could guess.

Not of the body. For Lorene, there was no pleasure of the body for all sensation of the body was demeaning, and shameful, and finite.

Revenge is a dish best served with no witnesses.

Lying awake thinking with great pleasure of the student-trolls’ transcripts she’d “hacked”—graduates of North Hammond who’d come to believe themselves entitled and privileged and marked for success but abruptly dog-eared, marked for second- or third-rate lives.

No one could have guessed the link between the half-dozen student-trolls for it existed in a pure realm of untraceable non-being: Lorene McClaren’s mind.

Recalling how R.W. had come to speak with her troubled and mystified that one of his very best students had been rejected by most of the colleges to which he’d applied. Lorene had been surprised—why on earth would R.W., or any teacher, care?

Not that R.W. had the slightest suspicion that the principal of North Hammond High was to blame for who in his right mind could imagine that a high school principal would sabotage students at her own school?—no one.

Naive, trusting, a large shaggy sheepdog with shortsighted eyes, R.W. hadn’t seemed to have grasped that Dr. McClaren no longer favored him. One of those dogs you’d have to kick more than once, to make them realize they are not liked. That something had gone irrevocably wrong, some small trigger had been pulled in Lorene’s (inscrutable) brain. It was over between them, that had never been named or acknowledged.

You had your chance, my friend. You blew it.

The best sex, Lorene had come to think, was balked sex.

A woman stirred in a man—(not any man: the man did have to be someone special)—a sensation of sexual interest, even excitement; but the woman did not satisfy this sensation, only just kept it dimly aflame, over as long a period of time as she could manage. Eventually, the flame died out. Or, the woman lost interest in the project. But whose fault was that?

At the midpoint of her thirties Lorene appeared to be of no discernible age. She might have been thirty, she might have been fifty. You could not easily imagine her as a girl. You could not easily imagine her as female. Her uniform-like pants suits obscured her figure which was flat, hipless, sinewy-tough. Her legs were short, and tight with muscle. Her eyes were sly, silvery and quick-darting as piranha. Her mouth was a slash in her lower face which she’d smeared with her characteristic red lipstick, that glared out of her pale face. At the time of her confrontation with R.W., before Whitey, before the trichotillomania, her dark hair had been ultra-short, razor-cut, with no patchy spots to betray weakness. R.W. had gazed at her—(so Lorene would recall)—with something like puzzled wistfulness, as a man might gaze at something he has already lost.

Of course, between R.W. and Lorene there’d been (in the strictest, most clinical sense) nothing. They had not even touched except for brisk handshakes that left each grinning and breathless.

It was bewildering to him, R.W. told Lorene, that his “most promising student in years” had been rejected by the colleges he’d most wanted to attend, which were the very colleges R.W. had recommended for him, when his grades and SAT scores were higher than those of other students who’d been admitted to the colleges, and his letters of recommendation had to be stronger.

Lorene had been sympathetic at once. Yes, it was very sad. Very mysterious. No one could understand it.

She’d wondered also, she said. Though she knew little of cyberbullying, cybercrime (she said), she wondered if someone from North Hammond, a rival classmate of the boy’s, had sabotaged his records.

R.W. had not thought of this. “‘Hacked’—you mean? Someone might have ‘hacked’ into the school computer?”

“If that’s the expression—‘hacked.’ You know, I am practically computer illiterate myself so I don’t keep up with slang terms.”

For reasons of her own Lorene promulgated the fiction that she was an old-fashioned “hands-on” sort of administrator who knew little about the arcane use of computers. Her reputation was of one so diligent, so resistant of electronic gadgets, she took careful notes by hand at meetings.

Earnestly Lorene said: “We could hire a computer expert of some kind. We could supply the names of ‘suspicious parties’ for him to investigate. There were several in last year’s graduating class… If there was a cybercrime in our school, and your student was victimized, it should be detected.”

R.W. looked at her in alarm. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Lorene to respond in this way. “But—we wouldn’t want innocent persons to be targeted. ‘Naming names’ is always risky. In the age of the Internet a rumor can spread like wildfire.”

“Well. I suppose you are right. I don’t know much about the Internet either, I’m afraid.”

“The Internet can be hell for young people. Bad enough for adults but kids can be driven to suicide.”

Lorene shook her head mutely. Suicide! Terrible thing.

R.W. spoke sadly of his student “Reg Pryce” who’d been stricken with lymphoma in tenth grade but who was in remission now, who’d given so much of his time to the Drama Club…

Pryce was he saying, or—Price?

Guiltily Lorene couldn’t recall which had been the troll who’d tormented her—Pryce, Price. Possibly, she’d confused the two.

Well, too bad! There was little she could do about it now.

She told R.W. that he might ask the boy to meet with her. And his parents might accompany him. Possibly, if some actual injustice had been done, Lorene could make an appeal to the colleges… She spoke with a pretense of concern and naivete for (of course) no admissions office would pay the slightest attention to a high school principal trying to appeal a rejection of one of her students.

R.W. winced at the suggestion. Intervening in such a way might do more harm than good, he said, casting a shadow over future North Hammond applicants at the colleges. Also, if Reg hoped to transfer after his freshman year…

Lorene let R.W. talk. Utterly baffling to her that he should care so much about another man’s son. She didn’t care at all.

R.W. was a very good teacher, everyone said. The kids admired him, respected him. Almost, she felt sorry for him. That shaggy sheepdog look, mournful eyes. Good-hearted, foolish. Maybe she should erase the ill-feeling between them, and start anew.

But no. Too late.

Never forget, and never forgive.

When she looked up, R.W. was gone. Must’ve left her office quietly, and she hadn’t noticed.

EVE OF DADDY’S DEATH. Eve of that telephone call from Thom, and the black rush that seeped into her lungs like cancer.

“Dr. McClaren?—please forgive me—I was not eavesdropping outside your office, I swear!—but I have been hearing—you are f-feeling bad, I think?”—moon-faced faux-blond Iris spoke hesitantly, in a lowered voice, as Lorene glared at her secretarial assistant uncomprehending at first. (Had Lorene been crying? Audibly? In this quasi-public place, her office at North Hammond High?)

Her face flushed with dismay. Something like shame. Had anyone else overheard her? Had Iris, her secretarial assistant, talked of her to others? And what did they say about the stupid knitted cap Dr. McClaren felt obliged to wear ever more frequently, as her hair disappeared in quarter-sized patches?—(oh God: she hoped no one was speculating that she was losing her hair from chemotherapy).

But Lorene did not lash out at her assistant as she might’ve done ordinarily for she was feeling less sure of herself lately, more dependent upon her support staff at the school to facilitate her work and her well-being; it was kind of Iris to be concerned for her though just slightly presumptuous of a secretarial assistant to dare suggest to a high school principal a therapist with the improbable name Foote.

Politely, coolly Lorene thanked the silly woman for her solicitude. Saw no reason to explain that it was natural for a daughter to “feel sad” given the circumstances (father, death, anniversary) of the date and that no therapist was required, certainly not a therapist named Foote.

SOMETHING OF A JOKE, WAS IT? Seeing a therapist—Lorene McClaren of all people?

Only because her health insurance covered twelve sessions with an accredited therapist, as it covered twelve sessions of physical therapy at an accredited physical therapy clinic. That is the only reason I am seeing you, Doctor. I want to be honest.

Early Friday evening. The only time she could fit an hour into her weekday schedule. (Dr. Foote did not see patients on the weekend.)

And is it “Doctor”?—as in “medical doctor”? Or—“Doctor” as in Ph.D. in clinical therapy?

Eager that no one in the family should know. What shame!

Especially not Beverly who would gloat and especially not Jessalyn who would be stricken with worry. And not Thom who would think less of her, or prissy Sophia whose business it was not, or Virgil whose business it certainly was not.

At least, Whitey could not know.

NEXT SHE KNEW—the beautiful shining new car drifting.

Shoulder of highway littered with broken glass, debris.

Damned numbed foot groping for the petal, what the hell—petal—but she didn’t mean petal she meant—what?

Brake she meant. God-damned brake.

Jolted awake. Oh God!

Flung forward forty miles an hour. Head in the (stupid, shameful) knitted cap flung forward but stopped within inches of a concrete wall covered in filthy teenage graffiti.

Daddy, please no. I am so afraid.

AT FIRST, JUST CURIOUS. Just—well, wondering!

When Mark Svenson left the school building in the late afternoon, and with whom. Sometimes (it pleased her to see) the popular young wavy-sandy-haired English teacher walked briskly by himself in khaki jacket, neatly pressed chinos, running shoes to his car parked at the rear of the lot. Sometimes (pleasing her less) he walked with a student or two, chance encounters, as likely boys as girls, no (evident) design to it, their backs to Lorene peering through the slats of the venetian blind, faces unseen. But sometimes (pleasing Lorene not at all) he was seen with another young teacher named Audrey Rabineau, who taught ninth- and tenth-grade history, not walking but what you’d call strolling.

Buck-toothed Audrey, with dewy-doe eyes. Too tall for Mark, wasn’t she?—his height almost precisely.

When it began, must’ve been sometime in early October. Not the sort of thing Lorene McClaren would take note of.

Not spying on her damned faculty. What the hell did she care.

To her face they were friendly enough—of course! H’lo Dr. McClaren. G’night Dr. McClaren. See you tomorrow Dr. McClaren!

Well, some of them were sincere. Dr. McClaren’s hires. Like puppies eating from her hand at the interviews. They’d have groveled at her feet, tails thumping. Doggy eyes adoring, begging. Love me love me do not be cruel to me. I am so deserving.

Ironic, she’d taken a liking to Audrey Rabineau from the start. One of those homely-gawky-sweet girls, the more closely you looked, the more likable. Reminded Lorene of a more benign, less sharp-witted version of herself, with buck teeth and soft brown eyes. Nor did it hurt, Audrey Rabineau obviously admired her.

Of course, each new teacher hired at North Hammond High was as outstanding a candidate as the district could afford. Dr. McClaren’s personal criteria narrowed the ranks, which made selection easier.

But there remained the cadre of older teachers pickled in spite like actual pickles marinated in brine. Most of them resented Lorene just for existing. A few, she’d managed to win over with the equivalent of doggie treats but the rest had ceased trying to please her or even to pretend to her face that they did not fear and hate her.

Their faces when they saw her revealed all—We do not trust you, and we do not like you. But we must live with you. Have a good day!

But Mark Svenson!—she’d trusted him.

Peering through the venetian-blind slats as he and the young woman teacher walked—lingeringly—to their vehicles in the parking lot. Glimpsing in the faculty dining room the two together at a table talking, laughing. A tweezers clamped onto her heart.

But no. She’d hardly noticed. Pride was like chloroform sweetly inhaled.

OF COURSE SHE WAS all right.

Of course she’d had a good week.

Yes! She was feeling reasonably hopeful.

Already by the third session beginning to resent the therapist’s insipid questions.

Vowing this would be the last visit to Foote, even if she had eight more free sessions on her health insurance.

Yet: Wouldn’t she be losing money, if she quit prematurely?

Whitey would be surprised, if he’d known. His favorite daughter—his favorite child, the one most like himself—seeing a therapist.

Well, it wasn’t anything serious. Not like seeing a psychiatrist.

Absolutely forbidden in Foote’s office: touching her hair, her face, her eyelashes, her fingernails grown raw and reddened from “picking” without knowing what she was doing.

Absolutely forbidden: telling this nosy woman anything too private, that might be used against her: falling asleep at the wheel of her car, spying on the young English teacher, brooding over R.W. and her many enemies among the faculty, sleepless nights, obsessive thoughts.

Gently Foote said: “Would you like to remove your cap, Lorene? Just while you’re here in my office.”

Unambiguously Lorene said: “No.”

The horse-faced female! Lorene pitied her.

“You might feel more comfortable, Lorene. We should discuss the trichotillomania more openly and what we might try to help you overcome it.”

“Well. It isn’t so repulsive as trichinosis, at least”—Lorene laughed harshly.

Foote smiled, just barely. “Yes. You’ve made that joke twice now, Lorene.”

“And you’ve called me ‘Lorene’ thrice now, Dr. Foote.”

Infuriating to Lorene, that this horse-faced female dared to call her by her first name, as if they were friends or peers.

“I’m sorry. You would like to be called—‘Dr. McClaren’?”

“Since I respect you by calling you ‘Dr. Foote,’ and not by your first name, I think that you should respect me by calling me ‘Dr. McClaren’ and not ‘Lorene.’”

Foote mumbled an apology that sounded, to Lorene’s suspicious ear, more bemused than sincere.

“After all, I am not a child, or a servant, or a relative of yours.”

Behind her desk, zombie-Foote did not dispute this.

“I am not a friend of yours. At least not yet.”

That put the shoe on Foote, Lorene thought with a small thrill of satisfaction.

Almost, she might enjoy this bullshit.

NOW SHE WAS SEEING Audrey Rabineau too often.

By too often meant a few times a week, usually by chance.

Rabineau laughed too loudly, exposed her gums. She’d had her lank limp mud-brown hair cut and styled in an effort to look “glamorous”—a failure. She wore clunky jewelry. Since she was tall, she wore flat-heeled shoes. Her manner was overly sweet, insipid. Her hips were wider than her torso. At faculty meetings she laughed at stupid jokes to ingratiate herself with her elders. Worse, she made a show of seeming interested—a transparent ruse.

Wearing lipstick! Well, that was a failure too, like makeup on a horse.

Seeing Rabineau walking in the hall with several (girl) students, deep in conversation, aroused the principal’s suspicion: What are they talking about?

But far worse, seeing Mark Svenson walking with Rabineau in the late afternoon, out to the parking lot. Seeing how they stood together, near Rabineau’s car, talking earnestly. What plans are they making?

Should acquire a pair of binoculars, Lorene thought miserably. Some sort of “bug” to pick up voices at a distance.

Not that she gave a damn. Not her.

CALL CAME, BEVERLY.

One of Beverly’s quiet-hysterical messages which Lorene has no intention of answering.

Lorene! Yesterday they went out in Dad’s canoe.

Our canoe!

Out on the lake, in our canoe.

Just the two of them together.

Imagine—Mom in that canoe!

(Pause. Beverly’s breathing, amplified.)

Neighbors saw them on the lake. I am so embarrassed!

Minnie Haldron called—“Beverly, it looks like your mother is out on the lake in a canoe with one of the lawn service men and we thought you would want to know. And she is wearing her hair in a new way—like an Indian squaw, braided down her back.”

HERE WAS A SURPRISE: Mark Svenson was indeed driving to the teachers’ conference in Albany, in November, to participate in a panel titled “The Future of the Printed Word in Our Public Schools: Does It Have One?” but when Lorene casually brought up the subject of the conference, hinting that she hadn’t yet decided what her transportation would be, Mark said (disingenuously?) that several colleagues were coming with him, he hoped his car could hold them all.

Lorene heard her voice sounding startled, disappointed—“Oh. Who?”

(Why did she ask? Why would Lorene McClaren care?)

Just colleagues, fellow English teachers. Lorene knew them all of course and had no comment to make other than a vague murmur of enthusiasm—Very good, professional conferences are important for your career.

She went away, smiling. Really, it was a relief—what would she have found to talk about with a junior faculty member, alone in his car for several hours on the New York Thruway?

I THINK THAT I AM JUST—bored. No one to love who is worth loving who would love me in return.

ITCHY SCALP. ITCHY EYELIDS. Itchy cuticles.

Late-night. Brain hyperactive.

Resolutely not-thinking about Mark Svenson.

Not-thinking about Rabineau. (Who, if she was Mark’s lover, would probably attend the conference in Albany, to sit in the audience at his panel to gaze at him with admiring eyes; meaning, Rabineau would be riding in Mark’s car with him, squeezed in with the others. But Lorene cannot ask, it is all so petty.)

Decided to skip the conference, herself. Not crucial for a principal to attend. One of the lesser conferences, in fact.

Not-thinking about having a drink. Of the elder McClaren sisters she is the one who does not drink.

HI, THOM?—I haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s the lawsuit going? Or maybe—I shouldn’t ask. (Pause) And what about meeting with what’s-his-name—Ramirez? Did you ever set that up? Trying to talk to him, making a deal with him to stay away from our pathetic mother? (Pause) I guess not. Since you’ve never mentioned it. (Pause) Since you’ve never mentioned it, I guess not. (Pause) Bev called the other day, says Mom and Ramirez have been sighted by neighbors out on the lake in our canoe… At least I assume it was the Communist Cuban, the neighbor thought he was one of the lawn service workers. (Pause) And she is wearing her hair like an Indian squaw, braided down her back. (Pause)

Oh God, Thom. What would Daddy think!

TERRIBLE NEWS! Buckshot to the heart.

The New York State Department of Education released its new rankings based on 2010–2011 evaluations: North Hammond High School was now ranked thirty-third in the state, where previously it had been twenty-eight.

How was it possible?—thirty-third. North Hammond had not risen despite Lorene’s heroic efforts but dropped.

Lorene was stunned. Hid in her office and shut down her computer with a directive to her assistant that she did not want to be disturbed until further notice.

Thinking—Could it be, the trolls didn’t get into good schools? Bringing our reputation down?

No. Of course not. That was minor. Minuscule. Could not possibly be the reason.

But if so, Lorene’s own fault.

You have sabotaged your own school. Your own reputation.

At least no one could know. No one could guess. It would not happen again. She’d ceased typing Principal Lorene McClaren, North Hammond High on her computer, ceased being appalled and sickened by what she saw there, like overturning a rock and seeing, among the scuttling beetles and worms, a tiny hairless creature bearing your own face in miniature.

SHE’D BEEN PREPARED TO SNEER but once inside the Chautauqua Guerrilla Arts Gallery had to admit she was impressed by the photographs by “Hugo Martinez” displayed on the not-very-clean white walls.

She’d researched Martinez online. Her mother’s Hispanic lover.

(Except: Were the two actually, literally lovers? Or just romantic friends? The distinction was urgent, crucial in Lorene’s mind.)

She’d been surprised to discover that Martinez seemed to be something of an accomplished person, poet, photographer, teacher, “social activist” (whatever that meant) born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1952, consequently a U.S. citizen.

Not Cuban! Lorene was feeling cheated, somehow.

Hugo Martinez’s father had emigrated to the United States from San Juan, Puerto Rico. His mother had been a U.S. citizen. They had lived variously in New York City and in New Jersey and were now both deceased. Lorene was surprised to discover how normal—how civilized—Hugo Martinez’s background was though the man had a considerable list of titles to his credit: poems, magazine publications, books. He’d had a number of photography exhibits through the state. He’d been Poet Laureate of Western New York State, 1998–1999. He’d had teaching positions including a residency at Cornell. Awards, grants. Co-founder of the Chautauqua Guerrilla Arts Gallery (ridiculous name—“Guerrilla”!) and of something called Liberation Ministries.

Most of the photographs were street portraits in black and white, taken in foreign cities. There were too many close-ups of soulful faces, unique and individual faces, complex signifiers of clothing, background architecture—Lorene had not time to absorb so much. In her edgy state she moved swiftly through the exhibit in the windowless space of the gallery. It was her primary resolve not to sneakily push fingers beneath her knitted cap and seek hair to tug and this resolve was distracting. She saw that the photographs were priced at three hundred dollars each which seemed to her insultingly high. Rehearsing words she would utter scornfully to Beverly, Thom: He thinks pretty well of himself, this Martinez. Overpriced! At the end she studied a photograph of Martinez who did not look at all like the person she’d expected. (Vaguely she’d supposed he would resemble Whitey’s long-time lawn service man Marco, not Hispanic but Italian, whose surname escaped her.)

This Martinez had intense very dark eyes, warm coffee-colored skin, a strong-boned Indian face with a long aquiline nose, lined cheeks and creases bracketing his eyes. His hair, thick at the time of the photograph, had been brushed back from his forehead like a rooster’s comb. He wore what appeared to be a peasant’s shirt, white, of a thin fabric like muslin, opened to mid-chest. Around his neck, a gold chain. His eyes were swimmingly dark. Again Lorene wanted to sneer but could not, quite.

There was a sexual presence here, an unrepentant display of maleness.

Was this man her mother’s lover? Astonishing to think so.

Oh, what would Whitey think! His soul would be stunned, obliterated by the fact of Hugo Martinez.

If Jessalyn and Martinez were married, Lorene thought, with a sensation of something like dread, Hugo Martinez would be her stepfather.

The Chautauqua Guerrilla Arts Gallery occupied a former convenience store in a no-man’s-land on Hammond’s East Side. The area was neither urban nor suburban but derelict, quasi-abandoned, near a boarded-up train depot. Thistles grew through cracks in the sidewalk. Yet there were children playing noisily nearby—the rear of a daycare center. Hugo Martinez had co-founded this? Not quite the stature of McClaren Printing, Inc. The gallery owner was a woman of about Lorene’s age with long, streaked-purple hair to her hips, in an Indian-looking shift to her ankles. There were small silver rings in her nose, left eyebrow. Her scrawny arms clattered with jewelry. She seemed grateful for Lorene’s presence in the otherwise deserted place and for Lorene’s offhanded remark that the exhibit was “very interesting.”

“Oh yes. Hugo Martinez is very ‘interesting.’ And much more.”

“D’you know the photographer? Personally?”

The woman laughed. Lorene could have sworn, a faint blush rose in her weathered face.

“Oh, everyone knows Hugo.”

“And what do they know about him?”

“That he is—he is—Hugo.”

“He is respected? Well-liked?”

“Oh yes, of course. Hugo is one of our most successful photographers in Hammond. He has an international reputation—almost…”

Lorene would certainly quote this: He has an international reputation—almost…

“But I see that not much in this exhibit has been sold. Those little red dots…” (Indeed, only six photographs out of approximately thirty had been sold.)

“Well! Hugo has sold prints of these same photos elsewhere, I’m sure. This isn’t absolutely new work. We’re just a small local co-op… we don’t get many customers.”

The streaked-purple woman was beginning to look at Lorene with something less than pleasure though, Lorene was sure, she had not betrayed the slightest edge of hostility or mockery in her demeanor.

“Are you from around here, ma’am? I’d have thought you might have heard of Hugo Martinez, if you are.”

“Around here? No. I am not.”

“Are you a reporter, ma’am? Some sort of critic?”

“No. Just a curious observer.”

“Curious about photography?”

Lorene considered. To say yes was to risk having to purchase something here; to say no would terminate the conversation.

“I am curious about art, generally.” Lorene paused, feeling a surge of something like defiance, hope. “I am curious about life.”

In the gallery lingering as if she were trying to decide which of several photographs by Hugo Martinez to buy. Asking the purple-streaked woman if she would take a credit card?—and the woman said yes, certainly. But then, Lorene discovered that she didn’t have a credit card in her wallet; and she didn’t have three hundred dollars in cash—at least, not to spend in such a way.

“Sorry! Another time, perhaps.”

Leaving the gallery, smiling. Feeling uplifted for the remainder of the day.

HE REMINDS ME OF CHE GUEVARA. This Martinez person Mom is seeing.

“Chay”—who?

Che Guevara. The man our mother is seeing.

The Cuban?

Actually, no. Puerto Rican.

Is there much difference? Aren’t they all—Caribbean?

He looks like Guevara, the Communist revolutionary—is what I am saying.

Who looks like—who?

Beverly, for Christ’s sake! Have you never heard of Che Guevara, the famous Argentine Marxist revolutionary hero?

Argentine? Like, from Argentina? Is he from there, too?

I told you—Puerto Rico. It’s an American territory, actually.

What’s this got to do with—whoever you were talking about…

I was trying to tell you Mom’s friend Martinez looks like Che Guevara except his mustache is bigger, and he’s older—I mean, older than pictures you see of Che Guevara.

Lorene? You met him—?

No! Jesus. I did not say that. Are you sober, Bev?

Are you sober? Why’d you call me at this time of night, to start a God-damn fight?

I’m returning your call, in fact. There’re half a dozen messages from you, I’m trying to be polite.

Fuck you polite.

Bev, please. I’m trying to talk to you…

Like poison ivy, talking to you. I come away and afterward there’s these rashes.

Well. Martinez isn’t what we expected. He might be after Mom’s money—or her social position—but he actually has a career of his own. A reputation.

You met him?

No! I just told you.

You saw him? In person?

I went to a photography exhibit of his on the East Side. I saw some photographs of his in this run-down old gallery—“Guerrilla Arts.”

What were you doing there?

I told you—I went to see Martinez’s exhibit. Can you turn down that damned TV?

Lorene, did you ever find out—are they lovers? Literally?

I’ve asked Virgil. He’s the only one who might know and God damn him, he refuses to discuss Mom at all.

He’s a friend of Monterez…

Martinez. They aren’t actually “friends.” We could just go over there and ask her point-blank what the hell is going on…

But—what if he’s there?

Well—that would be good. We need to meet him…

No. I’m not ready for that. Not just yet.

Don’t be ridiculous. We should talk to Mom. I mean—really talk.

Wasn’t Thom going to talk to Monterez? Offer him money to go away?

Oh, the hell with Thom. He promised he would look into it—you know Thom: “I’ll look into it”—but never got back to me.

But—oh God, Lorene. I can’t bring myself to ask Mom such a question.

You could more easily than I could, you’re married…

What the hell’s that got to do with it?

I don’t know—you both had babies…

Jesus! That makes no sense at all.

Look, I could never just ask Mom—anything, really. That would upset her.

Well, me either.

She needs to know—we just want her to be happy…

Do we? Is that it?

Isn’t it?

NEXT THING SHE KNOWS the shining steel-colored Saab is skidding across three lanes of the Hennicott Expressway amid a cacophony of horns like Götterdämmerung…

NO! NOT YET.

First was Bali. New Zealand. Pacific Cruiseways.

Had to get away. Desperate.

Overwork. Stress. Unrelieved pressure.

Even Foote agreed, Lorene deserved a vacation from North Hammond High. (Part of the relief of a trip would be getting away from her.)

What happened in Lorene’s office had not been planned. By chance she’d summoned the sandy-wavy-haired young English teacher to see her, to congratulate him on the panel: “Mark! My sources have told me very good things about you in Albany. ‘Bright, articulate, persuasive’—‘the audience loved him.’”

Flushing with boyish pleasure Mark Svenson thanked Lorene. Saying again how honored he’d been that she had selected him for this—honor.

For a few minutes they talked together, companionably. Lorene was skilled at exuding an air, to favored persons, that they were equals of hers, or nearly; her manner was forthright and friendly, no one would ever have thought But the woman is deceiving you! It is all a ruse.

Like all administrators Lorene understood that it was good to congratulate a subordinate if circumstances warranted it, no matter how insignificant the accomplishment was, and how foolishly vain the recipient of such banal praise might be, like this young man who wished to believe that his participation in a panel at a gathering of high school English teachers was an accomplishment of some order of magnitude.

Gratitude in the damp doggy eyes spilled over like sunshine, or gold coins. Speaking so generously to Mark Svenson, Lorene felt herself a generous and good-hearted person, not mean-spirited, anxious, and miserable. (Resolved: to keep her restless fingers out of her hair. No digging at cuticles with her short-trimmed nails. No surreptitious scratching at rashes in the tender inside of her elbow.)

Hears herself speaking as if impulsively.

“Mark! The strangest thing—coincidence—an old friend of mine and I have been planning a trip to Bali and New Zealand—at Christmas break—and my friend has had to cancel. She can’t get a refund for her plane ticket and the cruise but—if someone else were interested—at a discount… Do you know of anyone?”

Waiting. Warm shining terrier eyes lifted to her face. Oh, Lorene’s heart is pounding absurdly!

“I—I don’t know, Dr. McClaren. I mean, I would have to…”

Evasive. Embarrassed. Eyes shifting.

What am I doing. Oh Daddy, dear God help me.

“…would have to ask. I could do that…”

“Well.” A pause. And then, “I don’t suppose you might be—interested in the cruise yourself? I think you could get a reduced rate—a discount—Bali is astonishingly beautiful, and New Zealand… at that time of year, when it’s so cold here. In fact, summer there. I have Cruiseways website on my computer, if you’d like to look.”

Mark Svenson is sitting very still and is very quiet. Lorene can see him breathing—his nostrils widening, contracting, widening. She can sense his mounting discomfort. An awkward smile, not boyish so much as childlike. He’d dropped by Lorene’s office as she had requested at the end of the teaching day; he has a brief break before he meets with the yearbook staff, for which he is a faculty advisor.

It is clear, Mark Svenson is not exactly elated at the prospect of the trip to Bali, as Lorene had supposed he might be.

He doesn’t want to travel with you. Why would he want to travel with you!

What are you thinking? He is twenty-seven. You are thirty-six. You are not even a woman to him—you are Dr. McClaren, his supervisor. How can you abase yourself like this?

Mark repeats, he will have to think about it. He will see if he can come up with someone…

Speaking so vacantly, it’s clear that he has been shocked, disoriented by Lorene’s proposition.

Has he misinterpreted it as a sexual proposition? Lorene is appalled, outraged to think so.

Abruptly she tells him good night. Bares her teeth at him in a dismissive smile. As he flees the office she calls after him, like a fly fisherman casting a line, unerringly: “And again, Mark—congratulations!”

After he has gone she makes a horrific discovery: somehow there is a short strand of hair wound about two of her fingers, oozing blood at the roots. A new spot on her scalp tingles, throbs.

WANTING TO PROTEST: every fact of grief she’d encountered inside or outside her own rattling head was a cliché. Her own death someday, no doubt she’d be bored by its perimeters. Limited primer vocabulary.

“I can’t love anyone. I’m so bored.”

OF COURSE SHE WAS ALL RIGHT.

Of course she’d had a good week.

Nothing to report. Nooo.

Well—her news was, she’d decided to book a cruise for Bali, New Zealand over winter break.

Yes she was going alone.

No she had not asked anyone to accompany her.

Except her mother who’d been behaving strangely since her father’s death…

Yes Lorene and her mother were “very close”—though not “over-close.”

Yes Lorene had a “very good” relationship with her mother.

Yes Lorene had had a “very good” relationship with her father.

No she was not crying.

Surreptitiously digging at a thumbnail. Hands in her lap so that Foote could not observe.

“My sister and my brother and I are worried about our mother. We are worried that, out of loneliness, she might do something rash to hurt herself and—others.”

“Such as?”

“Well—she is ‘seeing’ a man no one knows, a man no one has met, not in her and Daddy’s circle. Naturally, we’re concerned about that.”

“Does your mother know how you feel?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure that she does. But she doesn’t care.”

“What is your principal objection to this man?”

“He—he’s—not her type, as I just said. He’s of another ethnicity—Hispanic.”

“Hispanic!” (Was Foote laughing at her? It was all Lorene could do to keep from glaring at the therapist.)

“His background is somewhat lower class. Working class. We’re concerned that he is after our mother’s money.”

“Does he know of your feelings? Have you spoken with him?”

“Of course not! We haven’t wanted to acknowledge him, I think. We’ve been hoping he will just go away.”

“And your mother knows how you feel?”

“Well, I can’t be sure. Our mother is not a realistic person, I think.”

“How do you mean?”

“Mom seems to see only the best in people. Or, she refuses to see anything else. She’s very kind. It has been exasperating to us, over the years, to see how people take advantage of her kindness.”

“Such as?”

Lorene bit her lower lip. Beverly was always accusing Lorene of taking advantage of their mother’s kindness. But Beverly was a worse offender, and Virgil was the worst of all.

“I’d rather not discuss my mother right now, Dr. Foote. It’s a painful subject.”

“I can see that it’s painful. You are looking—pained…”

“Well, we are concerned that Mom might be having a nervous breakdown. There’s a matter of her mental competence, her ‘power of attorney’…”

“That would be a painful issue, indeed. How old is your mother?”

“Maybe—sixty-five.”

“Sixty-five? But sixty-five is hardly old.”

“But she’s very frail emotionally. And physically. My brother is particularly concerned—if this man-friend of our mother’s manages to inveigle himself into her life…”

“You are concerned about your mother’s ‘power of attorney’…”

“Excuse me, I’ve said that I don’t want to discuss my mother right now. She was raised to be—well, gracious. Intensely feminine. A woman to be married—loved. Our personalities are antithetical. She is all-forgiving, and I—I am not. I am trying to uphold standards.” Lorene paused, breathing harshly. She’d managed to keep from digging at the raw thumbnail cuticle only just barely.

“These are—moral standards? Professional?”

“Last week you asked me to think about myself in terms of relationships with others, Dr. Foote. I did—I spent a good deal of time thinking—and I’ve come to the conclusion that my problem has been that I am a—perfectionist.”

There. She’d said it. At last.

But Foote being Foote, literal-minded like all horse-faced therapists, scarcely took time to absorb this before asking Lorene to please “amplify” the statement.

Amplify. Impossible! That would require an accounting of Lorene’s entire life.

Please try, Foote urged.

Lorene was drawing a blank. Lorene heard herself say, not very convincingly, “I am considerate of others even when they are not considerate of me. I’d always been the ‘responsible’ child in the family though I was not the oldest but the third-born. More was expected of me because I was the smartest, which my father eventually acknowledged. ‘I love your brothers and sisters, Lorene-y. But you are special in my heart, as I think you know.’”

Wiping tears from her eyes. Oh what was Foote staring at!

“And how do you perceive yourself as a ‘perfectionist’ with your faculty at North Hammond?”

“I—I—expect the very best from them, as I do from—myself…”

Her voice was faltering. Badly she wanted to run out of the room and never return.

“It’s just been like a curse. Never satisfied with what I’ve done because it—it is not—perfect.”

In a faux-kindly voice Foote said, “You have heard the adage, Lorene: ‘perfect is the enemy of good.’”

Perfect is the enemy of good. Lorene had never heard this so-called adage before in her life.

“Sounds like a fortune cookie.”

“Yes. There is that Zen-simplicity to it, that hides the deepest wisdom.”

“Except it also sounds like criticism. Of me.”

“Of you, Lorene? However could any criticism be of you?”

Foote was speaking from the heart, with utter sincerity, or with shocking irony. Lorene had no idea.

“Excuse me. I am ‘Dr. McClaren’ to you—I’ve explained. Not ‘Lorene.’ As I respect you by addressing you as ‘Dr. Foote,’ so I request that you respect me by calling me ‘Dr. McClaren.’”

“Of course. I am so sorry—‘Dr. McClaren.’”

(Was Foote stifling laughter? Lorene was sure she saw the woman’s shoulders shaking.)

“I—I think this will be my last session, Doctor.”

“Will it!”—Foote contrived to look surprised.

“Yes. I’ve been here eight times. I think that is more than enough.”

Foote did not (probably) pluck her eyelashes but the lashes were scanty, the gray-owl eyes naked and unsparing. “I am sorry to hear that, Lorene. I mean—Dr. McClaren. I think we’ve been making some definite progress.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“You don’t? Really? Isn’t the trichotillomania more under control? The ‘obsessive’ thoughts?”

“Who told you about ‘obsessive thoughts’? I don’t have ‘obsessive thoughts.’”

To this hotly articulated remark Foote had no ready reply. Lorene perceived that the therapist was at least more somber now, confronted with her client’s extreme dissatisfaction.

“I don’t agree that the trichotillomania is more under control. The impulse has shifted elsewhere, to other parts of my body.” Lorene paused, to let this accusation sink in. Then, “I never thought there was much wrong with me to begin with. I only came here because”—Lorene ransacked her brain to come up with the perfect riposte—“my health insurance covers twelve sessions of therapy.”

Though (surely) hurt Foote was smiling. A hurt-Foote smile. Lorene’s heart was beating hard, like a trapped frog. Almost, she would miss her weekly, Friday evening sessions with Foote, boring and fruitless as they were.

“My father, John Earle McClaren, was a very self-sufficient person. He would be shocked—mortified—to learn that his daughter, the one most like himself, was reduced to seeing a—a—”—Lorene searched for the proper word like one searching through a Dumpster, with a look both fastidious and repelled—“mental health clinician.”

“I see.”

“Daddy taught us to be independent. Daddy instilled in us qualities of resilience, stoicism. The very opposite of self-pity. And what is therapy but a kind of self-pity.”

“That is a way of seeing it, I suppose. Yes.”

It was a strategy of Foote’s, to seem to be considering more than one side of an issue, like a parody of a reasonable person.

“What is therapy but a kind of wallowing…”

“Perhaps you are correct, Dr. McClaren. ‘Wallowing’ is not for everyone.”

Lorene laughed. This was so transparent on Foote’s part!

Yet Foote had become, by default, a kind of friend. Not an intimate friend, rather more the concept of a friend, against whom one might lash out in hatred or despair.

Oh Daddy. Why’d you take everything with you.

Time to leave. Time to escape. Lorene snatched up her handbag, pivoted on her heel, considered saying Goodbye and good riddance! but instead heard the most astonishing words spilling from her mouth.

“What I think is—by dying the way he did, so suddenly, it’s like my father consented to die. As if he’d opened a door. And now, the door is still open. He’s waiting there to welcome any of us who steps through.”

…REAR OF THE SAAB FISHTAILED, fender crumpled against a concrete retaining wall, sudden jolt and her head felt as if it were being flung forward. An explosion (she’d thought was the windshield, in fact the air bag) amid a smell of hot singed air and acid. Oh oh oh!—she’d held herself very still wondering if all of her bones had been smashed. Wondering if she was alive. And why.

SENT HIM AN EMAIL. Just to be clear.

Thinking, this will be the end of it. No more!

EXCEPT: IN THE DAYS, WEEKS to follow she seemed to see, without wishing to see, everywhere she looked, or almost, Mark Svenson and the Rabineau woman.

Not just at school. Not just in the parking lot, or in the faculty dining room, or (most annoying!) whispering together in the aisle before Friday morning assembly, as their home room students trooped into the auditorium, but elsewhere, off-campus, at a café in North Hammond, at the North Gate Shopping Mall, or waiting in line together at the CineMax… Most of the time the couple, focused upon each other, had no idea that Lorene had sighted them; once, noticing her, at the mall, they’d both smiled and waved, which had seemed to Lorene an astonishing sort of effrontery—“Hiya, Dr. McClaren!” She was sure they’d laughed together, as soon as she passed by.

What did he see in her! Rabineau was tall, slump-shouldered, gawky and plain. Often she wore no lipstick, her bloodless mouth had the shape of a slug.

She will diminish you, Mark. I’m afraid that she has already.

What would students think! They would be shocked, demoralized.

Online, the trolls would be merciless. Their singular subject was sex, its deformities and absurdities. And in older persons like their teachers—obscene and unforgivable.

“Men are stupid. Men think with their genitals. Even the smart ones.” (Who had said this? Lorene wondered if, in a bleak unsparing mood, she had said it herself.)

And so, she could not resist. Summoned Mark Svenson to her office another time.

The young teacher was looking wary now, like a hunted creature. His formerly boyish smile seemed to have shrunken. With a small stab of satisfaction Lorene saw that his forehead was just slightly blemished and his khaki trousers were rumpled. Though rumors continued to come to the principal’s ears that “Mr. Svenson” was a very popular teacher and an enthusiastic advisor for the yearbook staff Lorene was beginning to have her doubts about her young colleague’s good judgment and that elusive element—“character.”

She’d given Mark Svenson a high evaluation the previous year. This year, she wasn’t so sure how she would assess him though she had no doubt how she would assess Rabineau. In fact, though it was months before an evaluation was due, Lorene had already drafted a brisk, pitiless paragraph on the insolent young history teacher.

Began by saying, in a solemn voice, not chiding, not censorious, but concerned as a friend might be concerned, that probably Mark knew why she’d asked him to come see her?—and when Mark shook his head, no he did not, Lorene said, “This is very awkward for me, Mark. Indeed, I am reluctant to bring up the subject. But I’m afraid that I’ve been hearing from a number of sources that you and a certain young woman history teacher have been seen together quite a bit in a way that has made some persons uncomfortable. They—colleagues of ours—have expressed the concern, which I am inclined to share, that students have noticed you and your woman-friend also, and have begun to ‘make comments’—I think you can guess the kind of comments we’ve discovered. Our students can be crude about sexual matters, and they can be very mean.” Lorene lowered her quavering voice in confidence.

Mark Svenson looked as if Lorene had leaned over her desk to slap him in the face. Almost, Lorene felt sorry for him.

“But—who is saying—what? About Audrey and me?”

“Evidently, quite a few people. Your colleagues, and your students.”

“I—I don’t know what to think. My God…”

“It isn’t good policy to be dating a coworker. It doesn’t look good. Of course people will talk about you. Make jokes.”

“Make jokes? Why? Audrey and I are…”

“As I said, it doesn’t look good when coworkers are dating. It’s really poor judgment on your part, and on hers. And frankly, Mark, some of our colleagues are saying that you are diminished by Audrey Rabineau—she doesn’t seem to be your ‘type.’”

“What? That’s outrageous!”

“Nonetheless, it is what people are saying. People whose opinions you respect, since they are your colleagues and have your best interests at heart.”

“Who would say that about Audrey? She’s a lovely person—everyone likes her. There can’t be anything wrong in being friends with her—going out with her—”

“Well. Are you having sex with her?”

Mark stared at Lorene, for a moment speechless.

“That is what everyone assumes, Mark. Especially, you know, adolescents.”

So taken by surprise, Mark could not think how to respond except to stammer that he thought he’d better leave now, the conversation was very upsetting to him…

Hotly Lorene said, “Yes! It is upsetting. I find it upsetting, too—which is why I have called you here.”

“A question like that—I think—I think it is not allowed, Dr. McClaren. It is my private life, you have no right to—”

“For your own good, Mark. I am bringing up this ugly situation for your own good, since you seem to be blinded by—some sort of sex-infatuation with that woman.”

“That’s ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with Audrey and me seeing each other in any way we choose…”

“Use your common sense, please. You are two years older than Rabineau. Your relationship might be considered coercive.”

“‘Coercive’—how? Audrey isn’t my student or a staff worker—she’s a full-time teacher, like me—there is no way that I could coerce her into anything. She is my dear friend.”

The piteous way in which the young man uttered my dear friend was particularly annoying to Lorene. Had he no pride?

“Mark, it is simply poor judgment, carrying on the way you two do, in public. Adolescents can’t be fooled, they see everything.”

“But—what is there to see? Audrey and I—”

“‘Audrey and I’—there you go. That’s the issue.”

“Dr. McClaren, I just don’t understand. I do see Audrey quite a bit but mostly away from school. We spend our evenings together, usually. I’m sure that no one is watching us…”

“Yes! You are a pair of exhibitionists, practically. Many people are watching you, and many people are not happy at what they see.”

“But—really? You are not serious, Dr. McClaren, are you?”

“Not serious? Try me.”

Lorene slammed her hand on her desk. In an instant she was furious with Mark Svenson, in his pretense of naivete.

Yet the young man persevered, flushed with indignation, saying that there were two pairs of married couples on the faculty, what about them? He and Audrey Rabineau were not married but—possibly—might soon become engaged.

Engaged. That was unacceptable. Rapidly Lorene’s brain worked: both their contracts would be terminated.

Or rather: she would suggest to Mark Svenson that, if he continued to see Rabineau, his contract would be terminated. Rabineau’s contract would be terminated in any case.

Pathetically, Mark was trying to defend himself by pointing out that there were two married couples on the North Hammond faculty. No one had seemed to object to them.

“Oh, no one cares in the slightest about them,” Lorene said irritably. “They’re middle-aged, older than the kids’ parents. As the kids would say—bor-ing. No one would have sex fantasies about them.”

“Look, I can’t be responsible for other people’s sex fantasies. That is ridiculous.”

“You make yourself ridiculous, Mark, with an unsuitable woman. In the hothouse atmosphere of a high school, you should certainly know better.”

Mark ran his hands over his hot face. Lorene could see that the agitated young man wanted to defend himself further, perhaps he wanted to utter something self-righteous and irrevocable to her, but was thinking better of it. Instead he conceded that he and Audrey could—maybe—try to avoid each other at school, if seeing them together really was upsetting people; but they were certainly not going to break up for such a ludicrous reason.

“You don’t really mean to suggest that you ‘love’ this person?—she is not of your stature, Mark. You should know.”

Almost, a neutral question put to the hot-flushed young teacher, as if Lorene truly wanted to know.

On his feet now, indignant. So furious, Lorene felt a thrill of dread, that he might hit her; but of course, Mark Svenson was too clever to behave in such a way, and bring about immediate dismissal, an arrest for assault.

Stammering that he was leaving Lorene’s office—“Before I say too much and regret it.”

Coldly Lorene said, “You have already said too much, Mark. And you will regret it.”

WAKING TO A NOVEMBER MORNING of pelting rain, sleet.

Tiny ice-pellets slamming against the windows.

Waking to the most profound sense of—worthlessness…

That black rush in the lungs, coursing through all of her veins.

Aren’t you ashamed. What have you done. What would Daddy say.

Why don’t you do something for someone else, instead of just for yourself.

In the steel-colored Saab, entering the Expressway. Visibility poor. Windshield steaming up. Foot on the gas pedal, foot on the brake. Driving while braking. Slippery-icy pavement. Streams of agitated water cascading over the windshield, tiny ice-pellets clattering against the glass and the roof of the car.

Instead of the far Pacific you are going nowhere.

Suddenly, skidding across three lanes of traffic. Crazed horns, fury of strangers. Her head slammed against something very solid—might’ve been the steering wheel. Because she was not a tall person the air bag slammed terribly into her upper chest with such violence it felt at first as if the bone had been crushed. Torso, neck, shoulders and arms—a solid bruise.

Was she alive, or—? Not-alive?

Mouth filling with blood. Black rancid-rot in the marrow of her bones. The steel-colored door was bent in such a way impossible to open if she had had the strength to open it.

But she was alive. That seemed to be so. A voice was calling to her—Ma’am. Ma’am! Traffic slowed, flowed past. Rain, hailstones continued. In the eyes of these others she was a crumpled vehicle, a slumped body of indeterminate sex, age, skin color. Still some drivers sounded their horns, as in a display of pettish derision.

Oh Daddy. Why did you call me—again—if you didn’t want me.

The Handshake

He’d told no one. He had no one to tell.

No one he trusted. No one he wished to trust.

Not his wife: he was estranged from his wife. And even before their estrangement he wouldn’t have entrusted Brooke with such a secret.

No one in his family. Not even his sisters who’d goaded him to this act for they talked too much, and too vehemently. There could be no secrets entrusted to them.

And not his mother. Of course.

Only his father, since his father’s death, seemed close to Thom, and not estranged.

For often he was confiding in Whitey these days. Living by himself, working at the office in the evening. Sitting at Whitey’s old desk.

He’d discovered that he liked staying late to work in the office. After everyone else had gone home. (Discovered too that he wasn’t able to terminate any of the older employees he’d inherited from Whitey, as he’d planned. The older the employee, hired by Whitey decades ago, the less possible it was for Thom to “terminate.” He took a grim hope that retirement, indeed termination, would come naturally, inevitably.)

But sometimes it wasn’t McClaren, Inc. work that absorbed him. There was the lawsuit, that gripped him like a vampire bat with fangs sunk into his throat… There was the problem of Hugo Martinez, that might be more readily solved.

CALLED MARTINEZ, AND IDENTIFIED HIMSELF: “Thom McClaren. Jessalyn’s older son.”

In a voice that was level, matter-of-fact, even genial: “I think you know why I am calling you, ‘Hugo.’ Why I think we should meet.”

Hugo. Just a hint of irony in the enunciation of the name. Not hostility, not contempt. Not quite.

Hugo Martinez was sounding surprised, puzzled.

No, really, he did not know…

Thom ignored this reply saying that it would be good to meet in a “neutral” place. He named a tavern on the Chautauqua River which he had not frequented for years, where no one would recognize him, a ten-minute drive from The Brisbane.

The tavern had an outdoor deck, Thom recalled.

After a pause Hugo Martinez agreed. (How long a drive would it be for him?—Thom wondered. He’d done a little research and learned that Martinez lived in East Hammond township in an area of derelict farms, uncultivated fields, a trailer park or two, but among these a scattering of still-operating farms and dense-wooded acreage where individuals wanting privacy had built houses not visible from the road and festooned their property with NO TRESPASSING signs.)

A time was set: 8:00 P.M.

At that time Thom arrived promptly to discover a man who had to be Hugo Martinez already seated at a table on the outside deck, overlooking the river that rippled with lights from both shores. As Thom approached the table Hugo Martinez half-rose with a look of cordial welcome and extended his hand for a handshake even as Thom gestured that he had no need to stand, please stay seated, in such a way that he was able to ignore Martinez’s offer of a handshake.

Thinking—So, you know how it is. You get it.

If a flush rose into Hugo Martinez’s face, of surprise, hurt, indignation, if Hugo Martinez’s jaws tightened with the resolve not to smile as it was his instinct to smile at persons with whom he was speaking, Thom took no heed. He was brisk, no-nonsense, in control here. Pulling back a chair from the table with some force, seating himself, and calling for a waiter.

Whiskey for Thom, a beer for Hugo Martinez.

Thom had had a drink before meeting Hugo Martinez. It was his habit to stop for a drink at a cocktail lounge near The Brisbane where they knew him as the son of Whitey McClaren who’d taken over Whitey’s business.

Frankly, not very politely Thom considered Hugo Martinez with unsmiling eyes. So this was the man who was seeing his mother.

(Thom did not want to consider precisely what seeing meant. His feeling for Jessalyn was so highly charged, so fraught with emotion, often he could not bring himself to think about her at all.)

Martinez looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. Tall, broad-shouldered and straight-backed, with a youthful manner, that irritated Thom, as the thick mustache irritated Thom, and the loose, wavy hair to Martinez’s shoulders that was dark brown threaded with silver. Very dark eyes, thick eyebrows, a somewhat coarse skin, not so dark as Thom had anticipated. His facial features were as likely Native American as Hispanic.

As if in mimicry of Thom, Martinez was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, with cuff links. Yet there was something wrong with the shirt: no collar. What kind of asshole wears a shirt with no collar that is otherwise a good-looking, expensive white cotton shirt!—with cuff links! As Thom approached the table Martinez had removed a wide-brimmed fedora from his head, setting it on the table at his elbow, and this too annoyed Thom, as if Martinez had brazenly set a shoe on the table, or a damned boot, taking up more than his own share of the table.

Whiskey helped. That scimitar-flame of comfort, solace in his throat, in the region of his heart and in his gut—knew he could depend upon it, a surge of strength and well-being.

No point in small talk. Ever more frequently now, Thom eschewed small talk.

Bluntly saying, “We think you’re not good for our mother. We think that you should stop seeing her.”

The look in Hugo Martinez’s face!—as if Thom had reached over and yanked at that ridiculous mustache.

Managing to recover enough to ask, in a stammer, who “we” was?

“We. My sisters. My brother. All of our relatives.”

In fact, this was so. Thom was certain. All of the McClarens who knew about it, all of Jessalyn’s side of the family—had to be, they all disapproved and were concerned for her.

“Well. I am—I am sorry to hear that…”

Hugo Martinez did appear sorry, to a degree. Yet it was an effort for the man not to smile nervously at his blunt brash aggressive adversary who was as tall and fit as he but much younger.

“But not surprised, ‘Hugo.’ You are not surprised, are you?”—Thom spoke with barely concealed hostility.

More upset than he’d anticipated. He had not rehearsed this encounter quite enough, had not imagined the adversary’s reaction or his words, only his own. A sensation of nausea stirred in his gut, he could taste bile at the back of his mouth.

“In fact, we think you are after our mother’s money. ‘Hugo.’”

Hugo was uttered in contempt. Hugo caused Thom’s lips to quiver as if he were tasting something very bitter.

How did Martinez defend himself against this charge?—only just staring at Thom, in offended silence.

“Her money. Our money. Our house. That’s what we think!”

Thom went on to tell the silent man that, as he’d discovered by now, Jessalyn McClaren was a very special person. She had loved her husband deeply, and had not recovered from his death the previous October. It had not yet been a year. It was too soon for another relationship. Jessalyn wasn’t responsible for making decisions, she was too emotionally fragile.

“What do you say, ‘Hugo’? Are you after our mother’s money?”

Thom kept his voice low, controlled. The tables closest to them were not occupied. A light wind had come up on the river, a sharp melancholy odor as of impending rain.

So absorbed was Thom in Hugo Martinez, he’d more or less forgotten his surroundings. He was watching the adversary’s mouth, inside the drooping mustache, with the intensity of a lip reader.

Stiffly Hugo Martinez said: “I—I think that your question is—too insulting to answer…”

“Well, then—don’t answer it. We wouldn’t want to insult you.”

It was an adolescent sort of sarcasm. But Thom felt a thrill of vindication, his adversary could not even defend himself.

Both men were breathing quickly. Thom had struck the first blow, and the second—the other was blocked from advancing, and was (perhaps) about to retreat.

A matter of degrees, Thom knew. Such confrontations. Whoever raised his voice to speak excitedly or to betray emotion would be in retreat. He would stand his ground.

Martinez was stammering: “I—I think—this conversation has ended. You don’t have your mother’s best interests at heart. You—”

“Excuse me, Martinez. Don’t you tell me what to think about my mother.”

Warning you. Take care, you sorry son of a bitch.

Thom had finished his whiskey, and ordered another. This was not going badly, he thought. Whitey would be impressed.

In Thom’s SUV, in the rear, the baseball bat. He had not gripped it in both his hands since the night he’d hunted the stray tomcat at the house, intending to batter in its ugly head; he had failed ignominiously at that, but no one had known. He’d dirtied the damned bat killing an innocent racoon (?), however, and had not been able to wash away the worst of the stains.

“I think—I will leave now.”

“You will not leave just yet, Martinez.”

Now Thom had raised his voice. Deepened his voice. The situation was stressful. Like high-altitude hiking. If Martinez made a sudden move Thom was prepared to attack.

“I—will not be talking about your mother to you… But you have no right to, to—talk like this to me.”

“I have every right to talk to you, Martinez. You—you have intruded in my—our—lives… We have to get something straight.”

These were prepared words, most of them. He’d acted in a high school play just once. The girls had cajoled him into it, Thom McClaren was such a good-looking guy like—had it been Tom Cruise? Brad Pitt?—he’d had to try at least once, and the drama coach had allowed it but he’d had stage fright—grasping at “dialogue” as a drowning man might grasp desperately at sticks floating in the water, anything to save him.

“What I’ve brought, Hugo, is a checkbook. I am going to reach into my pocket for it, Hugo—that’s all I am reaching for. It’s what you were expecting, isn’t it?”

“Expecting—what? N-No…”

“Well. I am prepared to write out a check for you, for ‘Hugo Martinez.’ I am prepared to do that. But the understanding will be, you will not see my mother again. Is that agreed?”

“A check for—how much?” Hugo Martinez spoke warily.

“Ah. How much.”

This was better. No more bullshit between them.

Thom drained his glass. The sensation was warm, delicious. He was feeling much better. He was like a man who has been teetering and swaying but now he has begun to walk steadily because the floor beneath his feet that had been tilting was now steady.

“Fifteen thousand, ‘Hugo.’”

With a scornful shake of his head Martinez vetoed fifteen thousand. No.

“Twenty thousand.”

This was quite a leap. Thom hadn’t been prepared to leap so far, so quickly. Hugo Martinez too seemed to be taken by surprise.

Still, Martinez shook his head. No.

Insufferable, the man’s pretensions of superiority. Some sort of Mexican-peasant-nobility like—who had it been? Zapata?

Marlon Brando as Zapata. The dark mustache, that look of infuriating smugness.

Coldly Thom countered: “Twenty-five thousand.” He was the gringo with money, the dark-skinned peasant bastard had the cards.

Adding, when Martinez said nothing, as if it were the purest form of contempt: “Twenty-six.”

Still Martinez sat silent. His only betrayal of unease was his stroking of the mustache and an evasiveness about his eyes.

“All right: thirty thousand. That’s my last offer.”

“Thirty-five.” It was the first that Martinez had spoken since the bargaining had begun.

Thom gave the impression of considering this. By now both men were regarding each other with mutual contempt.

“Thirty-five. We have a deal.”

To this, Hugo Martinez conceded. His face was a mask of disdain, dislike.

“And you promise then not to contact Jessalyn again? Just—to break it off with her? Whatever it has been?”

Thom spoke less certainly now. He did not want to hear anything frank or in any way intimate from this man’s lips, any remark that might violate his mother’s privacy. Fortunately, Martinez just shrugged in agreement.

“All right. We have a deal. I would like you to call my mother just one final time—tonight—and tell her you’re going away—traveling. And you won’t be seeing her again when you return.”

“In fact, I am going away. I have already told your mother.”

“Good. That’s very—good…”

As Thom made out the check his hands were shaking. It was a self-conscious gesture, writing the check as Hugo Martinez looked on, with that sneering part-smile.

Well, this had gone exactly as he’d planned. Though perhaps he had not expected to go as high as thirty-five thousand dollars.

There was a ringing in his ears. In a way, he could not quite believe that the agreement had been made, and Hugo Martinez would disappear from their lives.

Martinez was gazing at him, not so embarrassed as Thom would have anticipated, but rather defiant.

Carefully Thom made out the check to Hugo Vincent Martinez. He’d looked up the adversary’s full name, he did not intend to make any mistakes with this transaction.

The check would be drawn on Thom’s personal account. It would not involve McClaren, Inc. of course. It would not involve his sisters for the transaction was between him and Martinez exclusively, as Whitey would have wished it.

Thom handed Hugo the check—Thirty thousand dollars and no cents payable to Hugo Martinez.

Martinez frowned at the check. “It was to be thirty-five thousand.”

Of course: thirty-five. Though well-to-do and superior in all ways the gringo had made a misstep.

Feeling his face beat with blood, Thom tore up the check and made out another, this time yet more carefully—Thirty-five thousand dollars and no cents.

Martinez took the check from him, read it carefully, folded it in two and slipped it into an envelope. He fumbled for his beer, drank from the bottle and wiped his damp mustache with the edge of his hand. Coldly he said:

“I won’t be cashing this. I will keep this—it is a memento. If you or anyone else in your family approaches me, tries to threaten me, intimidate me, I will show this check to Jessalyn, and tell her about your ‘deal.’ It will reveal to her your callow heart and that you do not love her or respect her—you do not even know her. It will reveal much that you do not wish to be revealed so I suggest that you never, ever try anything like this again.”

Calmly, with dignity, Hugo Martinez rose to his feet. Tossed a bill onto the table, snatched up his fedora hat and turned and strode away as Thom stared after him too surprised to comprehend what the man had said.

The Braid

Loved the braid. Feeling the weight between her shoulder blades like a consoling hand.

MOM WHAT ON EARTH HAVE YOU DONE with your hair? It’s—it’s like some hippie or Indian—it isn’t you.

JESSALYN, Let me touch your hair! Is it—real? That color?

YOUR HAIR IS SO BEAUTIFUL, Mrs. McClaren! Such a pure shade of white.

No choice but to smile at such compliments, which she often received in this new phase of her life. Wondering why white is so precious, and who cares if white is pure?

So soft, too. I love how it’s braided, you never see a woman your age with hair in a braid, or almost never… Very sweetly the nurse spoke to Jessalyn shivering in the dark green cotton smock that tied loosely in the front. Hoping to sound in this place of refrigerated dread genuinely uplifting, enthusiastic.

But realizing belatedly she’d made a blunder, maybe. Alluding to Jessalyn’s age.

Jessalyn laughed and murmured Thanks!

Though embarrassed. Self-conscious. Through her life she’d learned to politely deflect compliments about her appearance, her poise, her clothes, all that was visible about her, as if most people who encountered her felt obliged to issue some sort of assessment. Why?

If you are female, if you’d been a particularly pretty little girl, inescapable the compliments, the praise, the smiling attention, smothering and suffocating like a hand over your mouth. Be still. Listen. We will tell you who you are.

Can’t disagree, that would be hostile, rude. But neither can you seem to agree, that would be vanity.

Do you braid this yourself, Mrs. McClaren? Looks like it’d be kind of hard to reach behind your head…

Heard herself say quietly My husband braids it.

The words came out without her intention. No idea why she’d said such a thing.

Well, she could not have said My lover braids it—the word lover would strike the wrong note, and make the middle-aged radiology nurse Stacey uncomfortable.

A woman of Jessalyn’s age would have a husband, not a lover. A husband of many years.

The nurse marveled at this fact, also. A husband! She had never heard of a man braiding anyone’s hair let alone a husband.

Unusual, yes. Jessalyn agreed. Something small stirred within her, a memory of something like pride.

Seems like your husband must be a very nice man.

Yes. He is.

Positioning Jessalyn at the X-ray machine that loomed above her like something in a science-fiction movie. Now brisk and no-nonsense and the harmless flattery about her hair and her husband dropped as the nurse steadied Jessalyn by her left shoulder, instructing her to open the smock, urging her to lean forward into the machine, farther forward, not to stiffen but relax, deep breath and exhale and relax, like this, shoulder down, left hand here, fingers outstretched, elbow here, elbow down, cup her breast from below, hold and don’t move, a little higher, hold still, elbow a little farther down, chin up, head back, shoulder a little farther down, hold still, this will pinch a little, hold it, hold breath, don’t move please, hold breath.

Excruciating pain as the soft white breast was flattened between clamps like bread dough. Each time she’d had a mammogram the despairing voice had screamed at her—No. Never again. Can’t endure this again.

But each time she succeeded in forgetting. Each year she returned for her annual mammogram for that is what a responsible woman does.

Shutting her eyes as the machine emitted its whirring sound.

Shutting her eyes as the nurse reiterated instructions.

Shutting her eyes as the pain came—again…

Oh! Oh God.

Almost over, Mrs. McClaren. Just one more X-ray.

Thinking of Hugo braiding her hair. Brushing her hair.

Surprising gentleness, the man’s large fingers. Deft and skilled for (of course) (but she couldn’t inquire) he had braided hair like this before.

She’d shampooed her hair and combed it out and it was drying and he’d said tenderly Let me braid your hair, dear. She’d been shocked, disapproving. So intimate a gesture, and they were yet strangers. So inappropriately intimate a gesture, she’d wanted to cry No, no thank you laughing embarrassed as so frequently she did when Hugo Martinez suggested something strange, disconcerting, extravagant—but somehow she’d said Yes, good. Intending to say how ridiculous, people will laugh at me, I don’t want my hair in a big thick braid like an Indian woman in a painting by what was his name—Remington. I have not had my hair in anything resembling braids since I was five years old. Intending to say you are a kind man, you are a most exceptional man, but I don’t want to be touched by any man not even you, and certainly I don’t want my hair brushed and braided. But she did not say anything like this, instead she inclined her head meekly, in delight saying Yes. Please.

There followed then an extraordinary interlude. She was very still, she did not resist, her blood beat calmly and evenly even as stray hairs caught now and then in calluses on the palms of his hands.

Grateful to the man, he said nothing. Deep in concentration, he did not even hum his tuneless melodies as often he did. His large fingers stroking her hair. The slow and languorous brushing with her tortoiseshell brush. And with a comb then, picking out snarls. Especially at the nape of her neck where the hair was thickest, where heat gathered on her skin and he lifted the hair and kissed her there, very gently, in the way that one might kiss without expecting or even wishing a reciprocal gesture. And she’d shivered, biting her lower lip and holding herself very still. And so the moment passed. And he did begin to hum, just audibly. With the brush carefully lifting her hair from her forehead and brushing it back so that it seemed fuller than it was, as if she had not suffered a catastrophe.

By this time, months later, her hair was no longer so thin as it had been soon after Whitey’s death when she’d been dismayed to see hairs in the shower, clumps of hair, and her scalp seeming to smart, to hurt, as if this were a kind of weeping, a shedding of tears. And later, her hair began to grow again, not lushly, but restored to her as the hair of a cancer patient might be restored to the afflicted, altered in texture, not so wavy as it had been, rather more fine, and of an astonishing white hue, as Whitey’s hair had been, and she recalled a grandmother’s hair, a great many years ago when she’d been a child beloved and kissed by elderly adults who had gazed at her with something like rapture, her mother’s mother who’d smelled of something flowery and whose pale skin had seemed impossibly soft, impossibly thin, a somber staring child could see the tracery of pale blue veins beneath.

Oh never, never! Never that old.

The tortoiseshell hand mirror he lifted with the sweeping gesture of a magician so that in the large bright-lit mirror she could see her reflection more clearly, the back of her head framed in the smaller mirror, the tight taut precisely braided white hair, several strands coiled into a single thick braid, and she’d laughed at how unlike herself she looked, how strong, how capable, how smiling and assured and loved—Hugo, thank you!

Rummaging in a drawer he came out with a white silk gardenia, a favor of some long-forgotten dinner or gala in some long-forgotten lifetime, and this he affixed to the braid, at the nape of Jessalyn’s neck, with a long sharp hatpin.

Voilà! What did I tell you?—beautiful.

“MRS. McCLAREN? I’m afraid we need to bring you back for a few more ‘diagnostic’ X-rays…”

In a subdued voice the radiology nurse spoke to the shivering patient still in the dark green smock with the ties in front now neatly tied shut. In this practiced voice intended to assuage alarm, anxiety.

“Oh.” Jessalyn was suddenly too weak to speak more emphatically.

Thinking—Has it begun? My death.

THERE WOULD BE A WAIT. More X-rays, and a wait for the radiologist.

Possibly then, no further X-rays and she could go home.

Or, more X-rays and she could go home for the day.

(An acute ear will hear—For the day.)

An ideal radiology patient: older female, docile, unalarmed (-seeming), not overly questioning and in no way hostile or aggressive.

SHE THOUGHT—I will accept it. This time.

She’d gone without eating that morning and possibly that had been a mistake. Soon she would be feeling faint, light-headed. She had not told anyone where she was going this morning for it was, or had been, a routine mammogram at the medical center.

Later that day, that evening, Hugo was coming to the house for an early supper. Of course, Jessalyn had not told him.

Since the false positive of seventeen years before she’d dreaded mammograms. Not just the intense pain, and the grotesquerie of breasts so flattened you would expect their soft contents to spill out under the pressure, but the fear of a “node-sized shadow” in the X-ray.

So many women she knew had had breast cancer, over the years. With dread she’d checked boxes in the questionnaire she’d been given in the waiting room, family members who’d had cancer.

But now she felt a strange calm. If the X-ray came back “positive” Whitey would be spared knowing.

Recalling his fear when he’d thought that Jessalyn might have cancer. His face that was usually so solid, strong-boned, had seemed to dissolve in panic. She had seen how he loved her—with a love deep-rooted as a child’s love for a parent—and she’d felt sick with guilt, that she might betray this love by falling ill.

Waiting for the radiologist Jessalyn was not thinking clearly. This was widow-think, a random firing of neurons. For almost it would be a relief if, assuming she’d had to be diagnosed with cancer, it was happening now and had not happened when Whitey had been alive.

Well. In any case Whitey would never know, not even that she’d been called back for more X-rays. And if indeed the X-rays indicated a need for a biopsy, and if the biopsy indicated a need for surgery, Whitey would never know.

Her feeling for Hugo Martinez was shallow like the roots of a flowering shrub that have not yet taken hold in the earth. Like the red climber rosebush he’d planted in the spring. To yank such roots out of the earth would not require much effort. To yank out a mature bush would be very difficult and even so, much of the hair-thin capillary roots would remain in the soil.

Widow-think was a barely controlled panic of neurons crazily firing but widow-think was incapable of being sustained for long and so Jessalyn found herself thinking about Hugo Martinez who must have noticed that one of the climbing roses by the garage had died for one spring day he drove to the house unbidden, unannounced, bringing with him a large, somewhat sprawling rosebush to take its place.

The nerve of the man! Without even ringing the doorbell to alert Jessalyn, let alone secure her permission, he’d only just removed the bush from the rear of his truck, hauling it around the garage to plant in the soil. Jessalyn stood at an upstairs window where she could observe the man without his knowing. A khaki jacket, a wide-brimmed hat at a cocky angle, a way of pushing his booted foot against the shovel to drive it into the earth with a percussive force—she’d looked down at him mesmerized by the deftness and certainty of his movements, unable to see his face. How deeply absorbed the man was in digging out the old bush, replacing it with the new.

He is making his claim here. Why can’t you stop him? What is wrong with you?

She resolved not to go outside, not to speak with him. Certainly, not to thank him.

Yet, as minutes passed, Jessalyn worried that Hugo Martinez would depart without knocking at the door. Anxiously she watched him, from the upstairs window. At one point he let the shovel fall, and drew a red handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his forehead in a gesture that seemed to her primeval, ancient; for a moment the man was revealed as tired, somewhat winded, not so young, sweating in hot sunshine. And in a mirror she caught a glimpse of herself, that look of pathos and hope, a not-young face, though still what you would call an attractive face. It was like seeing herself suddenly naked, stricken with shame at the rawness of her need, as if she were a stranger, to be pitied and not condemned; for she would not have condemned a stranger so alone and so yearning, as she might have condemned herself.

Quickly she descended the stairs and went outside, shading her eyes. She would thank him. She would be very gracious, thanking the man. Meaning to explain to him that she was grateful for the rosebush. She was grateful for his friendship, his kindness and generosity, but—I have no feelings for anyone, any longer. Please understand.

Instead, as soon as Hugo saw her, and called out happily to her, and Jessalyn came to inspect the new, red climber rosebush, that had been positioned against the stucco wall of the garage so that it was already vertical and upright, it occurred to her that she would bring a sprinkling pail to water the bush; and soon after she and Hugo Martinez began talking, and laughing together; and whatever she’d meant to tell him, she would postpone for another time.

MOM, PLEASE. You must know that man is only after your money.

He’s younger than you are! He’s of a much lower class…

Some artist-friend of Virgil’s. A hippie—at that age…

You are not thinking clearly. It’s too soon after Daddy. You must not make any sudden decisions.

Has he asked you for money? A loan?

He has been arrested, you know. He could be dangerous.

Don’t let him wander in the house by himself. Keep close to him.

You know, there are beautiful things in our house and once they are gone, they will be gone forever.

Oh Mom! What would Daddy think!

SHE WAS NOT CRYING. NO.

She was not crying for it is pointless to cry.

In an adjacent cubicle a woman was indeed crying. Impossible not to hear.

At first Jessalyn had thought that the (invisible) woman had been speaking on a cell phone in a low laughing voice (distracting to hear in this place) but soon it became clear that she was crying. Jessalyn thought, One of my daughters. Oh, where was her mother to comfort her!

A dozen curtained cubicles here, each with its own (somewhat mocking) mirror, and a little bench on which to sit, and wait to be summoned by a radiology nurse with a clipboard. Of these, it wasn’t clear how many cubicles were occupied.

Jessalyn had been told it would be “just a few minutes” before the next X-rays. That had been some minutes ago. With trembling fingers she’d tied shut the front of the coarse cotton smock.

Naked from the waist up, inside the smock. Soft aching breasts just small enough to present particular problems for a clear mammogram.

She couldn’t bear it, hearing the woman cry in the next cubicle. Pulling back the curtain of her cubicle partway she called out uncertainly, “Excuse me? Is something wrong?”—a foolish thing to say in these circumstances.

The woman was young, Sophia’s age. She was very small, the size of a child, her eyes large, owlish, shadowed. She whispered to Jessalyn, “I’m pregnant. I am eight weeks pregnant. They are going to do a biopsy in the morning.” Her voice was so plaintive, her fear so palpable, Jessalyn could only come to her, and hold her.

The girl—(Jessalyn could only think of her as a girl)—hugged Jessalyn tight, sobbing harder. “It will be all right. Please don’t cry. Crying doesn’t help”—Jessalyn spoke falteringly, not knowing what to say but only that something has to be said, some words of comfort however inadequate. Her words were banal and useless and yet the girl shivered in her arms, and seemed to be grateful. “All right. All right. I think I will be all right. Thank you.”

Jessalyn asked if she should call someone for her?—“A husband? Your—mother?”

But this was not the right thing to say, it seemed. For the girl flinched, and turned abruptly away. In the mirror her face was tight, waxen. She would be all right, she said.

Still Jessalyn stood uncertainly, not knowing what to do; but after a beat realizing that she’d been dismissed, and so returned to her own cubicle.

The sobbing did cease. Soon then the girl was summoned by the radiology nurse and led away without a glance in Jessalyn’s direction. (Like a repentant mother Jessalyn had not drawn the curtain to her cubicle quite shut. You give them a chance to make up with you, but you also give them a chance to snub you. Had to smile, remembering.)

If the diagnostic X-rays came back “positive” she would call Sophia first, she supposed. For Sophia had medical knowledge and was not likely to over-react.

Then, with the assumption that she wouldn’t be able to speak directly with Lorene, who would certainly never answer a personal call at this hour of the day, she would call Lorene, and leave a message.

Then, Beverly. They were not on such good terms lately, because of Hugo. But Beverly loved her very much and would cry at once—Oh Mom! I’ll be right over, what can I do for you?

Beyond that—Thom, Virgil—she did not want to think just yet.

Hugo. She would not think just yet.

EACH TIME HE’D GONE AWAY she assumed he would not be coming back. Yet, Hugo came back.

She could not discourage him, it seemed. Once she’d laughed at some particularly preposterous suggestion of his—(a canoe ride? on the lake? by moonlight?)—and he’d smiled at her and said, Good he could make her laugh. At least.

Jessalyn protested, she wasn’t laughing at him.

Well. Laughing at something, he guessed.

Hugo was good-natured, amused. He had not taken offense though he’d been (it seemed) just slightly hurt at Jessalyn’s stiffness when he’d kissed her.

Telling her, of course he knew how she must feel. Her life had been ruptured.

When his father had died (young: fifty-one) his mother had seemed to lose her will to live. She’d entered a kind of tunnel of the soul—she’d become remote to her family even when she was in their presence.

Astonishing Jessalyn by reciting, solemnly, the words to a Protestant hymn Jessalyn was sure she hadn’t heard since she’d been a teenager:

He wasn’t religious, Hugo said. But the hymn was beautiful, and true. You didn’t need to believe in Jesus as the son of God to know that it was true.

Oh yes, Jessalyn said quickly. She was deeply moved by Hugo’s solemnity which was not like him, in her presence. Even as she thought, it wasn’t true. Not altogether.

Another person can walk with you, a good part of the way. Taking your hand, and his hand in yours. This too was true.

HIS SECRETS WERE MANY, she supposed.

Having to do too with death. Deaths.

A man Hugo Martinez’s age, it hadn’t just been parents and grandparents who’d died but others close to him. She would learn in time, Jessalyn supposed.

If she cared to know. If she persevered in knowing.

For instance: why he’d been in the cemetery that evening when they’d first met.

Hugo said, somewhat evasively, it had been the sheerest chance. He’d been photographing visitors to the cemetery but had put his camera away when…

Seeing in his face an expression of pain and melancholy Jessalyn touched his wrist, and asked what was wrong?—and after a pause Hugo said, Well—also he’d been visiting the grave of someone he knew. Had known.

Jessalyn thought—He doesn’t want to tell me. I must respect his privacy.

And so she didn’t ask. Recalling how her children had been exasperated with her excessive politeness. Mom for God’s sake—you didn’t ask? What is wrong with you?

After dinner her guest wandered (uninvited, inquisitive) into another part of the house, which Jessalyn hadn’t quite wanted him to see. Through the long living room that was unlighted, and into a smaller room beyond to which Whitey had given the name Jess’s drawing room.

Whitey hadn’t felt comfortable in the room which was furnished with things Jessalyn had inherited. Lamps, cushioned chairs, satin pillows, a plush dark-red sofa. Cedar bookcases filled with books (mostly by women) to which Sophia had contributed some of her college paperbacks when she’d moved out of the house.

Jessalyn hadn’t been in these rooms for weeks. Months? A widow rarely ventures out of essential rooms and so part of the house like part of her brain had become a no-man’s-land, uncharted and benumbed.

Nor did she think much about the house except when someone well-intentioned if not frankly rude asked if she was going to sell the house? When would she be selling the house?

Her children did not want her to sell the house which was their house. Even Virgil who scorned material things grew anxious when the subject came up.

Thom said Mom couldn’t sell the house!—they were each planning secretly to move back in an emergency.

It wasn’t clear if Thom was joking and Jessalyn felt a pang of yearning. Yes please!

But no. That was not likely to happen, and should not happen.

Hugo Martinez marveled at the size of Jessalyn’s house. His tone may have been ironic but it was not disrespectful, she thought.

Apologetically Jessalyn said, Well—we were a large family. Five children.

How unreal it sounded! Five children. Were. Jessalyn had not the energy to raise a single child now, even little Sophia.

Reading her thoughts Hugo laughed, it is all pretty preposterous, isn’t it? Our children come through us, and beyond us. You never feel so like a vessel when you see them grown up, like strangers, utterly beyond you.

This was so. Jessalyn had always imagined that Sophia was most like her yet the Sophia whom she knew now, who seemed to be living with the much older Alistair Means, and had become secretive about her life, did not much resemble Jessalyn at all.

And Thom, seemingly separated from his family in Rochester. When Jessalyn asked him about this Thom smiled vaguely past her shoulder as if catching the eye of someone else in the room, to whom he hardly needed to explain himself.

Reluctantly Jessalyn switched on lights in this part of the house. In the drawing room, stained-glass lamps. These were beautiful, antique—Tiffany lamps that exuded rich, warm light. Hugo examined them, closely.

He’d never seen a Tiffany lamp outside a museum, he said.

Jessalyn said the lamps were not so uncommon, really. She hesitated to say that she knew several people who owned Tiffany lamps in their homes.

Jessalyn saw Hugo draw a forefinger across the Tiffany glass, leaving a faint trace in the dust. Embarrassing!

And there was Jessalyn’s piano, a Steinway baby grand which no one had played seriously in years.

Hugo marveled at the piano, also: fantastic! Hugo was very enthusiastic about the piano.

His melancholy air of a few minutes before had vanished totally. How like a child he was, Jessalyn thought. He lived in the moment, the very essence of mercurial.

Hugo switched on a floor lamp behind the piano, opened the keyboard, struck several keys. There was such beauty in these isolated notes, Jessalyn felt a thrill of happiness.

Her guest seated himself at the piano running strong deft fingers up and down the keyboard. Jessalyn steeled herself to hear a flat or a sharp note. She’d neglected to have the piano tuner come to the house since Whitey’s death as she had been neglecting so much.

Had to admire the man’s boldness, seating himself uninvited and at once adjusting the stool. The way parking valets and auto mechanics adjust the driver’s seat of any car in which they find themselves, making their claim.

You would be able to hear this piano played in the farthest upstairs rooms of the house, Jessalyn thought.

Hugo was leafing through sheets of music atop the piano. For the years she’d taken piano lessons Sophia had dutifully photocopied the easier/slower compositions of Bach, Mozart, Chopin, John Field. Erik Satie, Béla Bartók. Like her mother Sophia had played a competent schoolgirl sort of music, earnest rather than inspired, essentially timid, groping—the result of much practice and a wish to please a piano instructor.

Ten years, Jessalyn had taken lessons. Sophia had been allowed to quit after just six.

Hugo Martinez played piano with the brash confidence of one who’d never had formal lessons, thus had never disappointed an instructor. He played by ear, evidently—hit or miss, with much showy energy. Large hands, fingers spread, he delighted in a massive assault upon the keyboard, playing something Jessalyn couldn’t recognize at first—a loose-jointed, mangled Liszt, perhaps. Transcendental Études?

Or was it the Spanish composer de Falla. Long ago Jessalyn had tried to play some of de Falla’s spirited music…

She listened to Hugo’s piano music, mesmerized. It made her want to laugh, it was so—capricious. How cautious her own piano-playing had been! She’d concentrated on not striking wrong notes, there had never been much pleasure in the effort.

Hugo didn’t seem to mind striking wrong notes. Some of them were dead notes—dead keys. Like any naturally gifted musician he knew to keep moving swiftly, never to acknowledge a mistake, never pause to correct a note or a chord as a dutiful student might; never to hesitate. Amid a flash of notes like a cascading waterfall most dazzled listeners would not detect mistakes.

There, you see. He is the one. Beyond any wish of yours.

Ridiculous to think in such a way! Jessalyn knew better, she did not believe in fate or even circumstances. No.

Yet a strange lethargy overcame her. For forty minutes standing beside Hugo as he played with gusto the neglected and out-of-tune Steinway it had seemed almost criminal of her to keep, in this house where no one played it any longer, and probably would not again, ever.

Fascinated by his hands on the keyboard that seemed both too large and clumsy, yet assured.

Strange, Jessalyn didn’t care to sit down a few feet away, and listen. Instead she was drawn to stand close beside Hugo, absorbed in the actions of the large long fingers bounding boldly up and down the keyboard.

That night, Hugo would stay with Jessalyn for the first time.

IN THE MORNING Hugo would confide in Jessalyn that he’d been in the cemetery the evening they’d first met to visit the grave of his son Miguel, who’d died at the age of eleven, in an accident—Miguel had been bicycling on a steep hill, on Waterman Street, and at the intersection at the foot of the hill a cement truck had barreled through a stop sign and killed him instantaneously.

Twenty-one years ago, Hugo said. That very day.

Tears welled in his eyes. His eyelids trembled. Wordlessly, Jessalyn held the trembling man in her arms.

The one. The only one. Save yourself, darling!

“MRS. McCLAREN? You can bring your handbag with you.”

Another time Jessalyn was called into the X-ray room. Another time, untying and opening the coarse cotton smock. Positioning herself, her poor bare aching breasts, before the dreadful machine.

But this time the nurse was a brisk young black woman who did not comment on Jessalyn’s white-braided hair that fell to the middle of her back but noted that she was shaking with cold or with fear and told her brusquely Ma’am you have got to relax. Or else the X-rays won’t come out clear.

HE’D BEEN MARRIED OF COURSE, that was hardly a surprise to Jessalyn. That he’d been divorced for so long (twelve years) was something of a surprise for Hugo Martinez had the look of a man so comfortable with women, so husbandly in his manner, you’d have thought he’d spent most of his adult life married and not, as he’d said, loose and lonely.

Jessalyn had thought it must be a joke—loose and lonely. But Hugo sounded quite solemn telling her.

His ex-wife Marta lived in Port Oriskany, a few hours away. She had remarried but not happily. He sent her money when she needed it. She had left him. (In case Jessalyn was wondering.) The blame for their son’s death had somehow fallen onto Hugo, who’d bought the boy that particular bike, and who hadn’t done his share (the wife accused) of overseeing him, where he went on the bike, which roads he traveled. Possibly too, the marriage had been shaky at the time. Possibly, Hugo hadn’t been living with the boy’s mother and possibly, the boy had been on his way to see his father at the time of the accident… Hearing Hugo speak in a way that was heated, anxious, so very different from the way in which Hugo usually chose to present himself to her, Jessalyn saw how complicated it was, a terribly snarled knot. Hugo had exhausted himself years ago struggling to untie the knot and so had done the only sensible thing: walked away.

Saved himself, and walked away.

But yes, he had living children. Adult children.

She would meet them soon, Hugo said. If she wished.

Well, said Jessalyn. What do you wish, Hugo?

Yes. That you will meet. Soon.

Purposefully, soon was kept vague.

And vague too was Jessalyn’s intention to introduce Hugo to her older children, who hadn’t yet met him. (She’d had Virgil and Sophia to dinner, with Hugo; they had all gotten along very well though Hugo had talked with more than his usual exuberance and Sophia had stared at him through much of the evening as if she’d never seen anyone quite like Hugo Martinez in that house, at that dining room table.) Jessalyn hadn’t told Hugo how hostile Thom, Beverly, and Lorene were to the very idea of him, nor had Hugo asked.

He had many friends, Hugo said. But no one to whom he was really close, any longer.

Some of his friends were former prisoners. Not ex-convicts for these were men who’d been wrongfully, unjustly convicted of crimes they had not committed.

One day, Hugo brought Jessalyn to his house in East Hammond, where he was scheduled to photograph two of these former prisoners, for the newsletter published by the non-profit Liberators Ministry.

Hugo lived on the ground floor of a large faded redbrick house set in a grassy lot bordering a marshland/landfill. The three-story house needed repair but exuded an air of dignity, austerity. Railroad tracks ran nearby: freight trains were infrequent but very noisy. Jessalyn was intrigued to see that the property was an untidy checkerboard of grapevines, brambles, black-eyed Susans, phlox, goldenrod and sunflowers; someone had been enterprising enough to plant tomatoes, green beans, sweet corn; especially, the tomato plants had grown lushly, spreading their tendrils for yards. And there was a melancholy-looking scarecrow amid the cornstalks, tilted on its crossbars like a drunken Christ, in a plaid jacket, satin gym shorts of the kind Thom used to wear, weatherworn straw hat that had to have belonged to Hugo Martinez.

How wonderful, Hugo’s residence! Seedy, run-down. Wild, overgrown, and welcoming.

There were a number of vehicles in the rutted driveway. The front door, while not quite open, was not quite shut, either. It seemed that Hugo owned the house and five-acre property but it wasn’t clear whether other tenants in the house paid rent, or were Hugo’s relatives, friends, guests.

Within an hour Jessalyn was to meet or to glimpse a considerable number of people of varying ages, types, skin-tones, each of whom was introduced to My dear friend Jessalyn.

It was clear, painfully clear or thrillingly clear, that Hugo had very strong feelings about her. Introducing her with his arm about her shoulders, or slung about her waist, to suggest (unmistakably) their relationship.

At least, some representation of their relationship.

He would uplift her soul, she thought. As a cork is lifted by water, through no effort of its own.

Did it matter that she could not love him? She could not be in love with him?

At the rear of the house was Hugo’s work-studio, which he’d converted “with his own hands” from an outdoor porch; the space was filled with photographs (Hugo’s own, and others), art books, art magazines and journals. On the plank floor were gorgeously bright Mexican rugs and affixed to the ceiling were Calder-like mobiles (Hugo’s own, inexpensively assembled). He’d once had a darkroom, he told Jessalyn, but now his photography was exclusively digital, he worked with a computer and a printer.

Jessalyn was dismayed to see how relatively little of Hugo Martinez’s work was displayed, or even visible; most of it was stored haphazardly in corners, or stacked against walls. Even his books—even those slender books with Hugo Martinez stamped on their spines—were stacked on the floor, gathering dust-whorls.

Several times Jessalyn had asked if she could purchase photographs of his but Hugo had frowned and said no, certainly not—he intended to give her a selection of “special” photographs as a gift, soon.

On a particular occasion he would make this gift to her, Hugo added. It was to be hoped.

Particular occasion—Jessalyn wondered what that might mean.

Yet he’d procrastinated. Soon, soon!—he promised airily.

When they’d first become acquainted Hugo had inscribed for her one of his early books of poetry, After Moonrise. Jessalyn had read the book avidly if with not full comprehension; she’d recognized in the poet’s long buoyant jazzy lines a clear influence of Ginsberg, Whitman, Williams (W. C.). But he’d more or less stopped writing poetry, Hugo told her. He’d never been satisfied with anything he’d written.

Why not?—Jessalyn had asked; and Hugo said because poetry is infinite and has no natural completion, to be truthful to the vagaries of life one could never end a poem, only just continue.

Also, words were just too frail, too easily smudged or deleted. Words were too easily misunderstood.

It was photography that gripped him now—visual images, actual things people could see. And people.

Especially, people’s faces. He could devote the remainder of his life to photographing faces and never come to the end of his fascination.

Against a backdrop of a large white seamless sheet of paper Hugo photographed two ex-prisoners that afternoon, of several that had been released from incarceration recently through the efforts of Liberators Ministry.

Both were male, and African-American. More than 90 percent of the prisoners the Liberators had freed in twenty years were persons of color, Hugo remarked; all but one had been male and she had been a Haitian-American woman who’d been misidentified in a police lineup in Detroit.

Carlin Milner was forty-one years old, and had been incarcerated in a Pennsylvania maximum security prison for twenty-two years, for a robbery-homicide in Philadelphia which he had not committed; one night he’d been picked up by police on a South Philadelphia street, taken to a station house and threatened, beaten, coerced into a confession; he’d been sentenced to life in prison, and had only been freed by legal activists after years of appeals and litigation at a cost of more than two hundred thousand dollars.

Even so, Hugo told Jessalyn, Carlin wasn’t altogether in the clear. Prosecutors were still pondering whether to re-charge and retry him though the “witnesses” they’d had in 1989 were dead or vanished.

Yet Carlin was studying to be a minister. His manner was guarded but friendly. When he shook Jessalyn’s hand he avoided looking her in the face but his smile was engaging and he did not seem embittered or angry. She thought—He sees a white-skinned woman. That is all he sees.

It occurred to Jessalyn to ask if Carlin Milner was associated with the Hope Baptist Church on Armory Street—(that was the only African-American church she knew)—but she realized how naive this was, how possibly offensive.

She’d sent a second check, for seven hundred dollars, to SaveOurLives in care of the Hope Baptist Church but wasn’t sure if the check had ever been cashed.

Hugo’s second subject Hector Cavazos was thirty-nine years old. He’d spent eighteen years in the maximum security prison at Attica for a particularly brutal rape-murder (in Buffalo) which he had not committed; DNA evidence had eventually freed him, but only after years of obfuscation and hostility on the part of the Buffalo prosecutors who were now planning to retry him for the homicide, though their only evidence was the police-informant “eyewitness” who’d originally testified against him.

At thirty-nine Cavazos was a handsome man despite his scarred face and bloodshot eyes, the result of prison beatings. He had a severe stutter which had infuriated Buffalo police at the time of his arrest, and now he did not speak much if he could avoid it, and then in a low, near-audible voice. He’d been released from Attica with no education, no training, no one willing to take him in except a distant relative in Buffalo who was himself on public assistance; the Liberators Ministry was providing a residence for him and helping him find employment. More than three hundred thousand dollars had been spent to free Cavazos and more expenses lay ahead.

Lawsuits were pending against the respective police departments and municipalities that were responsible for such gross miscarriages of justice. Seven million dollars, twelve million dollars. Litigation would drag on, in both cases, for years.

Jessalyn felt a pang of sorrow for the men whose youthful lives had been taken from them so cruelly. They’d been fortunate just to survive in the maximum security prisons, Hugo said, where they’d received very poor medical care, if any.

Yet they were not bitter, at least not in the presence of Hugo Martinez and his white-skinned woman friend. Not much point to anger, Milner said. Just eats up your heart for nothing.

You could see why the man wanted to be a Christian minister, Jessalyn thought. Bringing good news to the world that so yearned to hear it.

It was touching to Jessalyn, to hear how warmly and matter-of-factly Hugo spoke with the ex-prisoners; how genuinely interested he was in their lives, and the care he took with their portraits. Hugo’s casual manner did not extend to his photography; there, he was a perfectionist. Observing the men, from a short distance, Jessalyn felt both privileged and ashamed; she had suffered so little in her life, set beside Carlin Milner and Hector Cavazos, and others unjustly incarcerated for long periods of time; she knew nothing of such stoicism. She, a widow who’d believed that she had suffered greatly by losing her husband… Even from suffering she’d been shielded by her class, her money. Her marriage to a man who had loved and protected her.

Domestic life had blinded her to the real sorrows of the world. Happiness had blinded her.

She was feeling very warm, light-headed and disoriented. The weight of the braid falling between her shoulder blades had become mildly distressing like a mocking pat on the back.

If she were a good, generous person, Jessalyn thought, she would open her house to individuals like these. Her house on Old Farm Road was a fortress, and a sanctuary: she could not dwell in such a place alone, for very long.

Mom, don’t be ridiculous. They all want to exploit you.

They know who you are. They have targeted you. How can you be so foolish!

Your lover is a Communist agitator. He has been in prison himself. He wants your money. He will discard you.

Later that evening when they were alone together Hugo mentioned to Jessalyn that he’d been jailed himself as a younger man, in the 1980s, though just briefly, in the Hammond Men’s Detention Facility. Maybe one of her children had told her?

Jessalyn’s reply was vague. Well, no—not exactly.

(Of course, Jessalyn was embarrassed that Hugo must certainly have guessed by now how her older children maligned him, to her. How they suspected him, and what terrible things they said about him.)

In a light-hearted tone Hugo reminisced of having been “pretty roughly” handled by police officers, indeed pepper-sprayed and struck with batons, but without serious or permanent injuries. A black eye, but not an eye out.

A sprained ankle but not a broken leg.

He’d been arrested with other striking protesters in front of the Hammond City Hall for “trespassing” and “disturbing the peace”—“failure to obey law enforcement officers’ orders”—twenty-six years ago. The City of Hammond had forbidden employees to unionize, and Hugo and one or two others were leading a strike of teachers, municipal workers, township employees for higher wages and benefits. An unruly crowd had gathered in front of City Hall both for and against the strike. Traffic had been stalled, fistfights had broken out. TV crews had come to broadcast the excitement and had instigated more confusion.

At the time Hugo had headed the art department at the community college—his first, as it was to be his last, administrative position. He and several other strike organizers had been arrested, handcuffed, dragged into police vans and detained in the detention facility for forty-eight hours. They’d all been beaten but they had not been intimidated or terrified. The Hammond police had not used firearms. There had not been a SWAT team to disperse the crowd as there might have been in another city or in Hammond itself at an earlier time. In jail they’d felt energized, thrilled. Their supporters had rallied around them and some, if not much of the publicity was favorable to them; they’d received death threats, but also messages of sympathy and donations to the strike fund.

Indeed, the strike had been mostly successful. The union had been voted in, and new contracts negotiated with the city. Unfortunately, Hugo and the other organizers had lost their jobs and were sued by the city for various violations of the law, which had come to nothing, eventually—the lawsuits, that is. But definitely, they’d been fired.

Jessalyn had the uneasy feeling that Whitey might have been mayor of Hammond at this time.

She did recall that “outside agitators” had been blamed for acts of vandalism. She wondered if she’d seen Hugo Martinez’s picture in the paper. UNLAWFUL PROTESTERS ARRESTED, JAILED.

If she’d seen his picture, and took note. This man! One day, you will fall in love with him.

How improbable, when she’d been in love with Whitey at the time. Long married to Whitey McClaren at the time.

Jessalyn told Hugo that he’d been brave to lead a strike. Someone had to stand up for underpaid and exploited workers.

Well, Hugo said. It hadn’t quite been Tiananmen Square.

Jessalyn knew little of Tiananmen Square. Chinese students had protested, and the Chinese army had fired upon them? Hugo said yes, essentially that had been it. Protesters demanding more freedom had been cut down by gunfire, tanks, in 1989. The suppression had been brutal, terrible. Hundreds had been killed, possibly thousands. The wounds of Tiananmen Square had been still fresh when Hugo had traveled to China several times in the past twelve years.

They were driving in Hugo’s vehicle along the Cayuga Road. It is very easy to feel like a couple in a moving vehicle, one behind the wheel and the other in the passenger’s seat. It is not even necessary to speak, to feel like a couple in such circumstances.

Bringing the vehicle to a stop, getting out, walking—into what? where?—that is more problematic.

Jessalyn wanted to tell Hugo that her husband, too, had been injured by police officers. It had not been altogether clear what had happened to him but he’d been beaten, the police had used Taser guns on him, he’d had a stroke, two weeks later he’d died… But she had not yet been able to speak of Whitey to Hugo, except in the most abstract of ways.

No. She could not. It would be a violation of her deep and inviolable love for her husband, she could never reveal this to Hugo Martinez.

As Hugo turned onto Old Farm Road Jessalyn felt a quickening of dread, like one who is entering a tunnel. The vast world was rapidly narrowing, she was coming home.

Not alone, coming home with Hugo Martinez. But home was where she had lived with Whitey for most of her adult life, and where, if anywhere, Whitey yet dwelled.

By the time Hugo pulled into the driveway at 99 Old Farm Road Jessalyn had become overwhelmed by a sensation of vertigo, nausea. She could not ask him to come inside, she said. Not just now. She was feeling unwell. She was feeling very depressed. It had come over her suddenly like a great dark net…

Hugo was astonished. Hugo was hurt. Hugo stammered—but what was wrong? Clearly he’d expected to stay the night with her. He’d brought some things—toiletries, a fresh shirt. He didn’t understand…

Jessalyn had to flee from the car. She had to be alone. No, she could not bear being touched by any man but Whitey.

Leaving this man in his vehicle, in the driveway. Not daring to look back at him. Sick with revulsion for him, and for herself with him. How had she dared? What had she been thinking?

That ridiculous mustache! His fatuous smile, so happy! The silly peasant braid halfway down her back!

Oh Whitey. Forgive me. I am so ashamed.

“Mrs. McClaren? The X-ray looks good.”

Jessalyn stared at the nurse with such startled disbelief that the woman was obliged to repeat what she’d said adding, “Must’ve been you moved, or breathed at the wrong time, the first time.”

What was this? Good news?

So stoically she’d been preparing for different news. A biopsy, at least…

In a daze she left Radiology. Could not quite believe that she had been spared a second time.

She’d decided to call Beverly, only. No need to worry the others if it wasn’t necessary. Something about the possibility of breast cancer terrified men in particular—husbands, sons. No need.

Certainly no need to tell Hugo Martinez. She’d agreed to see him that evening for the final time. Whatever had been between them, a small brushfire among dried, desiccated grasses, she’d beaten down.

No need to share such intimate news with him.

Her heart beat rapidly, almost in anger—thinking of him.

Though she recalled, Virgil had mentioned to her, there was a photography exhibit in a new wing of the hospital in which both he and Hugo Martinez had photographs, and so on her way to the parking lot Jessalyn sought out the display titled Healing by Nature.

Quickly seeking Virgil’s photographs, which were landscape scenes probably taken along the Chautauqua River, and Hugo’s, which were more complicated and problematic—three starkly black-and-white photographs of Moroccan children being bathed in some sort of open ditch or stream by a dark-skinned woman. Jessalyn felt a stab of dismay: it was like Hugo Martinez to expect too much of the viewer. You had to think too much, and you had to feel too much, and even then you didn’t know what you were supposed to think and to feel. Other photographs in the exhibit including Virgil’s were much more accessible, familiar and consoling.

And then, headed for an elevator to take her down to the first-floor lobby, Jessalyn saw, or thought she saw, Hugo Martinez striding before her, along a corridor. Like a kick in the heart it was, seeing Hugo when she hadn’t been prepared.

Almost, she was feeling faint. She had determined to cease thinking of Hugo Martinez, essentially. And yet, there he was.

Had to be Hugo, wearing one of his wide-brimmed hats, and a very pale peach-colored, muslin-thin shirt she was sure she recognized, and cargo shorts though it wasn’t a warm day; and the straightness of his back, that seemed exaggerated (though Hugo had told her why: as a boy he’d been horrified by an older male relative who’d developed curvature of the spine in old age); and the way he moved, that was both light-footed and aggressive, seemed to Jessalyn identical with the way Hugo moved when walking swiftly and not obliged to keep a slower pace with another person. For instance, her.

This person Jessalyn followed along the wide white corridor just far enough behind him so that if he turned suddenly to enter a room, or to turn onto another corridor, he couldn’t easily have glanced back and seen her. Forced to walk so quickly Jessalyn felt the braid lightly slapping against her back.

At Oncology, he pushed through swinging doors. Jessalyn stopped in her tracks.

Yet, through a plate-glass window she could see Hugo, or the person she believed to be Hugo Martinez, back to her, leaning over a check-in desk. Blood work? Infusion?

Over the years Jessalyn had accompanied relatives who’d come to the hospital for infusions, chemotherapy. Chemicals so toxic dripping into their veins, nurses wore special gloves to prepare the medication and to administer it through an IV tube.

Jessalyn wondered: Was Hugo having chemotherapy? Or—another sort of infusion? Possibly, a transfusion?

He had not told her. He was fiercely private while seeming very open, frank. Any sort of flaw in himself, as he’d perceive it, he’d been sure to hide.

In that instant Jessalyn felt weak with love for the man, anxious for him. If that was indeed Hugo Martinez—(now walking away from her, toward the farther end of the waiting room)—he would need her, then. As Whitey had needed her, and she had failed to save him. Hugo too would need someone, and she would be the one. If he would have her.

The Last Will & Testament of Virgil McClaren

My earthly goods, I bequeath to Amos Keziahaya. “The rest is silence.”

How exalted it sounded! Laughable.

Yet utterly sincere. If/when Virgil McClaren died, to leave his “estate” to a virtual stranger—in this way confirming his older siblings’ conviction, he was hopeless beyond redemption.

How scandalized they would be! Especially Beverly.

Oh my God—his heir is a black man! How could Virgil do such a thing to us!

Not even American but what-is-it—Nigerian.

COUNTLESS TIMES he’d relived the scene in his cabin.

What had he been thinking! Had he been thinking?

Excruciating embarrassment. Not shame, not exactly, for (in fact) Virgil wasn’t ashamed of being attracted to Amos Keziahaya; but indeed he was embarrassed because Amos had been embarrassed, and had fled from him.

Like a Möbius strip, having to see-again, live-again what he’d done: daring to approach the tall young man, daring to touch his shoulders, lift himself (just slightly, he’d hoped unobtrusively) on his toes in order to kiss Amos’s lips…

Those lips: thick, very dark, startled, astonished and affrighted.

How had Virgil, who lived so much inside his head, who so carefully plotted, calculated, calibrated his moves with others, like a child prodigy–chess champ, how had he done such an impulsive thing, made such a mistake, been so foolish!

Of course, Keziahaya now avoided Virgil. Out of tact, Virgil avoided him, too.

Well, not just tact. Better to avoid altogether than to stalk.

AMOS: I AM SO SORRY. I did not mean it. I acted stupidly. I’d had too much to drink—I should not drink. Ever.

Amos: I am so sorry. Please forgive me. A kind of fever came over me. And I should not drink. I hope—I hope—I hope that we can be friends…

Amos: I am not sorry at all. I am not ashamed or even much embarrassed for having kissed you. Fact is, I think—(do I mean “think”?)—(trying now for once in my stunted life not to be circumspect, i.e., a coward)—that I LOVE YOU.

At least, Whitey would never know.

“GOD DAMN.”

Had he been stung by a hornet? So swiftly, and a tiny red mark in the skin of his upper arm swelling, throbbing pain.

Had to laugh. Served him right. He’d defended the hornets building their nest beneath the barn eaves, a hive now metropolis-sized.

Well, no time now to treat the sting. In his Jeep and on his way.

Almost mid-September and still very hot. Airless-hot. Cicadas screaming by day as by night so his head rang with their desperate cries anticipating their deaths and he’d been too excited most nights to sleep thinking of Amos Keziahaya and when not thinking of Amos thinking of how he was not thinking of Amos, how stoic and resolute, how good: for that good straight heterosexual son his father would have respected if not loved.

Too excited to lie horizontal. Alone.

Something crackling racing through his veins. Shut his eyes and saw himself a bionic man, transparent skin, arteries, nerves, bones, musculature illuminated for teaching purposes.

Fact is, to be alone is to be incomplete. To be rebuffed by the other is to be eviscerated. Unbearable!

When Whitey died, Jessalyn had lost her will to live. If death had been a doorway, and the door open, possibly she’d have stepped through. Her children who loved her had known yet none of them could speak of it. Now their mother had no need of them, she’d found her own way back and her children had had nothing to do with it.

Entrusting yourself to another, as Virgil had never been able to do. Giving your hand to another, hand being held. If he didn’t succeed in killing himself, if this too turned out to be another Virgil-fiasco, he felt a stir of excitement envisioning a sequence of sculpted figures, transparent-skinned, hand-holding.

At the Chautauqua River at Dutchtown. Wasn’t sure what he would do though it would involve water.

Three hundred thousand six hundred dollars he would be leaving to Amos Keziahaya for that was what remained of Whitey’s bequest. Plus the Jeep, odds and ends in the cabin. Plus Virgil’s unsold artworks of which there were at least thirty in his studio or stored in the barn or in a scattering of galleries awaiting purchase.

Last Will & Testament of Virgil McClaren he’d prepared from an abbreviated form online. Scorned the idea of going to a lawyer, squandering money that might better go to an heir. He had not warned Amos—of course. He hoped that it would not be an unpleasant surprise for his friend, to be notified out of nowhere—Amos Keziahaya? You are the sole beneficiary of Virgil McClaren’s estate.

To simplify matters (at least Virgil thought this would simplify matters) Virgil had also named Amos Keziahaya the executor of his estate. He had considered for a short time the notion of leaving some of his artwork to people who admired it—Jessalyn, Sophia, Beverly among others—but decided that that involved too much complication.

Feeling grandiloquent, transfixed. Lines of a favorite Yeats poem came to him as he braked the Jeep to a bucking halt.

IN HOT SUN ON THE BANK of the Chautauqua River. Would think it was the peak of summer except for curled and discolored leaves underfoot.

Feeling reckless, manic. But happy.

Wanting to squeeze Amos’s hand. Don’t feel sorry for me, my friend. Don’t feel guilty! In fact I am happy. Never quite realized—happy.

Sad, never to have squeezed Amos’s hand. He would have been so honored, to have squeezed Amos’s hand.

Sad, Amos wasn’t with him right now. Why wasn’t Amos with Virgil right now?

How did men reach out to one another? Virgil had known the script, awkward as it was, for relating to girls and women who’d meet you halfway, or more than halfway for they knew the script too. But another man—even in this era of gay liberation, gay consciousness, he could not quite imagine.

Striding along the embankment of the river outside Dutchtown. No one knew he was here, or anywhere. And when the news came to them they would say—Oh but why was Virgil there?

Had to be an accident. Otherwise, unthinkable.

Hadn’t left a note. Only just Last Will & Testament of Virgil McClaren on his worktable which you could interpret in any way you wished.

Virgil had signed the document in the proper places, and dated it. He’d asked friends at the farm to witness his signature. What is this we’re signing, Virgil, they’d asked, looks like a contract; and Virgil said just a form he’d downloaded from the Internet, nothing important or of significance to their lives.

They’d signed, without further questions. Which was why he’d asked Conner and Jake and not someone else.

It was the kind of glaring-white day you might toss away your life like a handful of pebbles. Out into the shining water.

Well, the Chautauqua River might appear shining, at a little distance. Closer up, the water was murky like muddied thinking.

Swaths of the river had actually burst into flame forty years before, downriver from Hammond industry. Power plant, chemical plants. Nitrogen. Local TV news had played and replayed the astonishing sights. Too young for the spectacle, Virgil had collected photographs of it in high school for one of his science-art projects.

Long ago. Lonely kid he’d been. Arrogant, secretive.

If guys had jeered faggot at him, he had not heard. And if he’d heard, something in him deflected the insult as a superhero deflects a lethal blow with a negligent gesture of his superhero hand.

Along the riverbank was a faint path among rushes, cattails, detritus which he found himself following for the first/last time in his life. There was novelty in this!

Amos: If we could do all things for the last time even as we did them for the first time, what joy.

On the farther shore was a makeshift beach where children appeared to be playing. Virgil shaded his eyes: too far to see.

Too far for them to see him.

By slow degrees making a deep-guttural throbbing sound, a barge from downriver. On the path Virgil stood staring, waiting for the words to come to him.

Swim to that barge. Grab hold, and be hauled to freedom.

First time/last time. Hurry!

An absurd idea, Virgil thought. The last thing any sane person would want to do.

Pulling off his shirt, kicking off his sandals. Good that he was wearing shorts, not his khakis.

Walking now swiftly along the embankment. Couldn’t remember when he’d bathed last and so he smelled to himself like a goat. But he was happy! Damned happy.

Virgil McClaren happy at last.

And then he was wading in the murky water at the shore. Always a surprise to step into water, its unexpected stolidity, coarseness where there should be transparency and airiness. Its surface was seed-flecked, oily. Beneath, almost cold.

Surprised too at the soft-mud bottom beneath his bare feet. And how vulnerable the soles of his feet. Taking a deep breath (for he was beginning to shiver) and boldly pushing himself out and beginning to swim trying not to be wounded by Thom’s scorn Jesus! Call that swimming that’s dog-paddling.

His intention had been to throw himself bravely into the water but he had not anticipated the river’s swift current. Rough fingers grabbing at him not knowing him and how special he was in the universe.

Don’t give up don’t despair

I will come to you

I am coming to you

I will save you

Frantic swimming. Desperate. Swallowing mouthfuls of water.

No one saw. No one was aware. His cruel older brother stared in silence, appalled.

The enormous barge was passing at a distance of about twelve feet. Waves swept over him, rocking his weakened body. Was he in danger of being caught up in an engine?—the vibrating noise had become deafening. But there was a cable dragging in the water behind the barge, thick, coarse, badly frayed, made of some synthetic material like needles tearing at the flesh of his grasping hands. With bizarre clarity as if his skull had been sawed open to admit the most intense light Virgil thought—I can hang on. This is the right way. Thinking he would hang on to the cable until the barge pulled him downriver to oblivion but then, the pain was excruciating, he could not hold on to the damned cable long enough to be drowned in the barge’s wake, that had been a blunder. Whatever he’d meant to do, fact is he had no clear idea what he’d meant to do, thinking he would simply act, he would plunge in and give himself up to chance. He owed Whitey that, to give himself up to chance. But his hands were being torn raw and he had to release the cable choking and sputtering in waves behind the barge like rollicking laughter.

He’d been hauled beneath the bridge. He may have screamed for help. Here the river was narrower, shallower—broken concrete and rusted iron rods had been dumped in the water, near the shore. Scarcely conscious of what he did he managed to grab hold of a massive chunk of concrete with his bleeding hands.

At last, he crawled onto the shore too exhausted to stand. The folly of his swimming to the barge, being dragged by the razor-sharp cable, had not lasted beyond twelve minutes but it would require many more minutes to recover.

“Hey man? You OK?”—someone called to him from the path above.

Young guys, bare-chested. Staring at Virgil in amazement he was still alive.

Mumbled he was all right but the guy on the path came closer. Saying, “You don’t look good, man. Maybe we should call 911?”

But no, Virgil was all right. Managed to sit up, choking and spitting out filthy water.

He was able to talk the kids out of calling 911 to summon an ambulance. No, no! Last thing he wanted was an emergency room.

In crazy triumph his heart beat—Well—you are still alive. Amos won’t know. No one will know.

Allowed them to help him up the embankment. Help him back to his Jeep. Didn’t fend them off when a girl provided him with wads of tissue for his bleeding hands.

“Hey, man—here.” One of the boys tossed Virgil’s shirt and sandals at him, which he’d left on the embankment some distance away.

Returned to the farmhouse on Bear Mountain Road where (of course) no one had the slightest awareness he’d even been gone. Exhausted, nauseated, sunburnt but no one would see. His shorts stank of river water. His matted hair stank. But there was Last Will & Testament of Virgil McClaren where he’d left it on his worktable.

He’d drowned, but not died. Died, but was still here.

Was that the best? The better? He would see.

Warning

Coming up close behind her car, startlingly close in the rearview mirror, a vehicle driven by a man whom she couldn’t see clearly and suddenly she was frightened, was this aggressive person going to strike the rear of her car, was she going too slowly along Old Farm Road where the speed limit was forty-five miles an hour except at curves where twenty miles an hour was posted, was the (male) driver angry with her, was she in danger from his anger?—pressing on the gas pedal to accelerate, to appease whoever it was behind her, give him room to pass her if he wished, she had no intention of making an impatient driver more impatient by keeping her speed down in this quasi-rural area where there was little traffic at this hour of the day; and within seconds hearing the wail of a siren, for the vehicle close behind her was a police cruiser, possibly unmarked, she hadn’t seen, would not see in her alarm and confusion.

Sophia braked the car to a stop. She could not imagine what she’d done wrong. A beige-uniformed officer was leaning close to her window saying in a loud voice, “Ma’am, lower your window.”

Then, “Turn off your engine, ma’am.”

Rapidly his eyes ran over Sophia. He was beefy-faced, heavyset, though relatively young, in his mid-thirties perhaps. He wore a brass badge, leather belt, holster. He identified himself as an officer with the North Hammond Police Department. His manner was both hostile and bemused as if he hadn’t been aware that the driver of the car he’d stopped was an attractive young woman and this was an additional surprise, a kind of bonus.

“In a kind of hurry, ma’am, weren’t you? Speed limit is twenty and you were doing thirty-two.”

Sophia tried to explain: she’d accelerated her car because he’d come up so close behind her, she’d been afraid that his vehicle would hit her, she hadn’t realized that he was a police officer…

“Right, ma’am. You didn’t ‘realize.’”

“But I—”

“Twelve miles over the speed limit, ma’am. Also your vehicle was weaving.”

Weaving? Sophia had no idea what that meant.

“I’ve been following you for a mile or more and you’ve been all over the road, ma’am. Erratic driving plus speeding.” By this time it was clear that the police officer’s enunciation of ma’am was derisive, jeering.

“License please, ma’am.”

“Y-Yes, officer.”

Sophia’s heart was beating rapidly. She had not ever in her life been pulled over for any traffic violation. She had not even been ticketed for a parking violation.

Speeding, weaving, erratic driving—these charges could not be right. She’d been driving no differently than she always drove on Old Farm Road which was so familiar to her she might have driven it in her sleep anticipating every driveway and neighbor’s house, every intersection with another road, every curve posted at twenty miles an hour.

Later she would recall that she’d seen the police vehicle in her rearview mirror since she’d left Jessalyn’s house ten minutes before. She’d had no reason to think at the time—That person is following me.

“‘McClaren’—eh? That’s your name?”

“Yes…”

The officer was looking from the photo ID to Sophia’s face with an exaggerated suspicion, or the pretense of suspicion. In a flurry of uncertainty Sophia wondered if her driver’s license had lapsed, if she’d unwittingly violated another law.

“‘McClaren’—and you live at…” Squinting at the address on the driver’s license. “Not on Old Farm Road.”

“No. I don’t live on Old Farm Road…”

“But you were coming from 99 Old Farm Road.”

“Yes, I was visiting my—my mother…”

“Your mother? You were visiting your mother.”

The officer’s voice was flat, derisive. Why was he asking her such a question? Did he know her?—the name “McClaren”?

Sophia explained that she didn’t live at 99 Old Farm Road any longer but she’d used to live there, until she’d moved away; it was her family address, she’d been visiting her mother… Heard herself speaking rapidly, anxiously.

“Car registration please, ‘Soph-ia.’”

“Yes, officer.”

Yes officer. How craven she sounded. How feminine.

Exactly how Jessalyn would act in such a situation: courteous, deferential, frightened but taking care not to show it. Feminine.

From the glove compartment Sophia removed a folder presumably containing auto registration, insurance. She had not so much as glanced into the glove compartment in months. Her fingers had gone cold, her hands had begun to shake.

“Who’s this? ‘John Earle McClaren.’ Not you.”

Sophia explained: the car had been given to her by her father, a few years before. He’d bought a new car for himself, an SUV or rather—this car had been her mother’s, and her father had given her mother the car he’d been driving when he’d bought a new car… In her own ears this tangle of words sounded suspicious, unconvincing.

“It needs to be in your name, ‘Soph-ia.’ You are driving a vehicle registered in the name of another person.” (Had he been about to say a deceased person? Sophia wondered.)

“Is that against the law, officer? I—”

“If you are driving this vehicle, if it is in your possession, you need to have title to the vehicle. You can request transfer of title at the motor vehicle division.”

“But—is it against the law to drive someone else’s car? If they have lent it to you?”

“Gave it to you, you’d said.”

“Well—they just sort of gave me the keys. My own car had worn out, and instead of getting it repaired… I don’t actually know if it was a ‘gift,’” Sophia said, weakly, “—it might have been more of a loan… within the family…”

“Ma’am, step out of the car please. Leave the keys in the ignition.”

“Step out of the car? But—why?”

“I’ve told you, ma’am. Step out of the car now. Right now.”

The police officer was speaking loudly. As if on the verge of anger.

Sophia would recall later this (male) anger just barely held in abeyance, which it was her responsibility as a detainee and a woman to forestall.

She was trembling badly. There were no witnesses along this stretch of Old Farm Road. The police officer could do virtually anything to her he wanted to do, she could not prevent it.

McClaren. 99 Old Farm Road. The officer had been stationed there, waiting for her. For someone who lived at that house to turn out of the driveway.

Surely he knew the names: John Earle McClaren, Thom McClaren.

“Pop the trunk. Now.”

Sophia obeyed. Was a warrant required, to search a car? She could not think. There was nothing in the trunk that violated any law—was there? A spare tire, recycled grocery bags? A pair of muddied hiking shoes she’d forgotten to bring into the house after a recent hike with Alistair at Weeping Rock…

Awkwardly like one at attention Sophia stood beside her car staring straight ahead. She did not dare look around. She could hear the squawk of a police radio. She could hear the officer rummaging in the trunk, forcing something open. But only the spare tire was beneath the panel…

“’Soph-ia’—what’s this?”

Swaggering back to stand close beside her the officer held out to show her, on the palm of his hand, several dried, part-shredded yellow leaves.

“I—I don’t know. Leaves…”

“What kind of ‘leaves’?”

“From a—tree? Something that blew into the trunk when it was open…”

“‘Blew into the trunk when it was open’—eh?”

Were these—oak leaves? White oak? Sophia had taken botany as an undergraduate, she should have known. But this was so ridiculous! In the agitation of the moment, the uniformed man looming over her, nearly touching her, in fact brushing against her, she could not think clearly.

He was sniffing at the leaves. Crumpled the leaves in his fist to further pulverize them, and sniffed noisily. Held out his hand for Sophia to sniff, also.

“What’s it smell like, Soph-ia?”

“I d-don’t know… Nothing.”

“‘Nothing’—eh? That’s how you’d identify this?”

“I think those are just oak leaves…”

“How’d they get in your trunk, again?”

“They must have blown in, from—from a tree…”

So frightened Sophia was stammering like a child. Brain flailing for words.

He was laughing at her. Teasing, tormenting.

He could not be serious about this—could he?

Yet, Sophia was in terror that the officer would handcuff her.

Suspicion of—narcotics? That was not implausible.

And what did police officers do next, after handcuffing?—if the suspect “resisted” he would have the right to throw her down onto the hood of her car, or onto the ground. He would have the right to overpower her, press his knee into the small of her back, make her scream with pain. She knew, she knew very well, since Whitey’s death all of the McClarens knew, far more than they wished to know of the virtually unchecked behavior of local law enforcement.

(At last a car passed, slowing and then accelerating, and out of sight around a curve. Sophia had not a glimpse of who was driving, if it might be someone who lived nearby, who might recognize her, and help her.)

(But help her—how? Why? Anyone glancing at a young woman standing beside her car, a beige-uniformed police officer questioning her, would probably glance quickly away, and depart. Exactly what Sophia herself would do in such circumstances.)

Trying to calm herself. What law or laws had she violated? Was speeding on this rural stretch of Old Farm Road so serious a violation, she might be arrested? Was she arrested now, without realizing? Being ordered to get out of her car—was that the prelude to an arrest?

Thinking—At least my skin is white. She could not imagine this situation if she were a person of color, a woman of her age, alone in her vehicle on Old Farm Road, vulnerable to the white police officer.

At least too, Sophia was tastefully dressed. Her clothes were quite ordinary, and did not fit her body tightly. No ear- or face-studs, no tattoos. She’d seen the man’s eyes move rudely upon her, down to her feet and up again, legs, hips, breasts, face. The expression in his face suggested that he was not so impressed, he’d seen better.

“Stay right there, ‘Soph-ia.’ I’ll be right back.”

In his mouth Soph-ia sounded salacious, dirty.

Very still Sophia stood beside her car. Her mouth had gone dry. She did not dare look after the swaggering man now calling in to his precinct. That static-y squawk of a radio. A sound of derisive laughter. She was feeling weak, helpless. Tears of frustration stung her eyes. And how ironic: in recent weeks she’d come to think of herself as regaining some of her strength, that had drained from her at the time of Whitey’s death.

Though he’d (evidently) found nothing illegal in her car the officer was making a show of investigating the driver. Checking her ID, auto registration. Perhaps the pretense was that the vehicle might be stolen. Or, Sophia McClaren had warrants against her name. Or, “Sophia McClaren” was not the person she claimed to be but an imposter.

If he wished the officer could plant narcotics in her vehicle. In her handbag. It had become a running subject in local media, the corruption of local police departments, their intimidation of persons of color and of women, rape of juveniles taken into custody, brutality and threats of murder. The victims were almost exclusively persons of color, white-skinned citizens were rarely targeted and could not imagine what all the fuss was over.

She’d been surprised, Jessalyn had told her about attending a meeting of SaveOurLives. In a black church in inner-city Hammond—her mother!

Never less than once a week Sophia drove to her mother’s house. She didn’t feel comfortable with Jessalyn coming to see her in the rented house in Yardley where Alistair Means stayed with her when he could, in the final, melancholy stage of an acrimonious divorce.

When she was away from Alistair, Sophia was sure that she loved him. When she was with him, or rather when he was with her, distracted, not so affectionate as he’d been at the start of their relationship, she found herself thinking I have been biding my time. Until I am stronger.

Still, she loved him. She had never loved any man (apart from her father) so much as she’d loved Alistair Means.

He was the only person to whom Sophia had spoken of what was most crucial in her life. The only person to whom she’d confessed that her childhood, her family life, her relationship with her mother in particular had been so intense for her, so happy, it was difficult for her to adjust to an adult life.

(Even a sexual adult life. But Sophia hadn’t told Alistair that.)

He’d said, she should count herself most fortunate. But maybe Sophia wasn’t remembering everything of her early life.

Yes of course!—she’d readily agreed. (Sophia was a scientist: she knew just enough about the human brain to know that very little could be known, and what was “memory” was largely fictitious. But still.) But when she was feeling helpless, hopeless, her thoughts turned inexorably homeward. She could not, somehow, break the spell.

He’d laughed, slightly offended.

Tactlessly adding that he had a daughter almost Sophia’s age who hadn’t had much difficulty breaking the daughter-spell with him.

Ironic too, driving on Old Farm Road less than a half hour before, hopeful about the prospect of (at last) completing her Ph.D. and entering medical school at Cornell. She’d discussed medical school with Alistair who had not very enthusiastically recommended it for her. (Not wanting Sophia to move away, perhaps. But Cornell was less than a two-hour drive from Hammond, they could see each other as frequently as they did now.)

He wanted her to stay with him. He’d been unmoored by the divorce though he had initiated it himself. He’d been speaking wistfully of another chance, another life. Another child.

Another child! Sophia wasn’t sure she’d heard this.

“Ma’am? Here.”

Roughly the uniformed officer handed back Sophia’s driver’s license, auto registration. An air of manly-aggrieved fury radiated from him.

“Thank you, officer…”

“Fuck you thank you. Cunt.”

So quickly the words lashed at her, like a whip striking her exposed skin and lifting away almost in the same gesture. Sophia was too surprised, too shocked, to react; she could not have said what she’d heard, not with certainty.

Blinking back tears she lifted her eyes to his flushed face. His skin was coarse, clay-colored. The olive-dark lenses, behind which the man’s eyes glared.

Why was he so angry with her? Why did he hate her?

Had to be the lawsuit. Had to be the name McClaren. But, Sophia wanted to protest, her family wasn’t suing him.

A man had died. Her father had died. The police had to be held accountable. He should want that, too…

What happened next Sophia could not clearly recall afterward. So shaken by his words she scarcely registered as the police officer seized her hand, yanked her hand down to his groin and against his groin, telling her there was a way she could “make it good”—but Sophia reacted so violently to this, with such panic, pulling frantically away from him, crying as a child might cry, desperately, helplessly, the officer stepped away in dismay, disgust: “Ma’am, shut up. Nobody’s touched you, ma’am.”

It was a fact, Sophia had surprised him, too. Her childlike wail, her utter loss of composure were fearful to him.

“What I could do, ma’am, is issue you a ticket. Thirty-two miles an hour in a twenty-mile-per-hour zone. Erratic driving, ‘weaving.’ I could issue you a ticket but what I’m going to do, ma’am, is issue you a warning.”

He was red-faced, furious. But something seemed to have been decided, he did not hate her quite so much. Almost, Sophia would think afterward, he’d felt sorry for her.

“This time, ma’am. A warning.”

Turning from her, with that air of manly disgust. In a daze of relief Sophia climbed back into her car.

Fumbling as she turned the keys in the ignition. A wave of faintness came over her, nausea. In the rearview mirror she saw the cruiser back away, make a U-turn in the narrow road, and swiftly depart.

She’d been spared. This time.

Shaken with fury. Yet relief. So very tired.

Exhaustion swept over her. This sensation of extreme fatigue, a weakness in her very bones, she recalled from the days just after Whitey died—first the shock, which includes something like disbelief, denial, and then the weariness.

Could not bring herself to drive forty minutes to Yardley where Alistair was to join her that evening. Instead, returned home. That is, the McClaren home.

Entering the house through the kitchen, the very doorway through which she’d left scarcely an hour before, with a kiss from Jessalyn and an airy goodbye OK, Mom, love you. I’ll call you.

And there was Jessalyn startled at the sight of her, and Sophia moving into her mother’s arms sobbing, she’d been so frightened, so lost control of herself and so cowardly, and Jessalyn said, “Sophie dear, what on earth has happened to you? Sophie, you are breaking my heart”—for Sophia could not bring herself to tell Jessalyn what had happened, the police officer, the threat, the warning; it would be too upsetting for Jessalyn, and could not possibly do any good; if Sophia told anyone, it would be Thom.

Explaining to Jessalyn that she’d been under strain lately. Hadn’t wanted to worry her. Yes, it had to do with Alistair—but no, he hadn’t precipitated this, it wasn’t his fault, only Sophia’s fault. She could not return to Yardley that night.

Of course, Sophia was welcome to stay with her mother. Though it was now meant to be a guest room her old room remained more or less unchanged—bookshelves crammed with her girlhood books, a scattering of college texts. She would call Alistair when he arrived in Yardley. She would explain to him that she did not think that she could remain with him… She would move to Ithaca. She would make the break, to medical school. She could afford the cost now, without taking out loans or asking Jessalyn for help. Or Alistair.

This call lasted some time. And after it ended, soon then the phone rang again, and it was Alistair in an agitated state wanting to talk further, and wanting to see her, and Sophia said yes, but not just then. “Not tonight. Not now. But soon.” And, “I am so sorry, Alistair. Please understand.”

He would understand, she knew. Eventually, it would come to seem to him, as to her, inevitable.

From the start their relationship had been asymmetrical: his strength, her weakness. And Sophia’s weakness in time the greater strength, exerting its gravitational pull.

She would always love him, she told him. She would always be grateful for how he’d helped her, this past year…

After she hung up Jessalyn knocked at the door, very gently.

“Sophie? What has happened? Have you been talking with Alistair?”

Sophia came to her mother, to be comforted. Her face was dissolving like wet tissue.

“Are you breaking up with him, dear? What has happened?”

Breaking up sounded odd, awkward out of Jessalyn’s mouth, as if she were quoting from a language not her own.

Sophia nodded yes, in such a way that indicated she didn’t want to talk about it just now. Jessalyn would respect her wishes and would not question her.

Later, Sophia woke to hear voices in the corridor outside her room. Not close, at a little distance. Jessalyn’s voice, and a male voice, conferring.

Was this Hugo Martinez? A comfort in this, the adult voices. Speaking about her. Concerned for her.

That night in the old house Sophia slept, not a dreamless sleep, but a sleep of great relief after exhaustion, and waking from time to time in the night taking solace in immediately knowing which bed this was, where she was.

The Murderous Heart

Incredible! Was this—malpractice? Foote declaring she was giving her client Lorene McClaren the boot.

Saying in that voice of prissy adult reasonableness, “I don’t think that we can continue our sessions, Dr. McClaren. If you persist in this intensity of hostility.”

Intensity of hostility. Seated across from the therapist on a sofa that appeared cushioned but was in fact haunch-hard as rawhide, Lorene leaned forward, disbelieving. This was—unfair! Unjust! Unprecedented! Unprofessional—Lorene was sure.

“Dr. Foote, this is very surprising—and very disappointing. You are being paid—very well-paid—to offer ‘therapy’ to persons who need your help. I—I—I don’t understand, I’d thought we were making p-progress…”

Calmly Lorene had begun this statement yet midway her voice began to falter and crumble like shoddy caulking.

“I’d thought—I mean, isn’t this the tacit promise—that, even if a patient is impossible, the therapist is obliged to tolerate her?—I mean, to continue to treat her?—as in a—a—as in a…” Lorene’s voice trailed off weakly.

Grudgingly Foote supplied the elusive word: “‘Family’—? Is that what you are trying to say, Dr. McClaren?”

“I—I’m not sure… Did I say ‘family’? Or—I think—well, look!—you were the one, Dr. Foote. You said ‘family.’”

Suffused with triumph like a shot of adrenaline to the heart Lorene reared to her feet and (of her own volition: not because she’d been insulted) left Foote’s office.

Not slammed but forcibly shut the door.

Not coming back. No.

RIDICULOUS! Family.

Lorene already had a sister, thank you. In fact, two of them which was more than one too many.

Already had a family. One was enough.

What was Foote thinking? Did the therapist think, or did pseudo-clever paradoxical remarks issue from that pike mouth like robo-calls? Client utters X, therapist replies Y. There was probably an online course for therapists with columns of these rote replies.

In any case, Lorene wasn’t returning to Foote. Months of therapy and money wasted. Enough.

A close call, too: What if someone in the family, nosy Beverly for instance, had found out? And, if he’d been alive to be embarrassed by his favorite daughter, Whitey.

NOT AN ACCIDENT, EXACTLY. Incident.

The blame wasn’t Lorene dozing off at the wheel but weather.

Eruption of rain, heavy draperies of rain, and suddenly then hailstones tumbling, bouncing, frolicking like crazed mothballs on the hood of the Saab, reducing her visibility to scarcely the length of that hood, and then, even as she drew breath to scream, the handsome steel-colored Saab purchased with Whitey’s bequest skidded out of its lane and across pavement like a loosed bumper-car in an amusement park as horns blared with murderous intent… Oh Daddy! Help me.

Covered in bruises from the God-damned air bag that had detonated in the driver’s seat, aching for weeks, with a lump on her forehead and acid burns on her hands, half-choking in her effort to cough up the black phlegm that had coagulated in her lungs, she’d felt a (desperate, craven) need to see Foote twice a week: Fridays, but also Tuesdays. She’d used up her twelve insured sessions with Foote by the time of the accident—that is, incident—and was now, pitiable expression, paying out of pocket.

Paying by check, $215 per session, to this person who called herself M. L. Foote, PsyD.

(And Foote was cashing the checks, too. Lorene, who had a minor obsession about balancing her bank accounts precisely, keeping records both online and on paper, saw how the therapist never failed to endorse those checks!)

Would’ve walked away from this ridiculous charade months ago. Except—somehow—if but inadvertently—Foote did manage to say, or to suggest, or to prod Lorene into thinking, enough sensible things each session to make the therapy seem, if not worthwhile, the only alternative to what Lorene had come to think of as the quagmire of her life.

Well, she hadn’t managed to kill herself on the Hennicott Expressway, at least. These close calls would be a secret from the rest of the McClarens, too.

Oh but her poor, plucked head—one of those meek hen’s heads from which other hens have pecked all her feathers preparatory to pecking her to death! So ashamed.

The trichotillomania had not cleared up, despite Foote. For a while it had seemed to be getting less severe, less compulsive, and she and Foote had been (naively) optimistic, but then Mark Svenson had behaved so astonishingly badly, at about the time of the accident, which had been at about the time of North Hammond’s revised-lowered ranking in New York State, and shortly after the first anniversary of Whitey’s hospitalization, that Lorene had succumbed anew to her affliction though the hairs on her head were now so piteously short, and so sparse, and her fingernails so bitten, it was difficult to get hold, to yank.

Add to this, bleeding cuticles. Grinding molars in the night that left her jaws aching by day. Chronic constipation of both bowels and brain! Couldn’t Foote see, her client was approaching a crisis?

Personal, professional. Spiritual.

Foote could not kick her out now! Abandon her now!

AFTER WEEKS OF HESITATION, DENIAL, she’d told the therapist in excruciating detail of Mark Svenson’s deceit. She’d told Foote about the shameless slut Rabineau. Loyals vs. rebels. Friends vs. foes. How she lay in bed grinding her back teeth tallying up sides, furious and exhausted. Could not trust anyone! Young ingrates in their twenties whom Principal McClaren had hired now slandering her behind her back, siding with senior-faculty adversaries, posting cruel innuendos and insults on the Internet.

Tried to explain to Foote: she could no longer trust anyone at North Hammond. Once it had been a nasty little knot of students who’d opposed her authority (She-Gestapo—felt like nostalgia now)—now it was many in the faculty, a honeycomb of rot.

Recording her on their iPhones. Surreptitiously taking (unflattering) pictures to be posted online.

Could not bring herself to contemplate the filthy and actionable things said of her. It was hell, a living hell. It was a parallel universe, the Internet. And it never went away.

All this, she had to make Foote realize. Desperate to make Foote realize.

Wisps of hair, with bloody roots, sent in an envelope to Foote with an advance check for December. Look Foote what you made me do.

Except she’d typed wrongly: Look what we made me do.

AS SHE’D THOUGHT, FOOTE AGREED to take her back. Of course!

“We will think of it as probationary, Dr. McClaren. But you must not bring hostility into our sessions.”

AND THEN, STUNNING NEWS. Full-time North Hammond faculty dared to stage a rebellion: met in secret, after-hours, off-campus, to cast a vote of no confidence in their principal.

The results were emailed to Lorene in so cunning a way, through an anonymous server, she received the news with no warning, seated at 6:00 A.M. at her home computer about to scroll through the schedule of her upcoming day.

Dear Dr. McClaren. We, the full-time faculty of North Hammond High School, have not felt free to express our dissatisfaction with the several repressive, undemocratic, and unprogressive decisions you have forced upon us in recent months. Therefore, we have felt ourselves forced to…

What? What? What? Lorene stared in disbelief. Skimmed the lengthy document, began to reread, then in a fury deleted the entire thing, an obscenity flung into TRASH.

EXPLAINING TO FOOTE WHY her eyes leaked tears though she was not crying.

She knew, she told Foote, that Mark Svenson was one of those behind this collective stab in the back. Young ingrate spreading lies about her, slandering her, the very person who’d advanced his career.

First, he’d come often to see Lorene in her office on the pretext of having a question for her, an idea for his classroom. Shamelessly he’d fawned, flirted, offered to drive her to a professional conference in Albany. Next, hearing of a trip Lorene was, at that time, only just considering, he’d strongly hinted that he would like to travel with her to Bali. He could “help carry luggage”—he’d said. Then later, when he’d become involved with the slut Rabineau, and the two of them were sneaking into empty classrooms and closets to have sex, he’d pretended that he hadn’t led Lorene on, there’d been a “misunderstanding” between them.

Too-literal-minded Foote interrupted to ask: Had Lorene begun to book for the trip? Bought plane tickets yet?

No! With a savage grimace Lorene indicated to the therapist that that wasn’t the point she was making. The point was betrayal.

Also, age.

Like a flashing comet Lorene’s (thirty-fifth) birthday had come and gone. No one had remembered it (except her mother, which was sweet of Jessalyn, but tedious) and already she was plunging into her thirty-sixth year. Beyond that, forty. Beyond that, the grave.

At this, Foote, on the farther side of whatever murky hinterland lay between late forties and early sixties, frowned.

Good! Any reaction at all was good, in zombie-face.

But Foote ruined the moment by asking, in that faux-reasonable way of hers that so provoked Lorene: “Aren’t you exaggerating all this, Lorene?—I mean, Dr. McClaren. Forty is hardly so very proximate to the grave.”

Patiently Lorene tried to explain: age was not the subject, like booking tickets for Bali. The crisis in her life—that was the subject.

She’d come to think that it was related to the fall/winter season. Pitiless shortening of each day’s light. Summertime she’d been fine—more or less. But as dread October melted into murky November and next was the promise of December like an eyedropper of anthrax in a woodland spring, the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year.

“Dr. Foote, I am afraid that—that—d’you know that little black dog of Goya, that’s about to slip over the edge of the world?—that is me, in the dark winter. I’m so afraid.”

Foote seemed contrite, to see her obstinate client so humbled.

Pushed a box of tissues in Lorene’s direction, tactfully averting her eyes as Lorene wept noisily into a Kleenex.

THIS NEW COMPULSION, OH DAMN!—grinding her molars in the night in her bed until her jaws ached with fatigue as if she’d been berating her ungrateful faculty in some dank subterranean place throbbing with furnace heat. And there came a hand to touch her cheek, to console.

Daddy?

Yes, Lorene-y. But you have got to stop, you know.

Stop what, Daddy? Tell me.

Your murderous heart.

FOOTE HAD ADVISED HER to write down her dreams, at least fragments of dreams, that made an impression on her.

Fuck Foote! Who had time for such garbage?—Lorene was livid to think the woman imagined her so idle, so replete with time to squander, she could sit on the edge of her bed like a bourgeois neurotic in a Woody Allen film jotting down “dream-fragments” of no more significance or value than puff-balls of dust under a bed. So she hadn’t. Hadn’t had time. Until now.

Murderous heart.

Oh, what did Whitey mean?

“DR. McCLAREN? Call from Dr. Langley.”

Not good news. Notably, Iris averted her eyes.

Summoned to meet with the superintendent of Hammond public schools all the way downtown at the Schools Building.

Not like the first time Lorene had been so summoned, a celebratory mood when she’d learned of her promotion. Lorene, this is coming a few years early. But not, we think, prematurely.

God-damned no-confidence vote. Must be it.

Defiant en route to the meeting but, in person, seeing the expression of disappointment, concern, something like pity in the man’s face as he registered the knitted cap on her head, suddenly tearful, apologetic.

No! She had absolutely no idea why her faculty had voted against her in such a blind self-destructive way.

It was not encouraging, Langley had a folder opened before him on his desktop at which he glanced frowning. Quite a stack of papers there. Had those treacherous sons of bitches provided him with a transcript of their illicit meeting? Had they given him statements, depositions? Nor was it encouraging, an attorney for the public schools was also present. Lorene scarcely glanced at this person, and forgot his name at once.

Questions were asked of Lorene. Words were exchanged. Though she’d broken out in an actual cold sweat—(why did life so frequently, so stupidly, confirm every cliché?)—she was thinking she’d defended herself impressively, convincingly.

What a shock then, low blow to the gut, when Langley said it might be “politic” if Lorene took a leave of absence from North Hammond—“Effective immediately.”

Effective immediately. So stunned, Lorene felt the floor tilt beneath her feet.

Grudgingly then seeing the look in her face Langley amended, “Well. A leave of absence in the spring term?”

Leave of absence. Sliver of ice in the heart.

With as much dignity as she could summon Lorene stammered it would be devastating to her—“Everyone would know.”

“Know what, Lorene? A half-year off, after you’ve been working so hard, would not be so unusual.”

“I think it would be viewed as a punishment, Dr. Langley.” Lorene paused, swallowing. “A humiliation.”

“‘Viewed’—by whom?”

“My faculty. My staff.”

“Why do you care what they think, Lorene? You’ve indicated your contempt for them.”

“I—I have? My contempt?”

“Certainly. It’s written all over your face.”

Written all over your face. Another crude, clumsy cliché. Lorene did indeed feel contempt now, for this fat-faced apparatchik who’d once been her friend and supporter but was now abandoning her.

“You don’t take much care to disguise your contempt, ‘Dr. McClaren.’ We can see.”

We. Was this the royal we?

“In fact you seem to be smirking at me, ‘Dr. McClaren.’ Is something wrong? Do you find this discussion disagreeable?”

Smirking. But Lorene was not!

Trying to explain to him, and to the rudely staring attorney, that if she took a leave of absence so soon, before one was scheduled for her to take, it would seem obvious that she was being punished. Her faculty had voted “no confidence” in her out of spite because she insisted upon excellence, unlike her predecessor.

“But numerous ‘excellent’ teachers signed the letter. How would you explain that?”

“Collusion with the others. Jealousy, spite.”

“But you’ve seen their list of grievances? Some of these are quite convincing.”

Lorene had not seen the list of grievances. She had deleted the lengthy email after a few lines.

“Out of one hundred nine teachers at North Hammond, ninety-four signed this letter to me, and seven wished to indicate that they were ‘abstaining.’”

Eight teachers were supporting her! She would learn their names, they’d become precious to her and she would never forget them.

Stiffly she said: “They want me transferred to another school. That’s their agenda.”

“Would you consent to a transfer, Lorene? Would you prefer that to a leave of absence?”

“No! North Hammond is the outstanding high school in the county, because of my efforts. I refuse to be driven away.”

“A transfer might be in everyone’s interests. There will be an opening for an assistant principal at Yardley High School next fall. I think you would be ideal.”

Assistant principal. A demotion. Lorene did indeed feel the floor tilt beneath her feet.

Soon then, the meeting ended. Lorene had much more to say but could not draw breath to speak and found herself, panting, on the verge of hyperventilating, in the corridor outside Langley’s office.

And that man had been a friend of Whitey’s, in the old days! God damn, she would never forgive him.

FINGERS NUMB, could hardly locate hairs to pluck inside the pathetic skullcap.

Cement in her guts shifting to scalding-hot lava demanding to be evacuated. At once.

PANICKED CALLING FOOTE IN THE NIGHT. Knowing the therapist wouldn’t answer her phone yet had to call for she’d been wakened from sleep by Whitey touching her face another time, sternly rebuking her murderous heart.

Emergency session with Foote scheduled just a few hours later. The therapist seemed now to be regarding her difficult client with concerned eyes.

Worried that Lorene might commit suicide? Worried that it might reflect upon her?

“…not normal. These dreams in which Daddy appears. It just isn’t like him. If you knew him—you’d know. It is not.” Pause.

“…once said, ‘Forgiveness is beside the point. Anyone you’ve hurt will never forgive you.’ But now Daddy seems to be feeling differently. Now—Daddy seems to be chiding me.” Pause.

“…not jealous, Doctor. Not a jealous bone in my body. If Mark Svenson and that woman have no more dignity than to make themselves an object of lurid gossip, that’s their concern.” Pause.

“…worried about my mother, though. Since my father’s death she has become emotionally fragile. She has a ‘man friend’—(I know, I’ve told you about this ‘Hugo,’ Doctor—he doesn’t go away)—who coerces her into doing things she’d never have done when Daddy was alive. This awful man has actually braided her hair! She looks like an Indian squaw half her age. She never wears nice clothes any longer, only jeans and sweaters and ‘native costumes’ when they go out—to ‘art’ movies. Daddy hated ‘art’ movies. This Hugo reputedly makes Mom go on hikes with him. They were seen in Pierpont Park, and at Weeping Rock. He has taken her to a sports store and made her buy hiking boots. My mother! —hiking boots. Mom made a pathetic joke of it, telling me how her friend forces her to lace up her own boots, which requires some skill, and he only helps her if she becomes hopelessly confused. Sometimes they even hike in the rain! Hugo has taken her out in our canoe, on the lake near our house. Our mother has always been scared to death of boats. He thinks it’s ‘good for Jessalyn’ to drive a car when they’re together. Daddy never let Mom or anyone else drive any car he was in. To Daddy, Mom was like a princess, or an invalid. It was a kind of foot-binding, I suppose. Their marriage. Not for me, but some women prefer such relationships. As there are women who support female genital mutilation.” Pause.

(Lorene was breathing quickly, incensed. Not certain if she was incensed by Hugo Martinez’s hold over their mother or by foot-binding, about which she knew just enough to be appalled and contemptuous at females who let themselves be so mutilated.)

(Glancing over at Foote who was looking grim. Most women at the thought of female genital mutilation feel nauseated or faintness but zombie-Foote seemed to be taking this in stride.)

“…definitely, Mom isn’t herself. Daddy would scarcely recognize her. He’d have made her color her hair—he wouldn’t have wanted a wife who looked her age. He’d be just sickened by this Hugo—looking like Che Guevara. Daddy hated Communists. If we were a Mafia family we’d know what to do. We wouldn’t be wringing our hands and sniveling. My brother Thom was supposed to talk to Hugo, put pressure on him, offer him money to go away but seems like Thom has lost interest, he’s obsessed with this futile lawsuit…” Pause.

(Had Lorene told Foote about the lawsuit against the Hammond PD? Maybe not. Maybe now wasn’t the time. Lorene’s therapy was supposed to be focused on her.)

“…nightmare since Daddy died. Nothing has been right. The family is broken into pieces like the big bang—flying away from one another at the speed of light. Now ‘Hugo’ is in our lives trying to marry our mother and take her from us. He’s always traveling to places like China, India, Africa, something terrible could happen to her there and Hugo would inherit half the property if they are married—that’s the law in New York State. Well, good luck to ‘Hugo’ budging our mother from that house!” Pause.

“…not jealous, Doctor. Why are you looking at me like that?”

THERE CAME A SHIMMERING PRESENCE she’d been given to believe would be Langley, the schools’ superintendent who’d had a change of mind, and had totally reinstated her; yet, when she could see his face more clearly, it was Whitey.

Want to help you, Lorene-y. All the time in the world to help you now. I regret I didn’t see where you were headed while I was—well, you know, alive.

You were not a mean-spirited little girl. I don’t think so. There was a wrong turn, maybe I was to blame. I remember your mother gripping my hands one day, you couldn’t have been more than eleven years old, and Jessalyn was trying not to cry saying Whitey, I have a bad feeling about our middle daughter. I think something has gone very wrong.

So I think, dear, it is time for your murderous heart to—stop…

HER FATHER WANTED HER TO DIE.

Her father wanted her to come to him, to join him—in this way Lorene (whom he’d loved most) would be the first, of the McClaren children.

By the cobwebbed logic of night this seemed self-evident. By day, light hurting her eyes, as if she were a moist-white mollusk shivering inside a shell, and that shell pried open to let in a knife-blade of light, it did not seem so self-evident.

“Dr. Foote? I n-need to speak with you.” (When had she begun stammering? All so ridiculous.) “I—I—I am becoming afraid of—what might happen…”

Soon after this frantic call at seven o’clock in the morning, in Foote’s office, shoehorned into a slot between two other clients (whose faces Lorene would resolutely not-see when she arrived and departed, in the hope that they would tactfully not-see hers), Lorene found herself speaking to the therapist in a way that might be called pleading though (Lorene was sure) she had never pleaded with anyone in her life.

Really, she didn’t want to kill herself, she explained to the stiff-faced therapist. No! Really, not! Yet, she understood that it might be better if she did.

And why was that?—Foote inquired.

Because her father had rebuked her. Because her father was disappointed in her. Because her father did not, it seemed, approve of her life any longer, as he’d once had.

And Lorene believed that her “father” in the dream was—actually—in some way—her father?—politely Foote inquired as if in the presence, not of a deranged person, but a fully rational person who in her professional life was the youngest-ever principal at North Hammond High School.

Well, no. But, well—yes… I—I—think so…

Fingers of Lorene’s right hand creeping surreptitiously up inside the snug-fitting knit cap until a stern look from Foote put an abrupt stop to the creeping.

No. Not here. Do not touch your head, face, fingernails. Do not scratch any itch. Breathe, and remain calm.

Behind her desk Foote was sitting with hands clasped over a small hard drum of a belly like a Buddha in mohair vest-sweater, white linen shirt, corduroy trousers. Some sort of Jungian horn-amulet around her neck on a black leather thong. M. L. Foote’s face was long and horsey and grave and yet (Lorene saw for the first time) not an unattractive face; and her hair (Lorene also saw for the first time) was clipped nearly as short as Lorene’s hair had once been in the prime of her life only a year or two ago, like new-mown hay, the hue of scorch laced with white.

Foote was saying that she did not customarily speak in a dogmatic way to clients. Or to anyone, in fact. She did not preach, sermonize, or moralize. But she believed that she could “solve” Lorene’s problem in this way: “You can redeem your ‘murderous heart’ by acting as if you are a good, kind, generous person, Dr. McClaren. You don’t have to be that person to behave in a way your father might have approved. He is instructing you to give up a way of living, not to give up your life.”

Lorene was struck by these words. Unspeakably banal, trite, maudlin, even silly. And yet—to her, thrilling as a door flung open showing the way out of an airless and suffocating interior.

“But, Doctor—”

“No. Don’t say a word. Words are not good for people like you, Dr. McClaren. Just do.”

“‘Do’—what?”

“You will know. Go.”

Though the hour was not quite over Foote gestured for Lorene to depart.

Now then, shivering with excitement and apprehension, fired by the wisdom of Buddhist-Foote, the first hour of the remainder of Lorene’s life:

DETERMINED TO MAKE AMENDS! Very excited now.

Checking in with Foote every hour: Yes. You can do it, Lorene. Have faith.

Long-delayed physical checkup. Cardiologist. Running panting on treadmill. Thought/half-hoped the murderous heart would burst. Then EKG lying flat in refrigerated room in white paper gown, electrodes taped to bony-flat chest.

Oh Daddy! I am so ashamed.

Oh Daddy! I wanted you to be proud of me.

She would endow not one scholarship in his name but two. Three!

All that money, she’d intended to spend selfishly on herself.

John Earle McClaren Scholarship Fund. North Hammond High.

Thought of making amends for last year’s seniors whose college applications she’d sabotaged and for other hard-core student-enemies she’d revenged herself upon over the years but no, maybe not.

Doing good while not being good had its statute of limitations.

“Dr. McClaren—you have a slight heart murmur. But you’ve always had this, yes?”

Did she? Had she? For years Lorene had been avoiding doctors especially gynecologist, cardiologist.

No pelvic exam for her! No Pap smear, mammogram. No thank you.

Likewise, no cardiologist. Better not to know.

Yes maybe… Maybe she did recall—heart murmur.

Examined in this office years ago when she’d been college-age, by another cardiologist, now retired. On bitter-cold windy days she’d had attacks of breathlessness on the hilly campus at Binghamton, rapid heartbeat, fainting. Wanting to tell no one. A physical weakness of which she did not wish to speak even to her parents. Even to Jessalyn.

“…not an abnormal heart condition, only just a ‘murmur’… Otherwise you are…”

Oh. She was?

Icy fingertips. Fatuous smile. Sudden twitch in right eye and moisture flooding both eyes.

Had not expected this news, evidently. Had expected very different news.

“Thank you, Doctor. That—that is good to hear…”

Shaking hands with Dr. Yi in parting. The cardiologist knew that Lorene was a high school principal, may have been impressed. In the ordinary course of her life in Hammond, many were. Quizzically Yi glanced at the knitted cap on Lorene’s head as possibly he’d noticed her lashless eyes and bitten-down nails but was not about to inquire. Asian tact.

In her car in the parking lot immediately called Foote on her cell phone. Good news to share—I guess I will live for a while yet, Doctor!

This dark wintry snow-dusted day she returned home and discovered, on a windowsill in her study, a line of hairs.

In all, twenty-one hairs. Short, stubby. Unmistakably her own.

Oh God. Who’d put them there? And what did it mean?

RETURNED TO FOOTE FOR THE final time.

At least, Lorene wanted to believe it would be the final time.

Thanking Foote for “all you’ve done for me.” And Foote grimacing in a kind of abashed smile.

She’d brought a bottle of wine, Lorene said. To celebrate.

Celebrate?—Foote was looking skeptical.

She’d solved the problem of her life, Lorene said. Like a knotty Zen koan. Or rather, Dr. Foote had solved it for her.

“My father would have wanted me to be a good person, and do good things; though I can’t actually be a ‘good’ person, I can do ‘good things.’ And I have.”

Endowed college scholarships, and (possibly) an endowed sabbatical leave for a teacher at North Hammond—what wonderful ideas, everyone was saying, you could see that they were impressed with Lorene’s sudden generosity if surprised. Best of all, these endowments would be in the name of John Earle McClaren.

“Daddy would have liked that. He wasn’t a vain man but he didn’t believe in false modesty.”

Foote agreed, these were very generous decisions to have made. It is always better to err on the side of generosity than not.

Lorene caught the qualification: err. No idea what that meant.

“Maybe I’ll add the NAACP. That’s a good cause.”

Foote agreed, the NAACP was a very good cause indeed. But Lorene should realize, she was not making out her will.

Making out my will. I am not.

There came an awkward pause. Lorene could not remember what she’d been telling the therapist, that had raised her to such heights. A high-bobbing glittering fountain, now beginning to ebb.

“This doesn’t need to be our last session, Dr. McClaren. I seem to think that you are thinking so, but I am not clear why.”

Because—because I am cured. That’s why!

There was another awkward pause. Lorene was feeling a powerful sensation of grief.

Foote saw, or seemed to see. Discreetly changing the subject: “What about your trip to Bali, Dr. McClaren? Are you leaving soon?”

“N-No. I am not.”

“You’ve changed your plans?”

“I never exactly had plans. It was all—speculation.” Lorene paused, smirking. “Fantasy.” Pause again, rubbing roughly at her nose with the edge of her hand. “Please call me ‘Lorene,’ Dr. Foote. I wish you would.”

“Well—‘Lorene.’ And you can call me ‘Mildred’ if you wish.”

“‘Mildred.’” Lorene spoke wonderingly, uncertainly.

M. L. Foote. Mildred. So that had been it, all along.

“Where had you considered traveling, Lorene?”

“Apart from Bali, probably Bora-Bora. Indonesia. Possibly Thailand.” Her eyes filled with tears.

All seemed so far-fetched now. Vain, futile. No one to accompany her not even her widowed mother. (Lorene had returned to Jessalyn, to plead with her mother to come with her. She’d been certain that, seeing Lorene’s desperation, Jessalyn would give in, as she nearly always did with her children’s requests, but no. Jessalyn had smiled apologetically, and kissed her, and said Lorene, I’m sorry. I just can’t.)

“You weren’t planning to travel with anyone, I think you’d said, Lorene?”

“No. I didn’t say. I—I hadn’t gotten that far in planning.”

There was a pause. Foote smiled, just barely.

Around her neck the therapist was wearing the Jungian-looking amulet on a leather thong. A stone-colored cable-knit cardigan over a white linen shirt with long tight-buttoned sleeves. Black corduroy trousers. On a big-knuckled hand she turned a large dull-silver ring with an opal stone.

“I don’t like to travel with groups, myself. No cruises.”

“No! No cruises.”

“But alone is, well—often too solitary.”

“Yes. Alone is—too solitary.”

“Well.” Foote paused, turning the opal ring around her finger. “I could join you, Lorene. I suppose. For part of the way, at least.”

“J-Join me?”

“For part of the way. Depending on your schedule. Usually I take three weeks off at Christmas, and that part of the Pacific has always intrigued me.”

Just enough of an edge to Foote’s voice signaling to Lorene that, willful as Lorene was, domineering, bossy, and difficult, Mildred Foote was all of these, and more.

“Three weeks is—good for me, too. Thank you.” Lorene heard an odd girlish voice issuing from her throat.

“No thank you is required, Lorene. No one is doing anyone favors.” Foote smiled, barely.

Out of her deep leather bag Lorene brought the bottle of wine to set on Foote’s desk. The last of Whitey’s bottles. From the cellar of the old house, not entirely clean of cobwebs and smelling of damp, grit, stone, dust.

Red wine, that didn’t require cooling. And a corkscrew too, if Foote didn’t have one in her office.

Justice

Almost shamefully, reluctantly she confessed to him: I was threatened, I think.

Not sure. Could not prove it.

What I’m going to do, issue you a warning.

On Old Farm Road it had happened. A lone police officer in a vehicle she’d thought might have been unmarked. Later she would wonder if he’d been off-duty, a Hammond police officer out of his jurisdiction in North Hammond but the man had certainly been in uniform, a beige uniform, wearing a badge and speaking in the bullying voice of law enforcement.

Gliding up close behind her car. Suddenly she’d seen him in the rearview mirror. Panicked that his vehicle would strike hers and force her off the road.

Happened so quickly, couldn’t think. Her reaction was to press down on the gas pedal to get away from him but then she was “speeding”—thirty-two miles an hour in a twenty-mile zone.

So, he stopped her. Put on the siren, pulled her over. Looked as if he was going to give her a ticket, at first.

She’d also been “weaving”—“driving erratically”—he’d claimed. She was sure that this wasn’t true but how could she prove it?

Alone in her car. No one to witness.

If a man is angry, a woman feels she must be to blame.

If a uniformed man, guilty.

Confessing to her older brother Thom whom she’d idolized through childhood: Didn’t know if I should tell you. How you would react. If maybe I’d imagined it, some of it. I mean, that he’d threatened me. Issued a “warning”—knowing who I was.

Whitey McClaren’s daughter. Thom McClaren’s sister.

She’d played and replayed the encounter in her head. Was it the lawsuit? Had the police officer recognized the name on her driver’s license? Or had he been waiting by the house to follow her, guessing she would be a McClaren?

The way he looked at me—the way he spoke to me. How angry he was and how that—really scared me…

Thinking then, maybe it hadn’t been deliberate but just chance.

Maybe this was the way he got his quota of issuing tickets, driving up close behind people who looked vulnerable, for instance women, women driving alone, to goad them into speeding so he could stop them…

Possibly he wouldn’t have done it, dared to do it, if the driver had been male, or someone else had been in the car…

Sophia was normally so soft-spoken and unassertive, so rarely emotional, it was crucial that Thom not be impatient with her, and not interrupt.

He had no doubt, Sophia hadn’t been stopped by chance on Old Farm Road. Thom had been followed by police cruisers since his lawyer had first filed the lawsuit, at least a dozen times he’d seen Hammond PD vehicles gliding up close behind him at fifty-five miles an hour on the Expressway but he’d held his ground, had not panicked and had not been goaded into speeding up or driving “erratically.”

Fuckers. Bastards. He’d have liked to murder them with his bare hands and they knew it.

A matter of time, he’d supposed. Before they harassed him more forcibly as they’d done Azim Murthy.

But Thom McClaren was tougher than the Indian doctor. The tactics they’d used against Murthy would not work against Thom.

Had she told anyone else?—Thom asked.

No. Not anyone.

Not her friend Alistair. Not Virgil. Especially, Sophia didn’t want to frighten their mother.

Good, Thom said. No point in frightening Jessalyn.

Now she was afraid of driving on Old Farm Road, Sophia said. At least, driving alone.

Thom asked, Did he say or do anything else to you?

N-No.

You’re sure? Nothing more than the warning?

No. I mean yes. I’m sure…

Eyes averted, and that look of shame. Thom could not bear to interrogate his sister further.

Had to have been something sexually threatening in such an encounter. But—how to prove? Even if the bastard had dared to touch her, her word against his.

Eleven years between Thom and Sophia, Thom was of another, older generation. He’d felt protective of his youngest sister—his “baby sister”—but scarcely knew her. Virtually never alone with her, or with Virgil. That was the way of growing up in a large family.

Siblings form alliances with one another that are both permanent and shifting. Disagreements, disappointments, feuds, temporary and expedient bonds, shared resentments—over all Thom had been the sibling with whom the others had most often wished to align themselves. But he and Sophia had never bonded even temporarily. That had never happened. And now, Sophia did not seem quite comfortable with him as if she suspected (wrongly) that he was judging her.

So, after their conversation, that evening Thom called Sophia to ask her a few more questions about the encounter with the police officer. More calmly then they spoke, and Sophia told him about her intention to go to medical school (Cornell) and her breakup with Alistair Means whom Thom had met only once and had not seemed to much like (perhaps because Means was older than Thom by several years) though he’d been impressed by the man’s professional reputation. Thom didn’t know how to react to this news except with a murmured expression of sympathy. (Brooke would have known. Women know when to sympathize and when to say Good for you!)

Sophia was saying she was afraid for Jessalyn, out there on Old Farm Road. Jessalyn’s friend Hugo was with her some of the time but not all of the time for (Sophia gathered) Hugo Martinez led a busy life and was often traveling and many days Jessalyn was alone and might be driving her car alone and what happened to Sophia might happen to her or worse yet, a vindictive cop might run her off the road.

Sophia was speaking now rapidly, nervously. Thom assured her, he would protect Jessalyn, and he would protect her.

But how?—Sophia asked.

Thom assured his sister, Trust me.

CALLED THE NEW LAWYER (whose name was Edelstein) and told him that “after due consideration and discussion among the McClarens” he was dropping the lawsuit.

What? Why?—Edelstein asked, astonished.

Because he was afraid for his sister who’d been harassed by a Hammond cop. Because he was afraid for his mother. For his family.

Not for himself, he wasn’t afraid. Fucking police didn’t scare him.

But for his family, which included children as well as their mother Jessalyn who lived alone on Old Farm Road and who was sixty-one years old and vulnerable to intimidation, harassment, threats. The lawsuit wasn’t worth the risk.

Thom spoke flatly, bitterly. A fact was a fact. The bastards had won, Whitey had lost.

Edelstein was confounded. The McClaren family (i.e., Thom McClaren) had initially filed criminal charges against the Hammond Police Department but this move had come to nothing for their sole witness had refused to cooperate and so, following the advice of Thom’s previous attorney, they’d decided to file a civil suit where the likelihood of a decision in their favor was much higher. In itself this had been an admission of defeat, Thom believed. Yet not total defeat. Not yet!

In their relationship of just a few months it had been Edelstein who’d warned Thom that the civil case was “winnable” but could drag on for years and never be resolved as Thom wanted. City of Hammond attorneys would postpone and procrastinate and lose documents and at last offer a (low, insultingly inadequate) cash settlement but no public apology or disciplinary measures against the defendants Schultz and Gleeson; he had warned Thom, and had not even needed to suggest how much this was costing Thom (who was paying the legal fees himself), and yet Thom had insisted upon continuing, persevering. He wouldn’t give the bastards the satisfaction of quitting, Thom said. Liked to think that Schultz and Gleeson were at least preoccupied by the lawsuit, might fantasize being found guilty of manslaughter, malfeasance of duty, misconduct, their faces blazoned in the media as corrupt cops even as John Earle McClaren’s face was highlighted as a former Hammond civic leader who’d been a victim of police brutality.

These months, Thom had insisted. And now, Thom had changed his mind.

Repeating, he couldn’t risk it. Once the police were your enemies it was finished. If you won, you lost. Eventually.

Thom told Edelstein how in the rearview mirror of any vehicle he drove there was often a close-trailing police cruiser. Or could be an unmarked police vehicle. You never knew, and you could not know. Of hundreds of local police officers there might be a small cadre of less than a dozen out to get you. A few bad apples was the preferred metaphor. But it required only a very few, only one or two, to precipitate disaster.

Many times Thom had wanted to pull his vehicle onto the side of the Expressway and to engage with whoever was following him. He’d wanted to confront the enemy. His heart beat hard in fury. But he knew better than to fall into the trap of playing their game, daring to defy armed officers who were trained in beatings and choke holds, overpowering their adversaries within seconds. He would win in the courtroom, Thom believed. If he persevered.

In fact, interest in Thom McClaren waxed, waned. The Hammond PD had other enemies and these included recently disruptive black activists and a few leftist politicians. They had become police targets, more consistently than the McClarens.

Edelstein was asking Thom if Hammond cops had openly threatened his sister and Thom said, Openly? How openly d’you want? The bastard didn’t shove a gun in her face. No.

Only one cop. Might’ve been a Hammond cop out of his jurisdiction.

For all Thom knew, the cop who’d given his sister a “warning” could have been Gleeson or Schultz. Could have been a relative of either man. Generations of cop families in the Hammond PD, that protected one another’s backs and never but never informed on one another.

Yes, Thom had spoken with the Hammond chief of police. He’d spoken with the Hammond mayor. He’d spoken with city politicians. These men and their cohorts were respectful to Thom and respectful of Whitey’s memory and clearly troubled by what had happened to Whitey but they were not in positions to antagonize the powerful police union that was a perpetual adversary when contracts were negotiated. Threat of a police strike kept city officials in line.

Edelstein advised, wait a few weeks. There might be a development. Thom?

Wait a few weeks. Thom considered.

Then, OK. Three weeks I will wait. And if anybody gets killed you’re the one who gets sued.

Jesus, Thom! What a—

Thom broke the connection. No need to hear the startled lawyer chide—What a thing to say.

AFTER A FEW DRINKS at the Holland Street bar near the riverfront where no one knew him he called Jessalyn on his cell phone to tell her it was over.

At first Jessalyn hadn’t seemed to know what Thom meant. Or had not heard him clearly amid the noise at the bar.

Over—?

Suing the police department. The city. You know—for what they did to Dad.

Do you mean—they’ve offered a settlement? Or—

No. I mean over.

There was a pause. Hesitantly Jessalyn said, Well, Thom. Maybe it’s for the best…

For the best. He’d steeled himself to hear these words in his mother’s hesitant voice.

Not sure, Mom. Maybe there’s no best.

Thom?—I can’t hear you…

Nothing, Mom. It’s OK.

Where are you, dear?

I am not your dear. I am no one’s dear. No.

Must’ve sounded to Jessalyn in the stillness of the house on Old Farm Road like a convivial and festive scene here, in a bar perhaps, predominantly male voices, laughter. A place in which words were slurred, muffled, not-heard and soon forgotten.

Easy for Thom to lie to Jessalyn who would believe virtually anything her children told her: Not sure where I am, Mom. Someplace I dropped into on the way home.

PLEASURABLE TO THOM, if strange and disorienting—he had no actual home.

No one to whom he could explain this unexpected pleasure, and no one to whom he wished to explain.

Fact is: a man who sleeps alone is a man who needs no one. The most elemental truth, Thom was beginning only now to appreciate in his thirty-ninth year.

How bizarre it seemed to him, willingly he’d surrendered his freedom, his privacy, his very identity to a wife, and then to children, for so many years. The wife had wanted him to be a better person than he was. For too long, he’d wanted that too.

Sex he might find elsewhere, and not in his bed that was his.

Not in his apartment he’d rented, that was his.

So far as his family knew he was living in downtown Hammond in “temporary” quarters in a high-rise apartment building, one-bedroom, furnished, overlooking the river from the sixteenth floor. Less than a mile from The Brisbane so that he could walk if he wished.

No. No one else.

Then—why?

Could not speak. Could not explain. Why?

Brooke was astonished, deeply wounded. This news her husband had broken to her in a voice of terrifying matter-of-factness was the most shocking of her life.

Like an ugly bruise it would spread, beneath the skin. Though the surface of the skin had not been broken.

Why am I leaving you and our life together? Because it is time.

In fact, it was more than time. Ten years at least.

But he couldn’t tell her that. In the exultation of his freedom he did not want to hurt another.

Brooke had been an ideal wife. A very attractive woman, very kind, intelligent and reasonable, good-hearted, and a good mother. A good sense of humor!

Good, good—the word was numbing, toxic. Thom had had enough of goodness for the rest of his life.

All he could tell her, faltering, evasive—Think I just need to be alone for a while… Nothing to do with you or with the children.

It was deliberate: you, the children.

In this way allowing the woman to know that he felt nothing for her any longer that related to her womanliness. She was wife, mother, as the children were children, not his children but the children.

Of course, he loved them. (He said.)

Of course, he would remain in constant contact with them. (He said.)

Of course, it was all “temporary.” (He said.)

Family you loved but did not particularly want to spend the rest of your life with. Especially not intimate precious hours when you’d rather be drinking (alone). You did not want to listen to them and especially you did not want to be obliged to reply to them. You did not want to be a witness to their tears and their protestations of hurt, sorrow, indignation, bafflement.

Pleading with him, and furious with him.

Furious with him, and pleading with him.

Would he see a marriage therapist with her?—that was the least he could do.

In fact, it was the most Thom could do. But politely he spoke saying he did not see why not.

He did not see—why not?

Well, yes. He would. Of course. If she wished.

Thom knew, it was well-known, marriage therapy was to assuage the wounded pride of the rejected spouse. The spouse who wants to extricate himself from the marriage has made his decision long before he has announced this decision to the spouse who will be left behind, thus the tearful exchange is a sentimental gesture, futile. The rejected spouse, in this case the wife, perhaps in most cases the wife, must not be allowed to realize that nothing about her matters to the spouse who has made up his mind to leave her. Not her goodwill, not her anger, not her longtime fidelity; not her cheeriness, not her reproachful tears, not her threats, not her forced equanimity, her hope to appear reasonable, rational, sane and not vindictive. She must not know that her very being has the attraction to the restless spouse of wet wadded tissues.

He’d married too young, Thom might tell Jessalyn. Though (in fact) he had not married especially young.

Too long under the spell of his parents’ marriage. The idyll of domestic life. It had all looked so easy, and it had looked inevitable.

So too with Beverly. Rabid to be married, scarcely graduated from college. No doubt, Steve Bender had married her so hurriedly because she’d been pregnant.

Their supple young bodies had been crazed for each other, for a spell. Their minds had had to hurry to catch up.

(Thom sometimes saw Steve with young women, in downtown Hammond. Once, at the Pierpont, on the farther side of a feathery waterfall in the hotel lobby, one hand at the small of a girl’s half-naked back, the other jauntily lifted to his brother-in-law Thom. H’lo!)

Too much attention since high school. Too many admiring girls, women. It had caused a kind of blindness in Thom. He’d basked in his sexuality, in the avidity with which girls were drawn to him. Then, abruptly, in his mid-twenties he’d become self-disgusted, wary. He’d gone through a period of intense fear of AIDS, venereal disease, when he’d had his blood tested every six months and had been faint with relief when the report came back negative.

In one of these intervals of extreme relief he’d become engaged to Brooke. She’d adored him without question, and she’d adored his family. A bright beautiful young woman who was yet self-effacing, unobtrusive and unassertive, soft-spoken, kindly and gracious—like his mother.

And Jessalyn had adored Brooke. The two might have been of the same generation, Jessalyn an older sister. Brooke had said to Thom, meaning to flatter him—I could marry you just for Jessalyn. The most wonderful mother-in-law.

Oh, he’d been flattered! At the time.

Except, you don’t really want to marry your mother. No.

Renegade thoughts in the therapist’s office. Made an effort to listen politely. The women’s voices (therapist, Brooke) were difficult to distinguish.

Earnestness: an overrated attribute.

Cheery, upbeat, reasonable, fair-minded, earnest—no more.

Therapist’s name was Dr. Moody. Not an appropriate name for a therapist, Thom thought. (Also, reminded him of Dr. Murthy and how badly that had turned out.)

They were waiting for him to speak. But his mind had drifted off.

The husband had no serious stake in the game, that was the problem. He’d tossed out pennies, the wheel was spinning slowly, it was a pretense to care who won.

She could win. Thom would be generous: Brooke could have the house in Rochester. Child support, alimony. Furnishings, jointly owned possessions. Wouldn’t begrudge her anything. Custody of the children. No contest.

But wait: this was marriage therapy. The hope/pretext was, the marriage could be saved.

Don’t love them, at least? Our children?

Yes of course. Of course Thom loved the children.

“What will we tell them? What—what is wrong with you?”

Weekends, he would see them. If their schedules worked out.

“You’ve said, you have a one-bedroom apartment, Thom. Why only one bedroom? What were you thinking?”

Truth was, Thom loved the children when he was with them but he did not think of them often when he was away from them. Except with a sick, sliding sensation of profound grief and guilt. As if their daddy has died, and vanished. And they are fatherless like me.

In the early hours of the morning when he could not sleep it was not of his family he thought. Obsessively, with the zest of one prodding an open wound with a finger, he thought of the men who’d murdered his father and who’d walked away, unscathed.

Gleeson, Schultz. Whom he intended to murder. If/when he had the opportunity.

The baseball bat, rolled in canvas in the backseat of his vehicle.

Gloves, on the seat beside the bat.

Also, he’d called Tanya. One evening, no reason, her number was still online, just an impulse that excited him.

Hello. Who? Oh—you.

(She’d recognized his voice. No mistaking what that meant.)

Well, yes. Daddy had seen the surprise, hurt, fear in the children’s eyes and he’d felt, guess you could say, sorry about that. Sad.

Maybe guilty. Yes.

The thing is, a five-year-old can’t grasp Daddy going away without grasping too that it is his fault.

That is, it is not his fault.

“Thom, are you listening to any of this? You’d never explained: Why only one bedroom? If you want the children to stay with you where will they sleep? On a sofa in the living room? Will you sleep on the sofa? Do you expect Matthew to sleep on the floor? All of them—all of you—in one bed? What were you thinking?”

Not about you. Sorry.

Truly, he was sorry. But now Whitey was gone, fuck sorry.

Fuck guilty. Fuck Daddy Thom.

He’d told Tanya, maybe I was unfair to you. Maybe I didn’t give you a chance.

Chance for what?—Tanya laughed.

Sexual assurance in the woman she hadn’t seemed to possess in Thom’s office when he’d intimidated her, scared her. A new man in her life probably, and a new job. Possibly.

They’d met for a drink at the Pierpont. Thom was surprised, he found Tanya attractive—though hardly his type. Though he could see now why Whitey might’ve liked her.

Considered whether to rehire Tanya at McClaren, Inc. Not a good idea?

Whitey’s old staff, Thom had mostly retained after all. His intention had been to clear away the old, dead wood in the family-owned business but when he came to know the old, dead wood personally—he hadn’t the heart.

Like a geriatric ward, Whitey’s senior staff.

Thom had been hiring junior staff, however. Expanding the YA division. Could use another graphic artist. Maybe he’d been too severe on Tanya.

Whether to see the woman again? (No wedding ring. But plenty of other rings glittering on her fingers.)

Obviously, not a good idea. She saw his assessing eyes. Saying, “You really are one, aren’t you?” And he’d leaned his head toward her as if he hadn’t heard clearly, “One—what?” And she’d cut her eyes at him—“One bastard.”

Had to laugh. Tanya laughed. Much more attractive than he recalled, streaked-blond hair spilling over her shoulders like a girl in a cheap sexy advertisement, breasts straining against the fabric of a black ribbed sweater threaded with gold braid. And on her throat just below her left ear, a tattoo of what appeared to be a juicy-ripe strawberry Thom hadn’t noticed previously—Jesus! Took his breath away.

Tanya was (probably) expecting one thing from her former boss and so Thom surprised her with another: handed her a check for one thousand dollars, already made out to Tanya Gaylin. “What’s this?”—stunned, the derisive smile faded from her mouth.

Well, she’d merited a higher severance pay than he’d given her, Thom said frankly.

(Was this true? Could be.)

One thousand dollars wasn’t much to McClaren, Inc., but to Tanya, a lot.

Enough so that, another time, Thom might see her again if he wished.

Confused by the check. Fumbling to fold it, put it inside her handbag so that (she might’ve been thinking) Thom couldn’t change his mind and take it back.

“Well. Thank you, Mr. McClaren…”

“Thom. Thank you, Thom.”

Making a joke of it. Sudden hilarity. Why not?

But he hadn’t touched her. Might’ve tapped her wrist, her arm—(he could imagine Whitey making this gesture, basking in the young woman’s attentiveness)—but he did not. Nor did he indicate to Tanya that he’d like to see her again.

Later, in a unisex restroom in the lounge, Thom found a tube of lipstick abandoned on the sink. Plastic tube, and inside a stubby dark-plum lipstick. Not Tanya’s lipstick (which was unsubtle strawberry-red) but Thom slipped the dark-plum lipstick into a pocket, smiling.

Would he call Tanya? Sometime?

No. Better not.

Well—possibly.

“And what do you think, Thom?—is that reasonable?” Earnestly Dr. Moody addressed the problematic husband, whose mind (he could see) had begun to drift.

If you are the one who has wronged another, it is you who must be courted. Your very wrongness, the outrage and injustice of your wrongness, gives you the moral advantage.

Reasonable words were uttered and exchanged. The husband did not (visibly) embarrass himself.

The wife smiled, steelily. So strangely seated beside the husband on the therapist’s sofa but at opposite ends of the sofa with a lone cushion between them.

Yet, the problem-husband’s mind drifted. He did not care enough about what was here.

The family-owned business!

Trying to swim in the Chautauqua with a tire around his neck.

Whitey looking over his shoulder. Good, Thom! Not so good, Thom! Can do better, Thom!

Every few weeks it comes to him like a shot of adrenaline to the heart: Christ’s sake sell. What’re you waiting for?

(But Jessalyn would be upset, and the others. What of Dad’s legacy?) Or, bring in others in the family, young relatives, a cousin of Thom’s he’d always liked, smart kid graduate from the Wharton School, and his uncle Martin Sewell, his mother’s brother semi-retired and with money to invest, who’d expressed an interest in expanding Whitey’s line of science textbooks to break into the college market…

Maybe that was it. Not sell but bring in others and in a few years step down as CEO.

Then he could move away from Hammond. In fact. Sizable income from the business, Whitey had left him much the majority shareholder. Soon to be forty years old. Could live in New York: high-rise overlooking the Hudson within walking distance of Central Park.

Or, maybe farther downtown. South of the High Line with a view of the Statue of Liberty holding her scepter—or was it a torch?—aloft.

ANIMATION IN THE HUSBAND’S EYES. A good feeling!

Dr. Moody was looking hopeful: Will next Wednesday, same time, work for both of you?

Shaking hands with Moody. Next Wednesday, sure.

Uncertain how to say goodbye to the wife crinkle-eyed with smiling. Gazing at the husband with that expression he’d come to see in her face you might call drowning hope.

What could the wife have failed to realize? The husband had not touched her body in _______ months. Years?

(And Beverly, too. His poor, dear sister! Imagining her husband’s deepest, most private self had anything to do with her.)

(Felt sorry for the women, yes. But you had to harden your heart against sorry.)

Outside the therapist’s office in the street it was strange, yes: separate cars.

Almost, Thom felt the wrongness of it, that Brooke wasn’t walking beside him to get into their car together but hesitating on the sidewalk, alone-looking. Still that crinkled smile, waiting. For there was (obviously) so much for them to say to each other, that Thom had absolutely no interest in saying.

Impatient to leave, to get back to—wherever.

Hadn’t told Brooke about dropping the lawsuit. Hadn’t wanted to share his anxiety with her and hoped she wouldn’t hear from Jessalyn, or one of his sisters, it was a topic Thom hoped to consider closed.

Like the topic of Hugo Martinez, he’d made the mistake of sharing with Brooke all too often during the past several months. So Brooke too called Jessalyn, tried to determine what the situation was, taking an interest that Thom now regretted for he’d more or less decided not to oppose Hugo in his mother’s life, he’d come to respect the man, if grudgingly.

Brooke was saying, risking so much, would Thom like to have lunch with her, at least? Just to talk about… Or maybe— (seeing the expression in his face)—not to talk about their situation at all, or the children, but just—anything… Any subject that wasn’t personal.

What Brooke was not saying was Thom, please. Don’t do this. Don’t push me away.

Not pleading, and not begging. He was grateful for that.

Very much he’d have liked to have lunch with her, Thom said, but he had an appointment back at the office. Next time, OK?

Enormous relief just walking away. And Brooke in her own car after all.

Walked up the street whistling. The man is the long-legged one to walk up the street whistling.

Not looking back. Not seeing the solitary woman in her car, leaning over the steering wheel, hiding her face, wracked with sobs… No.

Thinking how when Whitey had been alive none of this could have happened. Leaving the wife. Leaving the marriage. Sylvan Woods in Rochester! The mortgage was paid off, the wife and children would not have to move. Now, such freedom was Thom’s solace.

Like a gold coin sighted in the mud. Have to position yourself carefully, bending over in just the right way to snatch it up without soiling your fingers.

Jesus. Here was pleasure.

Gripping the baseball bat with both hands.

Raised above his head, with both hands. And the swift unerring swing down.

A sexual pang. Rushed sex-stirring. In a delirium of anticipation wakened from an intense sleep to feel his head throbbing, jaws clenched tight, penis blood-engorged, hard-swollen.

THREE WEEKS. BUT NO HURRY. Take time. One breath at a time.

At the Holland Street bar where no one knew him. Where (in fact) he looked not so much like Thom McClaren.

Nights in succession in the dark cold fall/winter 2011. When Thom left the office late, returned to the rental apartment, changed clothes.

Only beer. Nothing stronger. At the bar, on his feet which felt good to him: standing. Seeing how, amid men, Thom was (still) one of the taller.

Through high school, that good feeling. Knowing that he could be soft-spoken, calm and unharried because unthreatened. One of the nice jocks.

The place was a police hangout. Thom had learned. Also COs from county detention. Burly-beefy loud (white) guys. Mostly in good spirits because drinking but if drunk, watch out. They all seemed to know one another. And Gleeson among them, often.

Rarely Schultz. Rumor was, Schultz was retiring.

They didn’t know Thom. No one knew Thom. In an old worn windbreaker, soiled workman’s hat pulled low on his forehead. Hunched shoulders. Eyes downlooking and averted, brooding.

Could’ve been a trucker. Could’ve been a factory worker. Someone local, in the neighborhood. Or maybe not.

A dark-skinned man would have attracted attention. Not Thom.

Whitey’s windbreaker. Just about fitted Thom, slightly short in the arms.

Whitey hadn’t liked to throw anything away. Old elbow-worn sweaters, shirts with missing buttons. This windbreaker at the back of a storage closet Thom had discovered, Jessalyn would burst into tears if she’d seen. Oh Whitey! I thought I’d thrown that away.

On the television above the bar, local news. Street crime: black suspects. A businessman’s crimes are not street crimes and you don’t get arrested in such a way.

Lipstick smile on TV, blond teased hair, might’ve been a younger sister of Tanya Gaylin reading off weather report. Brrr! Central New York cold and colder!

Weird to be standing at the bar with Gleeson only a few feet away oblivious.

Never did Thom actually look at Gleeson. Just the initial glance, the identification. And keeping him then in the corner of Thom’s eye, unwavering.

He’d been tracking them for months. Even if the God-damned lawsuit would (eventually) be resolved in his favor Thom did not intend to let off easily the men who’d killed his father.

Unless they were charged with crimes, found guilty and incarcerated, which (obviously) wasn’t going to happen.

He’d have a few beers. Use the lavatory. Return to the SUV where the bat lay in readiness.

Whitey was waiting. Whitey had all the time in the world.

Initially, after the lawsuit had been filed by Budd Hawley, both the cops were assigned by their precinct captain to “desk duty.” Charges had been made by the plaintiff, made and denied, but the Hammond PD had made a conciliatory gesture by reassigning them.

Officially, in the media pertaining to the McClaren case it would be tersely stated pending an internal investigation by the Hammond Police Department.

It was a joke. Bad joke. Every time he’d asked Budd Hawley, more recently Arnie Edelstein, the reply was ongoing investigation.

Before October 2010 Gleeson had been several times cited for “excessive force”; there were civilian complaints against him, some of these by (alleged) prostitutes/drug addicts whom he’d sexually abused, threatened. He’d been passed over for promotion several times. Still, he’d been reinstated as an on-duty cop after six months on desk duty.

Gleeson had received a raise this year of $12,000 bringing his yearly salary, exclusive of overtime, to $82,000.

Schultz, older than Gleeson by several years, had been allowed to retire from the force with a medical disability. He’d had a similar record of civilian complaints and like Gleeson had several times been passed over for promotion.

Gleeson was thirty-six, Schultz forty-one.

Thom knew where Gleeson lived, he’d followed Gleeson home and subsequently driven past the shingled duplex on South Ninth Street on several occasions.

Not clear if Gleeson was married. Sometimes a female in the duplex, but lately not. Trash cans accumulated at the curb, lately toppled over. Thom hadn’t wanted to make inquiries among the neighbors out of a fear of being identified later, after he’d battered in Gleeson’s head.

About Schultz he knew relatively little.

One at a time. One target.

If the two happened to be in the Holland Street tavern at the same time they made no effort to speak to each other. (So Thom had noted.) Probably sick of each other. What memories cops shared: people they’d arrested together, handcuffed together, struck down together, shot with their stun guns together, caused to die.

Maybe nothing. Maybe they didn’t remember. Maybe it was all forgotten in a cop’s life, episodes of excessive force, like blood- or vomit-splattered walls hosed down.

My client denies any recollection of.

No memory of the white-haired older man named John Earle McClaren they’d struck down on a shoulder of the Hennicott Expressway, caused to die now more than a year ago?

My client denies all culpability.

Never more than a few beers, then he’d leave. Toss bills onto the bar. No one took notice. Not a glance. On the TV, smoldering rubble in a place called Kabul, another “suicide bomber.”

That night, or another. Thom would take his time. Thom would make no mistakes. When a cop is killed, especially a cop with a record like Gleeson’s, it would be assumed that his death had something to do with his life as a cop; but Thom would see to it, no suspicion would be directed his way.

He was sure. He owed that much to Whitey.

NOW WAS THE TIME! He was prepared. Gleeson pulling into the narrow driveway at his house. Very late, houses darkened. Swift and unerring Thom climbs out of his vehicle and overtakes the (drunk, unsteady) Gleeson at the side door of the house, swings the bat, there’s a grunt and the man staggers but does not fall and again Thom lifts the bat for another powerful blow, this time Gleeson slips on blood-slick ice, falls heavily. Labored intake of breath like a stunned steer and on the rippled-icy pavement lies shuddering on his back his head sprouting blood and yet another time Thom lifts the bat and brings it down onto the blood-matted head, and again until the skull is crushed, soft.

Fucker!—now you know what it’s like.

No haste. Must remove the wallet from inside the fallen man’s tight-fitting trousers, the gun from a holster inside his jacket. Loose coins from his pocket fall onto the icy ground.

Might’ve been a robbery. Someone who knows Gleeson, who’d followed him home from Holland Street where he’d been since 9:20 this Friday evening.

Quickly walking away. Quick to his vehicle at the curb.

Undisturbed, the darkened houses. No movement at any window. If the dying man has a wife or a woman inside she has not been waiting up for him.

In no haste drives by the Charter Street bridge. Infrequent headlights at this hour but he takes pleasure in passing a Hammond PD cruiser coming off the bridge.

Throws the bloodstained bat into the river, weighted with heavy cords.

Bloodstained gloves, he will cut into pieces and dispose of in a Dumpster miles away…

Wakened abruptly by a phone ringing beside his head.

Landline phone in the apartment, virtually no one has this number, not Brooke, not Jessalyn, no one at the office. A new number he’d meant to reserve for particular persons though he’d given it to Arnie Edelstein in case something urgent came up and Thom’s cell phone wasn’t charged.

In fact it was Edelstein. Sounding excited.

Telling Thom he had good news, at least he believed it was good news: the Hammond PD and the City of Hammond were offering to settle the McClarens’ claim after months of stalling. They were offering just under one million dollars but with the stipulation that the plaintiffs could not discuss the case publicly.

Thom swung his legs off the bed. Sat up. Mouth so dry! Wasn’t sure he’d heard this correctly. Offer to settle? Hadn’t he told Edelstein to drop the case?

Edelstein said, “I told you something was about to develop, Thom. I told you let’s wait a week. Two weeks. I thought I’d had a heads-up on this. But I couldn’t be sure which is why I didn’t tell you more specifically.”

“I don’t understand,” Thom said. “I thought the case had been dropped…”

“Look, there’s an offer on the table. Not what we asked but we’d started high. Are you surprised?”

“Jesus!”—Thom whistled. “Yes. I am.”

Hadn’t expected this. Had reconciled himself to losing. But now.

Edelstein was saying it was more than just a token: nine hundred nine thousand ninety-nine dollars.

Thom laughed. “Ninety-nine cents, too?”

“No. Just dollars.”

“What about Gleeson and Schultz? What happens to them?”

“Essentially, nothing. That we’ll be allowed to know.”

“They will just walk free?”—Thom heard the hurt, the wistfulness in his voice. Something that Thom might say, at such a time, that Edelstein would recall.

Walk free. Walk free.

Edelstein spoke at length. By nature he was an ebullient and contentious person who took seriously the litigator’s charge to convince his client to accept a deal snatched from the jaws of utter loss, humiliation, oblivion. There had been little likelihood that Gleeson and Schultz would be charged with any actual crimes, still less that they’d be indicted and found guilty of manslaughter. Thom must have known that. But the lawsuit had been a worthy one and this offer was substantial.

“As I said, Thom: not just a token. The defendants are admitting responsibility.”

Thom lay back onto the rumpled bed, shutting his eyes. Walls, floor and ceiling swung around him, not unpleasurably. But with his eyes shut tight he wouldn’t be obliged to see.

“Thom? Are you there? Is something wrong?”—the voice over the phone was sounding concerned.

Thom said, “No. No one here.”

“Thom? What?”

Couldn’t trust himself to speak. Tears spilled from his eyes.

Thank God he was alone. If Jessalyn had been there, she’d have wrapped him in her arms, her tall sad son. Mourning Whitey they’d have cried and cried.

The Kiss

Amos Keziahaya has already rebuffed him, and Virgil has already drowned in a polluted river. What’s the worst that could happen to Virgil now?

In his journal noting Just because I give myself to my art doesn’t mean that the sacrifice is worth it. Fact is, I have nothing and no one else to give myself to.

A silly way to have died, dragged along by a barge cable in the murky Chautauqua River! Virgil is very grateful to have been spared.

Died but not-dead. Recalled with a smile.

Even before his lacerated hands are fully healed, before the bandages are removed, Virgil has returned to work. His vision is hands gripping hands. His vision is human figures tense with yearning.

So vividly Virgil sees! It has something to do, he thinks, with the muck-despair of the river, that almost sucked him down. Washing his eyes clear.

Not a high price to pay, his hands badly torn. His pride.

New work! Life-sized figures made of a transparent glazed plastic. Male, female. Both. Neither.

One of the figures is on his toes, like a dancer. Presenting his blank (yearning) face to kiss another. The other, head uplifted, mouth out of reach of the kiss. Title The Kiss.

The root of all sorrow is sex. The root of all joy.

BELATEDLY THE NEWS COMES TO VIRGIL: the McClaren lawsuit against the Hammond Police Department has been “settled.”

Thom isn’t the one to inform Virgil. It is Sophia who calls him, to share what she considers good news.

“Evidently Thom gave the lawyer an ultimatum—wind it up in three weeks.” Sophia pauses, uncertain. “Not that anything is ‘settled’—really.”

Yes. Whitey is still gone from us.

Virgil asks what Thom intends to do with the money and Sophia says she doesn’t know. What would Whitey have wished?

Give the money away. Blood money. Get rid of it. Quick!

“I’m sure that Thom will. That’s what Dad would have wanted.”

Would have wanted. All is past tense now for Whitey.

Virgil feels a pang of loss. While the lawsuit was pending there was the possibility of “justice”—however vague, ambiguous. An effort being made for an abstract principle as well as for the memory of their wronged father. Now, all is permanently “settled.”

Virgil thinks, You can love a person but not regret his absence. That is a hard fact.

He has learned to accept this. His freedom to be who he truly is, the result of his father’s death.

Not that Virgil would tell anyone: no. Certainly none of the McClarens.

They would not understand. Some truths can’t be uttered. Not even Sophia would have been sympathetic, she’d have stared at Virgil in shock and disapproval.

Yes I miss Dad but no, I don’t miss his presence. His judgment.

Without Dad in the world I can breathe. Forgive me!

Maybe one day he will tell Amos. Maybe Amos will say, Yes. Same with me. My father.

IN THE GUERRILLA GALLERY in East Hammond, by chance Virgil encounters Amos Keziahaya.

It is mid-November. It has been months since the awkward incident in Virgil’s studio and sometime during that interval, without Virgil quite realizing at the time, Keziahaya left Bear Mountain Road to live elsewhere.

Where, Virgil doesn’t know. Has not wanted to ask.

For a moment the two men freeze. Virgil dreads a grimace baring white teeth—You! Get the hell away, I am not your friend.

But no, it is not that at all, indeed the tall young Nigerian smiles at Virgil almost shyly—Hello.

Or, maybe—Hello, Virgil.

The exchange is brief, friendly. Just slightly dazed Virgil will recall how friendly.

Asking Amos how he’s been and Amos shrugs and says in his laconic way OK.

So tall! Absurdly beautiful, with even his mysteriously scarred or pitted skin. With even his slightly stained teeth.

Afterward Virgil is proud of himself for not having lingered in the Gallery, not having tried to engage Amos in conversation. Whatever clumsy stratagem of the lovesick so painfully transparent to the loved one—thank God, he has spared the young man. Since the non-drowning in the Chautauqua River Virgil has been resolved not to embarrass Amos Keziahaya any more than he has already embarrassed him.

After all, Virgil is the elder.

Wondering—would friends have shaken hands? After not seeing each other for some time? Women friends would have hugged, kissed. Women are not so afraid of putting their hands on one another.

Or—is Virgil making too much of the casual encounter, as usual?

The artist is one who makes “too much” of things.

After all this time Virgil has not altered his impulsive hand-wrought will. If indeed it is a “will” and would carry legal authority. All my earthly goods I bestow to my friend & fellow artist Amos Keziahaya. “The rest is silence.”

NEXT MORNING, feeling unaccountably happy.

Sometime in the night, in his sleep, deciding what the hell, what’s to lose?

With eager clumsy fingers manages to text on the ridiculously small keyboard of his cell phone this terse invitation to Amos Keziahaya—

—to which after several suspenseful hours there comes a thrilled vibratory hum from Virgil’s phone and the yet terser reply

Gone

Felt like raking her face with her nails. Worry over her mother and that man Hugo. The latest was, what if they were secretly married, could such a marriage be annulled, undone. Could the heirs prove that a fraud had been perpetrated upon their mother. If money or property were appropriated by that man could they retrieve it. In the midst of Beverly’s tirade on the phone (speaking with whom? which relative, friend?) heedless Brianna came in, bounding up the stairs in jeans so tight-fitting slender legs, thighs, buttocks you could wonder (her mother wonders!) how in hell the girl can breathe, ponytail bouncing sassily behind her, of course Beverly lowered her voice so the girl wouldn’t hear, certain that the girl could not hear, and some minutes later there came Brianna in reverse, out of her room and down the stairs thudding on her heels with the arrogance of one who weighs two hundred pounds and not one hundred, and again Beverly lowered her voice out of maternal discretion just as Brianna halted at the foot of the stairs and turned to her, twisting at the waist like a dancer in a brilliantly tortured posture, young face livid with indignation: “For God’s sake, Mom! Grandpa Whitey is gone.”

Bounding then out of the house with a final sneer, and gone.

Thanksgiving 2011

Errands. What is the housewife’s life but.

First, pick up the divorce papers. Then, Thanksgiving turkey, groceries, wine and soda.

On the way home bakery, florist, drugstore (Ambien), dry cleaner’s (Steve’s God-damned suit, he’d forgotten [again]).

“NO. IT’S TOO LATE.”

Or, more eloquently: “In my heart I feel nothing for you any longer.”

(But was that true? She felt rage for him! Betraying her! Humiliating her! Years of lying to her! Simmering water in a pan on the stove suddenly boiling, foaming over the rim of the pan, into the blue gas flames, onto the floor—that was how she felt.)

DIVORCE DOCUMENT PREPARED by a (female, junior) lawyer at Barron, Mills & McGee she’d brought home and reread in the secrecy of a (locked) room in awe of the razor-sharp precision of the legal terms and the look and feel of the law firm’s stationery with its understated gilt letterhead.

Matter-of-factly the lawyer had asked Mrs. Bender if this was to be a no-fault divorce, or—?

No. Indeed no. Not no-fault.

Telling the woman there was plenty of fault. Enough fault to fill a Dumpster, a dump truck.

Enough fault to fill a God-damned landfill.

Very tactfully, the woman smiled in appreciation of her client’s wit. Beverly wondered how much that half-inch smile would cost her but whatever, it would be worth it.

Saying, “In my heart I feel nothing for that man any longer. He has been unfaithful to me, and he has lied about it. Emotionally, he has not been there for me, for years.”

Been there for me. Daytime TV! (Which, except when she was feeling really depressed, restless, bored or anyone else was in the house, Beverly never watched.)

It was not entirely true, perhaps. In the matter of the children she and Steve were usually allies, and he did not undercut her authority with them. (Of course, Steve was often not home to interfere. He’d left the essential parenting to her.)

Flattering to Beverly, how assiduously the lawyer was taking notes on a laptop. Long, polished nails, short skirt riding up a silky thigh, of an indeterminate age (early or mid-thirties) and (obviously) smart. You did not want a nice lawyer, a gracious lawyer, a ladylike lawyer, you wanted smart.

Suggesting to Beverly that she freeze all joint financial accounts before she gave her husband the divorce papers. Before he heard the very word divorce. Speak with their investment officer, accountant. Preparation was crucial. Surprise was to her advantage.

“You must protect yourself financially. A divorce can quickly turn mean.”

But Beverly wasn’t so sure she wanted to do this. It seemed dishonest, tricky. The husband was the dishonest and tricky spouse in this case, not the wife.

Financial issues were at the crux of most divorce negotiations, the lawyer explained. Whatever the wife might want, the husband would (almost certainly) offer less. In households in which the husband’s income was high there was also the possibility of bank accounts of which the wife was unaware.

Really! Beverly was uneasy recalling that Whitey had had several bank accounts under his own name, about which Jessalyn had evidently known nothing.

Of course, in Whitey’s case, there had been no intention to defraud Jessalyn.

(But why had Whitey done this, in such secrecy? No one had any idea.)

Husbands were usually reliable with child support, the lawyer continued. Especially if they were earning high salaries and were not in debt. And they loved their children.

Good to know, Beverly said with an effort at exuberance, buoyancy. Very good to know.

THE SHARPEST-EYED OF THE CHILDREN NOTED—“Mom, is something wrong? You’re so kind of happy lately.”

Though also, less flatteringly—“Mom, is something wrong? You keep dropping things.”

HOW STUNNED THE HUSBAND WOULD BE to learn that the wife was filing for divorce. After seventeen years!

After the family Thanksgiving dinner which would be the last of the family dinners (for him) in this house. After the damned football game sprawling through the afternoon with its inane screeching like the cries of frenzied chimpanzees. Steve and the others (male, varying ages) would watch the game enthralled as the women cleaned up in the dining room and kitchen. Every year Thanksgiving was bifurcated: the meal, the game; the women, the men.

What was the connection?—there was none.

Post-game were replays of the game they’d just watched. On other TV channels were replays of other games. No end to games!

After the last of the guests left Steve was likely to remain in his leather recliner, TV remote in hand. His eyes would have grown heavy-lidded, his mouth slack. Exhausted, sated. Beer, salted peanuts. After he’d stuffed himself at the dining room table. Quietly Beverly would emerge from the kitchen and say in her calmest voice: “Here is something for you, Steve. I think now is a good time.”

She would lay the folder on the table beside him. She would say nothing further but go upstairs to a private place.

Waiting then some minutes later for him to call after her—Beverly?

Waiting then for him to stumble upstairs after her—Beverly for God’s sake you can’t mean this.

She would not quarrel with him. She would speak to him in the calm and measured way she’d rehearsed for weeks. She would not allow him to precipitate raised voices, emotion. No more tears! No more weakness on her part.

He would be hurt, and he would be angry. Like a goaded pit bull lashing out.

But no. The wife would be prepared, poised. The wife would never again lash out.

She would help him pack. For he must leave immediately.

He would be stunned. He would be disbelieving. Please, one more night, he would beg but the wife would be unyielding, vehement. “No. There have been too many nights and now it’s too late.”

Standing a little apart from the husband, on the far side of their bed perhaps, so that he could not (easily) touch her. For his hands on her, in the past, had so weakened her, she could not defend herself. But that would not happen again.

In a voice of dignity and not the hurtful grating self-lacerating voice she had come to recognize with repugnance as her own:

“In my heart I feel nothing for you any longer.”

IT HAD BEEN A DISPIRITING DISCOVERY, so banal. Of course she’d suspected. For years, she’d known.

So many evenings away. At the office. Business dinner. Work.

Conferences to which spouses had not been invited. (Suspicious, she’d checked the Honolulu conference. Why yes in fact, spouses had been invited, only just not Steve Bender’s spouse.) (And why Honolulu? The very name suggested frivolity, drunken excess. Gaudy-colored leis around the necks of slobbering white-skinned men in newly purchased Hawaiian shirts.) The left-behind spouse was furious but said nothing. Not then. The deceitful husband would only lie, and she could not bear his lies delivered with the sneering confidence of a twelve-year-old bully.

Beverly, what the hell? What is wrong with you?

Hysterical. Jesus! Exaggerate everything.

And then, she’d managed to find her way into Steve’s email account. Brianna had mentioned scornfully that most people (by which she meant most adults) knew so little about technology that they used their birth dates as passwords, or a pet’s name, or a sequence of stupid numbers—1 2 3 4 5.

Steve’s password was in fact his birth date. The email record was damning. Over the months Toni yielded to Steffi, but then Steffi yielded to Mira.

She had not confronted him, just yet. She had known she must be prepared, she must not rush at the husband in a maelstrom of accusations, tears and indeed yes, hysteria.

She’d spent much time thinking of it. How to proceed. If the marriage was over (as it certainly seemed to be over from Steve’s perspective at least) then it was over for her as well—she could not love a man who did not love her!

Could not love a man who didn’t respect her.

Rarely even listened to her. Spent time with her.

Especially if Beverly was—well, the word was nagging.

(Did men nag? No men did not. Nag is a female word, a nag is a used-up old mare. No word for used-up old stallion except stallion.)

She’d spent time away from the house. Walking, brooding. In the cemetery where Whitey’s ashes were buried, which she had not (to her shame) visited in months.

It was November. Again. Wetted leaves blown against grave markers, a cobwebby sensation to the air. You dreaded to breathe. How she hated the approaching winter solstice, shortest day/longest night of the year.

John Earle McClaren. Beloved husband, father.

What to do? Separation, divorce? Divorce made her mouth dry but caused her heart to trip with something like actual excitement, anticipation of the kind she’d once felt, eighteen years before, when she saw Steve Bender approaching her with that smile.

Divorce meant failure. No way around that.

Whitey admonished—Don’t act rashly, Beverly! Steve is a good guy.

But was this so? More like an OK guy, barely.

Great guy, in fact. As guys go. Lots of laughs.

Shouldn’t you expect more from a husband than laughs?

More sternly Whitey warned—It’s like a door you step through, that locks behind you. I’d be careful if I were you, dear.

How like Whitey to joke—Look what happened to me! Damn door sure locked behind me.

In the cemetery, at Whitey’s grave. So dazed, she had to lean against the grave marker.

Make her way out of the cemetery haltingly. Out of earshot of Daddy calling after her—Take care, Beverly! There are so few who love us.

Another day she drove to Old Farm Road. Parked her car in the driveway but no one was home. (Oh, shouldn’t Jessalyn be home? And if Jessalyn wasn’t home, where was she? With that man?) Walked down to the creek, stood staring at the dark water grown sluggish with autumnal cold. Recalling how as a girl, a teenager, she’d had little interest in anything to do with the creek or the lake a quarter mile away. How boring, the out-of-doors.

Probably, the last year or two she’d lived in the house, in this beautiful setting, Beverly hadn’t hiked down to the creek once. The last time she’d consented to getting into the canoe with Thom, she’d been thirteen.

What had her adolescent life been? A kaleidoscope of bright faces, endless phone calls, lurid and utterly absorbing sex-thoughts. Though she hadn’t yet met Steve Bender there’d been numerous other boys/men to populate her fantasies.

And where had those lurid fantasies brought her?

Found herself sitting on the dock, weak-kneed. Water swirling past her bearing rotted leaves. In scrawny leafless trees, black-feathered birds shrugging their wings, cawing. And there was Jessalyn standing over her looking concerned, and a few feet behind her on the creek bank that man Hugo Martinez.

Embarrassing! Beverly’s face was wet with tears.

Jessalyn and her friend had returned to the house, and seen someone, a stranger perhaps, on the dock at the foot of the hill. In her haze of self-pity Beverly hadn’t noticed the couple approaching her.

Tactfully Hugo Martinez retreated. Jessalyn remained to comfort her.

Crying to her mother that Steve didn’t love her anymore. Her life was over!

Jessalyn cradled Beverly in her arms, as best she could. Saying it was all right, everything would be all right, Steve loved her of course, it was all a misunderstanding probably…

No. Not a misunderstanding. After so long, an understanding. There was no pretense any longer.

In her mother’s arms Beverly wept. How shameful, at Beverly’s age. Did you never grow up? Did you never outgrow a need for your mother? Beverly would have been mortified if anyone had known—Lorene, Thom, Steve. Whitey.

Back at the house Hugo awaited. Seeing Beverly’s distress he was soft-spoken, unobtrusive. By nature an inquisitive person he took care now not to intrude. Stroking his mustache, that covered virtually the lower half of his face.

He would prepare a meal for them, he said. He hoped Beverly would stay.

She could not! No.

Well. Hugo understood of course, if she didn’t feel comfortable staying. Looking to Jessalyn, in appeal.

Please stay!—Jessalyn said. Lacing her fingers through Beverly’s fingers, that felt thick and clumsy.

And so, Beverly stayed. So strange to be eating in the kitchen of her family home, with her mother, a meal prepared by a stranger!

Delicious food, slightly too spicy for her. Eggplant casserole, onions, tomatoes, goat cheese, chilies.

Red wine helped dilute the taste, also provided by Hugo Rodriguez.

It was touching to overhear her mother conferring with Hugo about her, almost out of earshot. Did Hugo Martinez, a stranger, an enemy, care for Beverly?—or rather, for Jessalyn’s emotionally wrought middle-aged daughter?

Lorene had compared Hugo Martinez to Che Guevara. Possibly she’d been sarcastic, you never knew with Lorene who’d spent her adult life in the company of sarcastic adolescents. Still, Beverly could see the resemblance: handsome Latino males, self-regarding, manipulative.

Sexually aggressive, dangerous. Could not trust.

He was a very friendly man, Hugo Martinez. You might say over-friendly. Beverly wanted to take hold of his hands, press them against her face. In a weak moment, she’d come close to abasing herself to her mother’s Hispanic lover.

Having to remind herself she wasn’t a child, a young girl. She was herself a wife and a mother, nearing forty years old.

A glass or two of red wine, Beverly became very sleepy. Jessalyn drove her home in Beverly’s car, and Hugo followed in his. The last Beverly saw of Jessalyn and Hugo, Jessalyn was climbing into his car, and Hugo was driving away.

A wink of red lights, and gone.

DIVORCE PAPERS IN THE (PLAIN) FOLDER provided by Barron, Mills & McGee. Sixteen-pound, four-ounce turkey in the oven and roasting by 11:00 A.M. of Thanksgiving Day.

No one knew that Beverly had gone to a lawyer. Not even Jessalyn.

And Beverly had a new prescription drug, an antidepressant with the hopeful name Luxor. To counteract the grogginess caused by her nightly sleeping pill which had begun to last well into late morning like a fog slow to lift.

Unlike most antidepressants Luxor was said to be almost immediately effective. Small white pills, five milligrams each day. Strongly advised not to take with alcohol. No driving or operating of heavy machinery.

It was rare, Beverly operated heavy machinery. So that part of it was no trouble.

“Mom, is something wrong? You’re just standing there.”

How long had she been standing there?—Beverly woke to find her eyes already open in the kitchen bright-lit as an operating room.

“Well. I am standing here thinking.”

“Oh Mom. Ugh.”

Brianna was staring at the sixteen-pound, four-ounce “organic” turkey as if it were a human cadaver. So bred that its breast was enlarged, its body misshapen. Thanksgiving turkeys were now so grotesquely bred for American consumers who preferred white meat, the poor creatures had difficulty walking and the largest, at twenty pounds, could not walk at all.

Clammy-white-puckered skin, made both Brianna and Beverly shudder to touch.

And that smell. Wet, dead meat. Flesh once living and now, not.

Eviscerated creature, its guts and genitals removed, that a very fancy stuffing (chestnuts, Portobello mushrooms, celery, sage and marjoram, salt and pepper, bread cubes drizzled with butter) might be shoveled into the cavity. What an odd tradition, Beverly thought. She’d never quite realized before.

A sixteen-pound turkey requires approximately three and a half hours to roast. Ugly thing, headless. Beverly struggled to fit it into the baking pan, one of the legs kept pressing outward as if in the grip of rigor mortis.

Sophia was helping in the kitchen. Lorene had promised to help but had been delayed. (How surprising was this? When it was a matter of helping her sister in the kitchen Lorene was always delayed.) And Jessalyn had come early of course, bringing her delicious sweet potato soufflé.

As many as seventeen guests were expected. Beverly had lost count. Virgil was coming, possibly with a “new” friend. Several of Steve’s relatives (including his older brother Zack) were coming—“For the dinner and for the game.” There were children, a shifting number that this year would not include Thom’s children to the disappointment of their Bender cousins. (Brianna’s reaction: “Kevin’s not coming? Shit.”) The table had been enlarged, chairs dragged into the dining room. Water goblets? Place cards? Matching napkins? Candlestick holders? Was the centerpiece too obtrusive? And which tablecloth? Each Thanksgiving Beverly impressed her family and guests with her hospitality, her energy, her excellent food. It had always been her particular hope to impress the elder McClarens, whose hospitality had been so admired for decades.

Whitey’s face had fairly glowed with pleasure, when he’d hosted such dinners. For a while Steve had tried to emulate his charismatic father-in-law but had fallen behind in recent years.

And what had it all added up to, Whitey McClaren’s many dinners? Parties?

A voice consoled her—This will be the last Thanksgiving. No more husband for Thanksgiving!

Was this what Beverly wanted? No husband for Thanksgiving? She’d poured a half-glass of wine without noticing. Her hand trembled.

The previous year they’d hardly celebrated Thanksgiving. A turkey half the size of this year’s turkey, no elaborate meal. Only just family. No enlarged table. Jessalyn without Whitey, looking forlorn, lost.

No one had eaten much. Except Steve who’d helped himself to platters of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potato soufflé oblivious of how the others regarded him.

Beverly had wanted to defend her husband. He wasn’t unfeeling, just—shallow-minded, you could say.

If in the future the children wanted to have Thanksgiving with their father they could make their own arrangements. She was finished.

This year they would celebrate Whitey’s life. Too much emphasis had been placed on Whitey’s death, and the injustice of his death, now they must celebrate his life. It was a relief that the lawsuit had been settled, which they chose to interpret as an acknowledgment by the Hammond Police Department of the injustice of Whitey’s death and so a victory for Whitey.

Still, Thom had been very quiet about the settlement. As others expressed relief that it was over Thom said nothing. Observing her taciturn brother Beverly thought, with a little shiver—Thom is planning his own kind of settlement.

Nor did Thom seem much inclined to speak of Brooke and his children who were having Thanksgiving this year with Brooke’s family in Rochester. When Beverly took Thom aside to ask him what was happening he told her that nothing had been decided, no one was (yet) speaking of divorce, he saw the kids each weekend, sometimes more often.

“But you’re living alone? In an apartment—alone?”

“Yes. For now.”

“You don’t seem very upset, considering.”

“Should I be?”

“Well—shouldn’t you?”

“You tell me, Bev. You seem to know so much about it.”

Beverly felt the rebuke like a jab in the ribs, delivered by a bullying older brother.

“It’s just that I miss your family. Your great children.”

Pointedly, Beverly hadn’t said Brooke.

Tempted to tell Thom about the surprise waiting for Steve. He was not the only McClaren to declare his independence.

But Thom didn’t seem eager to exchange intimate remarks with Beverly. To her chagrin she saw him heading downstairs to join Steve and some others, watching ESPN on the wide flat-screen TV Steve had spent a small fortune having installed in the basement.

Of the men only Hugo had no interest in watching football. No interest in sports, he said—“Even soccer.”

Even soccer. Was this a joke?

Of course, Hugo Martinez had come to Beverly’s Thanksgiving dinner. Impossible to avoid the man!—Beverly tried to explain to Lorene and Thom, who expressed astonishment, disapproval. Lorene whispered in Beverly’s ear: “You could poison ‘Hugo.’ Who’d know?” and Beverly retorted, “What do you mean, ‘who’d know’?—he’s probably told all his friends that he’s coming here for dinner. And Jessalyn would know.” Lorene said, laughing, “For God’s sake, Bev. I was joking.”

How like Lorene this was! Maddening. To make a crude joke, and then to insist that was a joke, as if Beverly were too slow-witted and flat-footed to understand her wit.

When Beverly first spoke to Jessalyn about Thanksgiving she had not dared to tell her mother that Hugo was not invited. She had not dared partly because if she had, Jessalyn would surely have not come herself, and that would have been disastrous.

In his typically aggressive way Hugo insisted upon providing some of the wine for the meal, as well as pumpkin pies for dessert which he intended to make himself.

“That isn’t necessary, Hugo,” Beverly said weakly, on the phone, “—really. We always have too much food, especially desserts.”

“Yes. I will bring wine and pies. Thank you for having me.”

“But, Hugo…”

How had it happened, Beverly was calling this stranger Hugo. Trying to reason with Hugo as if he were one of the family. Her mother’s lover.

The world was becoming surreal to Beverly. None of this made sense.

Oh, if Whitey could know! Sliding his hand around hers to comfort, console. You’ll be all right, Bev. You know I am always with you.

She knew. She would not forget.

Since Beverly had eaten Hugo’s eggplant casserole she’d been feeling indebted to him. It was not a comfortable feeling. She dreaded Lorene and Thom finding out through a casual remark of their mother’s. Worse yet, a few days later Jessalyn called back to ask if Hugo could bring a friend with him to Thanksgiving, and Beverly was taken aback by the nerve—her own mother! Conspiring to bring an unknown person to the Benders’ dinner table. And that unknown person her Hispanic lover! (Though Beverly reserved the right to doubt that, in fact, her mother and Hugo Martinez were lovers. That did not seem possible.)

In fact there’d been a McClaren tradition, as the children were growing up, of Whitey inviting people to Thanksgiving whom he called, not quite accurately, “lame ducks”—“left-behinds.” Some of these individuals had been total strangers to the family, even to Whitey himself. Where he ran into them, no one knew. Some had been quite eccentric, indeed. Some had been “foreign.” How had Jessalyn felt, as the beleaguered hostess? Beverly never remembered her mother as anything less than delighted to welcome Whitey’s guests into their home.

Your mother is a saint. So people said.

Jessalyn was explaining to Beverly that Hugo’s friend was alone at Thanksgiving, with no family. He’d recently had surgery and was convalescing. He was very nice—“Very quiet, thoughtful.” They would bring him to Beverly’s for just an hour or so, and then move on, to another Thanksgiving gathering, that had been scheduled weeks ago, which Hugo was obliged to attend, so really he wouldn’t be staying long… In the confusion of the moment Beverly hadn’t heard all this. Her heart pounded in resentment of Hugo Martinez’s audacity, and his malevolent influence on her mother.

She felt that they were losing Jessalyn, she told Lorene. First, they’d lost Whitey. But they could not lose their dear mother!

When, on Thanksgiving Day, this mystery person appeared at the door with Jessalyn and Hugo, Beverly was the more astonished to see that he was an African-American, a diminutive man of about forty in an ill-fitting three-piece suit and shiny embossed necktie. Both suit and necktie looked like something from a bin at Goodwill. His name, Beverly was told by Hugo Martinez, was “Caesar Jones.”

Caesar Jones! No choice but to shake the man’s hand which felt over-warm in Beverly’s hand, and which she dropped quickly.

(So far as Beverly could recall, she had never shaken the hand of an African-American man. Not that this meant anything, of course it did not.)

Even worse, Caesar Jones turned out to be, in Hugo’s surprisingly frank words, a formerly incarcerated person.

Beverly managed to draw Jessalyn aside, that no one might overhear her alarm and indignation. What on earth was this!—an ex-convict in her house, invited to a meal with the family! With children.

Jessalyn told her that Caesar Jones had been “wrongly convicted”—“recently freed”—“exonerated”—after twenty-three years in Attica, for a crime he had not committed. He had no home at the present time and so was living in Hugo’s house.

“Living in Hugo’s house? But why?”

“Because—I’ve said—he has no other home right now.”

“But—why Hugo’s home?”

“Because Hugo has taken him in. He feels sorry for Caesar, and wants to help him adjust to the outside world.”

This information was intriguing to Beverly who’d naturally assumed that Hugo Martinez was a deceitful or at any rate a disreputable person. Wanting to help others?

“Does Hugo have a large enough house?”

“Yes. It’s quite large.”

“As large as—this house?” Beverly was disbelieving, incredulous.

Jessalyn had to be exaggerating.

“I think so, yes.”

This too was disconcerting. Hugo Martinez whom they’d vaguely assumed to be penniless, even homeless—owning a house as large as Beverly’s own?

“Well, but—what was the crime he was convicted of? Not murder, I hope.”

“Manslaughter. But—”

“Man-slaughter. But that is murder, Mom!”

“No. Caesar did not commit ‘manslaughter’—he is innocent of the charge and was falsely convicted.”

“For God’s sake, Mom—don’t they all claim to be innocent?”

“No. They do not. Caesar Jones is truly innocent. His sentence was not commuted but overturned by an appeals court.”

“But—how would you know if he was ‘innocent’ or not? If he’d been found guilty…”

“Juries make mistakes. Police officers lie—as we know. Prosecutors hide exculpatory evidence. Caesar Jones has been a victim and not a criminal—he’d been a college student, an education major, when he was arrested…”

Beverly was astonished to hear her mother, usually so soft-spoken, speak so vehemently. Barely, Beverly knew what exculpatory evidence was. (She would not have trusted herself to enunciate the phrase aloud.) The influence of Hugo Martinez on Jessalyn was more profound and more insidious than any of her children could have guessed.

At least, Jessalyn was wearing her snowy-white hair loose to her shoulders, not braided like a peasant woman’s hair. And she was wearing tasteful dark clothes, not some peasant blouse or smock that Hugo had given her, though around her neck were chunky amber beads that Beverly was sure she’d never seen before, and had to have come from Hugo.

Sharp-eared Hugo Martinez came over quickly to join Jessalyn. You could see (Beverly could see) that he’d been eavesdropping.

Caesar Jones was left to stand by himself in a doorway glancing about with lowered eyes, like a nocturnal creature in a brightly-lit place. He was smiling faintly, bravely. To Beverly’s dismay she saw Brianna sidle up to him to say hello.

Hugo told Beverly, “Caesar is a gentle person. We won’t let him out of our sight.”

Beverly felt her cheeks flush. Was Hugo making fun of her?

He would tell Beverly more about Caesar some other time, if she was interested, Hugo said.

Of course she was not interested!—Beverly wanted to retort.

Stiffly she said yes, some other time—“Thank you.”

(What were Caesar Jones and sixteen-year-old Brianna talking about? Shyly the black man smiled, revealing now broken and stained teeth. What would have repelled Brianna in another person seemed to have no effect upon her, in Hugo’s ex-convict friend.)

More guests were arriving. Beverly hurried to greet them. The younger children had been entrusted to pass around appetizers—Beverly would have to oversee them. There came exclamations of surprise—an elderly McClaren aunt and her middle-aged son arrived, whom Beverly had not expected to come to dinner; in fact, Beverly could not recall having invited these two.

How like a great wheel rolling at you, a dinner party. If you did not get out of its way it would roll over you, crushing you in the mud. But if you did get out of its way you could imagine yourself its master, smiling and laughing. Oh how good to see you!—and you…

At last Lorene arrived, carrying a Styrofoam package from a food store—Lorene’s customary contribution to Beverly’s Thanksgiving dinner. A quart of greasy cold green beans, or dyed-looking beets, or fruit salad whose colors had faded. For the occasion Lorene wore one of her cranberry-colored pants suits and odd-colored rawhide boots. Her signature buzz-cut hair, which had given her such a unique authoritarian look, had been replaced by a rainbow-colored cap of the sort (Beverly thought) that might have been knitted by a handicapped person, for a handicapped person. Lorene’s eyebrows were invisible and her eyes were lashless and blinking, touchingly naked.

“Here, Bev. Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late, Lorene. We hadn’t even noticed.”

This was so rude, and yet so innocently-sisterly rude, Lorene laughed; and Beverly laughed with her.

The last Thanksgiving. Just get through it!

As guests were taking their seats at the dining room table, Virgil arrived through the kitchen door. His absence Beverly had indeed noticed, and had been feeling an admixture of apprehension and hope. She’d had the impression that Virgil would come for her dinner, that he would not disappoint her (again). And here he was alone, and breathless. To her chagrin he explained that he could not stay for dinner after all, he was very sorry.

“What do you mean—‘very sorry’? Why aren’t you staying? Mom is here, and—your friend Hugo. And your nieces and nephews who haven’t seen you in ages.”

Virgil was carrying a half-bushel of apples from the farm on Bear Mountain Road, which he set on a table—not an appropriate place. At a glance Beverly could see that the apples were bruised and beginning to rot; they gave off a strong, cold, pungent aroma.

“Is this for me? Us? Well, thanks! You are very thoughtful as always, Virgil.” As if Beverly’s sarcasm could register with her self-centered and deeply annoying brother.

There was something strange about Virgil as well as annoying. His dirty-blond hair had been combed and brushed; not tied back in a straggly ponytail but spread out onto his shoulders, crackling with static electricity. Beverly stared. Was this—Virgil? Her hippie brother was clean-shaven for once, handsome. Or, if not handsome exactly, with that earnest, bony face, not nearly so plain and dour as she recalled. Like an artiste he was wearing a loose-fitting shirt of some crude fabric like congealed oatmeal, paint-flecked khaki trousers, sandals with red woolen socks. On his left wrist, some sort of beaded leather twine.

“Didn’t you say you were bringing a friend? Where is she?”

“Did I say ‘she’? Well—she isn’t here. And I have to leave, Beverly, I’m sorry.”

“Damn you, Virgil! You knew this was an important Thanksgiving—our first real Thanksgiving since Dad died. You’re always ‘sorry.’”

Beverly spoke heatedly but not so that anyone apart from Virgil could hear. She’d snatched up the half-bushel of apples, to shove back into Virgil’s arms, but Jessalyn appeared in the doorway, to greet Virgil with a hug, and there came swarmy Hugo to shake hands, so Beverly had no choice but to retreat, carrying the God-damned unwanted apples into the kitchen, better yet into the garage, which was cold as a refrigerator. In the morning she could toss the grimy basket and its contents into the trash.

There came Lorene following after Beverly, with a disingenuous smile. “I’d meant to tell you, Bev—I saw Virgil last week at the farm market with his ‘new friend.’ His companion. I think that’s what he is.”

“What who is? What?”

“Virgil’s new friend. An African-looking young man, years younger than Virgil, with skin so dark it’s kind of purple—iridescent—like an eggplant. He looks like one of those seven-foot runners from Kenya, that win all the marathons. His eyes are bulging-white! His legs are knotted with muscle—he was wearing shorts. They were both wearing shorts. I was so surprised, I just stared at them. I don’t think Virgil saw me. Or he pretended not to see me. I was—well, surprised.”

“But what do you mean, Lorene? Why were you so—surprised?”

“Because almost, Virgil and this young African man were holding hands. I mean, not actually, but as if they’d have liked to. Walking close together, as men usually don’t. And talking, and laughing. And Virgil’s hair was loose like it is now and he was looking positively luminous.”

Beverly stared at her pug-faced sister uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know what you are saying, Lorene. I really don’t. And this isn’t the time for it, at Thanksgiving.”

“Well, maybe by Christmas it will sink in. You can invite him—them—for Christmas Eve.”

Lorene laughed with much pleasure, ducking away as a younger sister might duck to escape a cuff from an older sister, though in this case Beverly was too distracted to react.

When Beverly returned to the dining room Virgil was on his way out. He’d greeted everyone he knew, he’d introduced himself to Caesar Jones, he and Sophia had had a brief intense exchange, politely he’d declined Steve’s invitation to sit down for just a few minutes, to have some turkey. To hell with him.

But Beverly hurried after Virgil, to shut the door behind him.

Calling after—“Next time give me some notice that you ‘can’t make it,’ God damn you. I hate you.”

Bounding to his Jeep that was parked on the road Virgil seemed scarcely to hear. A fierce November wind blew Beverly’s heartfelt words away like desiccated leaves.

At the head of the table Steve was carving the turkey as he usually did on such family occasions. He’d had several drinks hurriedly and his aim was slightly askew, or perhaps the carving knife had become dull, for the misshapen breast quickly became ravaged, pieces fell onto the platter in shreds. Beverly saw that her husband was affably drunk, his gaze unfocussed and benign. His hair, lank and long combed across the crown of his skull, trimmed shorter at the sides, once vivid-brown, had become the hue of dishwater, like Beverly’s own if she’d neglected having it “rinsed” at the beauty salon. He wore a pink-striped shirt meant to be festive that gave him the air of a slightly dissolute croupier.

“Damn!”—Steve cursed mildly and held out the knife for someone to take from him. “Is there a doctor here? Surgeon? I think I’m retiring from the task.”

Hugo Martinez, quick to descry an opportunity, rose from his seat beside Jessalyn, and came to seize the knife from Steve’s hand.

“I will do it. Gracias.”

Beverly cast Steve a sidelong look of muted rage. What on earth did he mean, retiring?

Her deceitful husband had been in an obscure mood for days. Usually Steve was ebullient to a fault, cheerful and remote as an FM radio station almost out of earshot but playing great music. You could see that he thought well of himself, he was secretly pleased about something, but you had no idea what, only that it excluded you. But just recently, Steve was not so happy and seemed not so distant but annoyingly near.

Money problems? (Did bankers have money problems?)

Women problems? (Had Steffi, or Siri, or Mira deleted him from her in-box?)

Since that first, traumatic day Beverly had not returned to Steve’s emails. Too upsetting, and a waste of her rapidly depleting energy.

With a flourish, like a pirate brandishing a scimitar, Hugo Martinez took over the carving of the sixteen-pound turkey. Within minutes, with an expert flashing of the blade, the immense bird was reduced to a carcass. Beverly had to concede, Hugo knew what he was doing. The boastful man had carved many a roast—turkey, suckling pig, goat. (Did Cubans roast goats? Or what was Hugo—Puerto Rican?) And he was damned happy, and pleased with himself, in a white peasant-looking shirt with no collar, of some fabric like linen, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms were hard with muscle, matted with swarthy hairs. His skin was not smooth, but a warm rich taffy hue. His eyebrows and mustache were heavy, tangled. Like Virgil he’d brushed his hair smooth to his shoulders, coarse dark brown threaded with silver. As he carved the turkey and lay slices of meat carefully on a platter he cast smiling glances at Jessalyn at the farther end of the table.

Of course, they will be married. Nothing any of you can do to stop them!

“You’re a poet, Mr. Martinez?”—Brianna spoke up boldly. It was clear that she was impressed with her grandmother’s glamorous friend. “Can you say a poem for us, then? Por favor.”

Where did this come from? Beverly exchanged startled glances with Lorene and Thom. She’d forgotten that Brianna was taking first-year Spanish, if she’d ever known. Had someone primed Brianna to make this request?

“Brianna, that’s rude. Maybe Hugo doesn’t want to ‘say a poem.’”

Hated to hear herself pronounce the name so familiarly—Hugo.

What the hell was this, Hugo at the Benders’ dining room table? And Steve had unhesitatingly handed over the carving knife to the man, and announced he was retiring from turkey-carving?

But of course Hugo Martinez was not embarrassed by the insolently coquettish young white girl’s request. Positively, Hugo was thrilled.

“Here is my favorite poem for ‘quietude’—the poem that comes to me in the night, like a hand on my shoulder. And for Thanksgiving too, for which we give deepest thanks on all days of the year.” Hugo spoke with much emotion, whether genuine or fraudulent, like one who is translating from another language, not quite easily into English. How deceitful he was!—Beverly wanted to leap up from her place at the table, grab her mother’s hand and run out of the room.

In a beautifully modulated voice Hugo stood before them, reciting “A Clear Midnight”—by “your greatest American poet Walt Whitman”:

There was a pause. Everyone was deeply moved, or nearly everyone. Lorene fussed with her napkin and Thom stared down at his plate. Sophia was looking rapt, and Jessalyn was looking radiant. Brianna clapped—“Awesome!” Steve’s brother Zack lifted a bottle of Molson’s ale to his lips and drank thirstily. Moisture glistened in Caesar Jones’s somber eyes and threatened to run down his drawn cheeks. Beverly was so furious she hadn’t heard most of the poem, had a vague idea that Hugo Martinez had written it, and resented such exhibitionism—nothing like Whitey telling his lengthy, funny jokes at the table, that most of them knew by heart and could anticipate. Why would you recite a poem on an occasion meant to be festive and happy, with such words as night, death, stars!

But soon after, to Beverly’s chagrin, Hugo rose from his place at the table, and Jessalyn as well, and Caesar Jones who was seated beside her—for it seemed, after scarcely forty minutes at the table, these three were leaving for another Thanksgiving gathering some miles away in Harbourton.

“But—so soon? You haven’t had anything to eat—or almost anything.” Beverly was dismayed that her mother should be abandoning her at such a time, and could not recall that Jessalyn had warned her beforehand; or, if she recalled, she could not quite believe that she would actually leave so soon. “Why don’t Hugo and his friend go to the other party, and you stay with us, Mom?—we never see you anymore…”

But Jessalyn was leaving with Hugo and Caesar Jones. There was no pleading with her, no shaming her into staying with her family, at the door she hugged Beverly and said again that she was sorry but plans for this event had been made months before—“It’s a fund-raiser, it’s for a really worthy cause. Hugo would be disappointed if—if I didn’t come with him.”

“And what about your family, Mom? Don’t you care that we are disappointed, you aren’t staying with us?”

What would Dad say? Beverly did not quite utter these damning words.

Yet, unbelievably—Jessalyn departed. With Hugo Martinez, and the African-American ex-convict who had the decency (at least) to appear embarrassed by Jessalyn’s rudeness to her own daughter.

ANOTHER LUXOR, and another glass of wine. And pleasure in this exquisite Thanksgiving, a beautifully prepared meal at a beautiful table.

Except she was noticing, Brianna wasn’t eating the turkey on her plate. Pushing it around, with a fastidious wrinkling of her nose.

“Brianna, is something wrong?”

Brianna shrugged, looking away.

Pleasantly Beverly observed that Brianna wasn’t eating.

“I am eating, Mom! Jeez.”

“But not turkey. Don’t tell me you are suddenly a vegetarian.”

Still Beverly spoke pleasantly, almost gaily. Others were listening, with hesitant smiles.

“Well, yes. Kind of, I think I am.”

“Really! Since when?”

“Since out in the kitchen, Mom. Seeing that poor turkey so kind of helpless on its back. And the raw-meat smell.”

Brianna shuddered. There was nothing mischievous-malicious in the girl’s manner, for once she seemed utterly sincere.

“Who has been influencing you? Virgil?”

“N-No. Is Uncle Virgil a vegetarian? I didn’t even know that.”

“I think he probably is,” Beverly said, laughing irritably. “Or if he isn’t, he’s the type that should be.”

The other children at the table were alert, listening. Brianna’s younger sister had a habit of emulating her, and Beverly was hoping to hell this vegetarianism fad wasn’t contagious.

Brianna said, “Actually, I would like to be a vegan. I’ve been reading about eating animals and dairy products and how disgusting it is. Wasteful and unethical and old.”

“What on earth is ‘veg-an’?”

“‘Vee-gan,’ Mom. It’s not eating any animals or animal products like milk. It’s respecting other forms of life.”

Could this be more bizarre?—at a Thanksgiving dinner? Whitey would be exasperated, impatient. He’d been disapproving as hell when Beverly came to the dinner table as a teenager reluctant to eat because she’d been on a diet; he’d seemed to be personally affronted.

Beverly didn’t intend to be baited. Not on this special day. Turning her attention away from Brianna, to the person on her left: Steve’s brother Zack who was talking earnestly with a McClaren relative about the upcoming football game.

Oh, how boring! She hated football, and she hated men.

There was Steve at the farther end of the table looking flush-faced, distracted. In his early forties, with a receding hairline and a thickening lower face, Steve still managed to be a “handsome” man—women seemed to find him so. (Women who weren’t obliged to see him in the early morning unshaven, disheveled, shambling and not very coordinated, distinctly not in a smiling mood.) Beverly disliked her husband’s drinking but could not reasonably complain since she was drinking too, except (she was sure) not so conspicuously.

Seeing her eyes on him Steve unexpectedly smiled; the smile he’d sometimes cast her across a room, his wife, the mother of children who were also, however astonishingly, his; the message was—Jesus! How’d we get into this? Us two? Now lifting his thumb in a jaunty gesture of approval that managed to be both congratulatory and condescending. Great meal, darling! Great wife and mother! Terrific as usual.

The wife was meals, other women were sex. Beverly could not easily forgive him, he had wounded her so deeply.

Well, she would wound him. No thought gave her a keener pleasure except (possibly) an acknowledgment from her sister Lorene finally that yes, Beverly’s wife/mother life was superior in all ways to Lorene’s unmarried/childless/career life.

But it was worrisome, Steve speaking of retiring. Of course he’d tried to give the remark a jokey cast. Like an unhappy boy turning his lips inside-out, to repel sympathy. But shouldn’t the head of a household take pride in carving meat at his table? Feeding guests, displaying his bounty? As if the husband sensed how his life in this household was coming to an end. How that very evening, the wife he so smugly took for granted would serve him divorce papers.

Steve. There is something here for you to look at.

I will leave these with you, Steve. In this folder.

(But would Beverly actually do such a thing? Could she? The divorce lawyer with the chic polished nails had advised her to protect herself financially before telling her husband of her plans, yet she’d made no effort to do this; perhaps then, this meant that Beverly had no real intention of giving Steve the papers. Uttering the dread word divorce—could she?)

(She needed to talk about such a decision with Jessalyn, more than she had. Surprising to her, disconcerting, that Jessalyn hadn’t tried harder to dissuade her, as Whitey would have.)

Wine? Yes please. One of the guests had taken up the bottle of chilled white wine that Hugo Martinez had brought, a very tart northern Italian wine. (Beverly would ask Steve to look up its price online. Though she supposed that canny Hugo acquired bottles like these at a discount.)

Dry-mouthed, from the medication (probably). But no one knew. No one’s business. Wine (alcohol) dehydrates as well but water left her feeling nauseated.

For an hour or more she’d been eating in surges. Not hungry now but still eating. So many hours of preparation!—she had a right to extract as much pleasure from the lengthy meal as possible, as she sensed others felt they must, too. Thom’s plate heaped with food, for the second, or was it the third time; yet Thom was probably not very hungry either, estranged from his family at Thanksgiving.

(Thom did miss his family, Beverly was sure. His wife whom everyone liked, to a degree; his children who were, on the whole, better-behaved and nicer children, Beverly had to concede, than hers. It was not natural for Thom not to miss them at Thanksgiving!)

Sophia was being asked about medical school. What would be her field of specialization? (Neurology.) When would she begin? (Early in January.) Would she commute to Ithaca, or live there? (Live there.)

Vaguely it was supposed by friends of the McClaren family that Sophia had a Ph.D. in something obscure like neuroscience, or molecular biology; but Beverly knew that Sophia had never finished her doctorate. She’d had some sort of crisis, she’d returned home to Hammond to be near her parents. (No one had ever explained it in those terms, but that was so.) She’d worked as a technician of some kind at that fancy research center—Memorial Park. There, she’d been involved with a married man, a scientist of distinction, Beverly had heard; he was her laboratory supervisor, also an M.D. Of course, Sophia had never shared such intimate information with Beverly, the sisters were not close. Beverly felt hurt that Sophia didn’t seem comfortable around her, as Sophia wasn’t comfortable around Lorene; which made the older sisters less inclined to be nice to Sophia.

This was a fact: never would Sophia have dared to have an affair with a married man, and a much older man, if their father had been alive.

Whitey would’ve been livid with disapproval. Jessalyn couldn’t have been thrilled, either.

But the affair was over, evidently. Beverly was spared having to have an opinion. Sophia had come to the Benders’ alone but didn’t seem particularly lonely or aggrieved, talking and laughing with her nieces and nephews. Even talking with Lorene, who usually sneered at Sophia’s earnestness. And Thom had spent time talking with Sophia in a corner of the living room, as if he hadn’t wanted anyone else to hear; Beverly would have liked to eavesdrop. In a family of five siblings you felt anxiety seeing two or three of them together, out of earshot.

It was unsettling: though you could not really take younger siblings seriously yet with the passage of time they seemed to be gaining on you. When had Sophia ceased being a virgin? And Virgil? What sort of emotional/sexual experiences did Virgil have, with his exasperating faux-Buddhism? It was not believable, Virgil could be gay. No. Even with Whitey gone, Virgil wouldn’t dare.

“Well, it’s debatable whether consciousness, or ‘mind,’ precedes matter, or the brain,” Sophia was saying, in response to someone’s question, “—though it isn’t very likely that consciousness drifts about like a cloud seeking neurons to slide into.”

There was a startled silence. For a moment no one spoke. Then, eleven-year-old Tige asked suddenly, “Could it be like a radio? Radio waves? Some kind of frequency?”

It was unlike Tige to speak in the presence of adults. Of the Bender children he was the quietest, the most inward. Beverly was amazed, the boy had been listening to Sophia, and seemed to have understood her.

“Tige” was an abbreviation of “Tiger”—the family’s pet name for Taylor. Whatever he’d asked, his aunt Sophia was taking the question seriously for Sophia did not condescend to children as most adults did. And so she shook her head gravely, no. She didn’t think so. Not like radio waves.

Tige seemed disappointed. He’d wanted to impress his scientist-aunt, Beverly saw with a pang of jealousy.

None of the children ever wanted to impress her. Oh, what did they care, Beverly was only their mom.

Steve said, “What the hell, Sophie? Each word I can understand but how they fit together, I can’t.”

It was an awkward attempt at humor. Every exchange between Steve and Beverly’s attractive younger sister that Beverly had ever observed was awkward. Sophia laughed, embarrassed. Clearly she didn’t want to continue with this line of inquiry for everyone was looking at her now, with uncomprehending smiles. Why did people think that the obscurities of science were somehow funny? Beverly didn’t.

Her calm young coolly beautiful sister was the medical specialist who studied your CAT scan and saw that you were doomed. Very carefully this woman with the schoolgirl face and mouth unsoftened by lipstick would choose the precise scientific terms in which to express this doom.

Thom said, with an edge of impatience, as if he’d been hoping not to become involved, “Wait. You’re claiming, Sophie, that our personalities are just wisps of—cloud?—molecules?—coming out of nowhere and going nowhere? That’s what you’re saying?”

Sophia shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not ‘claiming’ anything, really. These are just theories of mind, I don’t understand myself. I am not a researcher.”

In Sophia’s world, the highest calling was “researcher.” Beverly knew this without quite understanding what “researcher” meant.

Thom protested: “Our personalities feel so strong. Maybe not from inside all the time but from the outside. Think of Dad—Whitey McClaren. Everyone who ever met him will always remember him. There was only one ‘Whitey’ and he certainly wasn’t any wisp of cloud.”

Others agreed, vehemently. There was an air of just slightly aggressive elation around the table. Steve said Hell yes, and Steve’s brother Zack said You said it! Brianna said Ohh, I miss Grandpa Whitey! You wanted to glance about the table to see where Whitey was sitting, drink in hand.

(Yet: Was it true? Beverly recalled that when Whitey had been in the hospital following his stroke, sometimes he’d said very strange things. He’d been hallucinating. Some crucial part of his brain had been impaired, he could not enunciate words, he had lost the sensation in half his face. Once, Beverly had entered the hospital room and Jessalyn had come quickly to her, to pull her out into the corridor begging her Not just now, please not now, dear. Dad isn’t himself right now.)

Sophia was looking relieved that attention had shifted from her to Thom, and beyond. Men took up combative conversation like football: the ball had to be passed about, but not meekly. No one waited his turn to speak. Beverly ceased listening, she was calculating when to begin clearing dishes, bringing out dessert. Much of the turkey white meat had been eaten, a good deal of the dark meat. The fancy stuffing had been popular, too. The damned brussels sprouts with slivered almonds that Lorene had brought in the Styrofoam container, stone cold, just perceptibly withered, had scarcely been touched; Beverly would repackage them to hand back to Lorene—Here. Thanks!

Or maybe Beverly would say, with a sisterly smirk—Keep refrigerated, you can recycle next Thanksgiving.

As always Jessalyn’s sweet potato soufflé had been a favorite, the serving bowl was nearly empty. (Jessalyn’s secret ingredient: marshmallows.) Each year Beverly vowed she wouldn’t have a small spoonful of the soufflé but each year she had a large portion.

And there was Steve, emptying a bottle of wine into his own glass. Again regarding her. Guiltily? He’d just returned to the table. More than once in the past hour (Beverly had noted) he’d excused himself from the table, left the dining room, (possibly) slipped out of the house. Smoking out-of-doors (though he wasn’t supposed to be smoking at all), or making a call on his God-damned cell phone.

I know about you, Steve.

Yes? What do you know?

I know what you do. What you think. Where your mind is. What your secret life is.

And what is that, darling?

It had been at least three years, Beverly had appealed to her husband to draw up a will. She would arrange for hers, and he would arrange for his. They would go together to Barron, Mills & McGee. They must not procrastinate any longer. They owed it to their children and to each other not to die intestate. (Intestate was a term Beverly had mastered, to be uttered carefully, to intimidate poor Steve who could not help but hear testes in it, and to feel imperiled.) Steve had agreed in theory that they should draw up their wills but each time Beverly made an appointment with the law firm Steve found an excuse to cancel. Pityingly she thought—He thinks he will never die.

A woman thinks otherwise. A woman knows otherwise.

Women are familiar with their bodies in ways men are not.

Each month, bleeding. You understand the body’s propensity for dissolution. But also, the body’s propensity to endure.

After dinner, after the football game, when everyone had gone home and the children were in bed, she would leave the folder with Steve and he would think the papers had something to do with the will.

Until he began reading. And then he would realize.

Too late. Yes I love you too—or I did love you. But now—too late.

What was Lorene boasting of?—her plan to endow scholarships at the high school, in Whitey’s name. This was a new scheme of Lorene’s, which Beverly resented. Her sister hoping to curry favor with the community and the family and with their (deceased) father in such an obvious way.

John Earle McClaren Scholarship Fund. It did sound noble, rather wonderful.

“You’re also going on quite an ambitious trip, aren’t you, Lorene? At Christmas?”

“Yes. I am. I deserve a break, I think.”

“Public school teachers don’t have summer-long ‘breaks’? Really?”

“Administrators are not ‘teachers.’ We work on a different schedule—full-time.”

“And you’re ‘on leave’ for the spring term? No schedule at all? That will be a considerable break.” Trying to speak sincerely but it felt as if mischievous red ants were running up Beverly’s sides tickling. “And you are being ‘transferred’ after that—to another school.”

“Yes.”

Why not say it—demoted. You are being demoted to assistant principal at an inferior school.

Gritting her teeth (in rage? shame?) Lorene ignored her sister’s taunts to tell the table that most of the money Whitey had left to her was to be passed on to the community—“Dad wanted us to be generous. He was a model to us, to think of others besides ourselves.” In the tone of a high school principal addressing an audience of credulous parents, mildly hectoring but kindly, idealistic. What a charade! Even in her generosity Lorene was stingy, calculating. Beverly saw through the facade as you’d examine an X-ray. Especially, Beverly resented her sister’s “philanthropy” for it meant that Beverly would have to be philanthropic, too.

Of Whitey’s bequest she’d spent about one-third and most of that on house repairs, upkeep. New roof, repaving the driveway. Too weak-minded not to give in to Steve, who’d put pressure on her to provide money for one damn thing or another including a new SUV (for Steve). But she’d saved a portion for herself. Needed to hide it away in a special account in any bank but the Bank of Chautauqua where her deceitful husband could not find it.

One day, she would disappear. Fly away. A trip like Lorene’s to an exotic island, or closer to home, maybe New York City where (she believed) she had a few friends from college, still. Sorority sisters. A circle of friends awaited her—somewhere. When the children were older and not so dependent upon her. When the last of them left for college which would be—when?—her brain went blank, the years shimmered out of sight.

Heard herself saying: “Yes, Dad did expect us to be generous. I don’t think I’ve told anyone—yet—I’ve arranged to endow a space at the library—downtown… The John Earle McClaren Reading Circle for special groups, students, senior citizens, immigrants needing help with English… It will be in one of those rooms on the first floor with the glass walls, just behind the circulation desk.”

Steve was looking quizzically at Beverly but others at the table were impressed. Several clapped, and Zack lifted his bottle of ale in a salute. Thom and Sophia were quizzical too but (it seemed) approving while Lorene stared coldly at Beverly as if to accuse—Liar! What bullshit.

(It was so, Beverly hadn’t exactly spoken with anyone at the library yet. Whitey had left the library a considerable amount of money in his will and so Beverly’s idea was not so very original, yet it had come to her in a flash, and had had to be uttered at this moment, before the dinner guests were dispersed. But she would call the development officer at the library whom she knew, and would drive down on Monday with a check.)

Beverly’s philanthropy would be noted in the local press, she was sure. If she acted swiftly, before Lorene’s “scholarship endowments” were noted.

At last there came dessert. Fruit tarts, vanilla sponge cake with strawberry frosting, Hugo’s pumpkin pies (coarse crusts, too much allspice, otherwise decent), several flavors of ice cream. Buttercrunch cookies, oatmeal cookies. Chocolates in gaudy gilt wrappers.

Football preliminaries had begun on TV. Half the table departed noisily to watch downstairs.

Thom too rose with the other males but (it would turn out) did not accompany them downstairs, simply slipped away from the house without saying goodbye to anyone but taking time soon afterward to send Beverly a hurried and perfunctory email from his cell phone thanking her for inviting him and for such a great dinner as usual.

The elderly McClaren relative who’d come with her middle-aged son had a bout of dizziness trying to rise from the table. There were cries of distress. Beverly felt her heart sink—Oh shit is somebody going to die, too?—but practical-minded Sophia intervened, helping the woman to lower her head to her knees, to restore blood to her brain, and the crisis passed.

“Sophia will make a great doctor”—inevitably, this was said.

Soon then, they were clearing the table. Nothing so messy as the remains of a Thanksgiving dinner. The kitchen looked as if a whirlwind had blown through it leaving at its center a grotesque turkey cadaver on an enormous grease-streaked platter but Beverly only laughed—her heartiest laugh—had to hand it to her Beverly doesn’t let anything faze her, always in a good mood.

Another little white pill washed down with tart white wine helping her to see the bright side of things, unless it was the absurdity of all things: husband downstairs avidly watching a game with a ball on TV, wife upstairs vigorously scraping and rinsing plates, running the garbage disposal so that it was threatening to explode even as the marriage was unraveling like a cheap synthetic-knit sweater.

Handing Lorene the Styrofoam container into which she’d spooned leftover brussels sprouts. Sweet-sisterly Thanks, Lorene! As usual.

Lorene had carried a few plates into the kitchen with the air of one to whom such women’s work was a novelty, not entirely disagreeable but out of character; it was Lorene’s strategy to keep at the margins of heavy lifting, plate-scraping, pan-scouring and anything involving garbage, leaving others who were more qualified (“women”) to do such work. Though her dominant mode was sarcasm Lorene was curiously tone-deaf and rarely recognized sarcasm in another, accepting the uneaten brussels sprouts from her sister with equanimity—“Good! These were not cheap, and I can eat them tomorrow.”

Sophia was the last of the McClarens to leave. Hugging Beverly impulsively as she’d rarely done and thanking her for being such a “wonderful sister”—(had the wine gone to Sophia’s head?—these words made Beverly want to cry).

Then adding, hesitantly, riskily: “But I think, Beverly, if I were you, I wouldn’t make Mom feel guilty about her friend Hugo. She is trying hard, you know, just to—keep going.”

Beverly protested: “I—I wasn’t trying—to make Mom feel guilty… I just—I don’t think—”

“But it’s Mom’s life, Beverly. Not yours. Try to be happy for her.”

“But it’s wrong for Mom to be happy—isn’t it?”

Not knowing what the hell she was saying. God damn Sophia for provoking her and now yes, Beverly was crying, angry-crying, as Sophia hurried out the walk buttoning her coat as she fled.

Wanting to call after Sophia—I am not making Mom feel guilty, Mom is guilty!

IT WAS 10:30 P.M. The football game was long over. Of the raucous fans only Steve remained in the TV room sprawled in his recliner, TV remote in hand and staring bleary-eyed at the television screen. Preparing herself for the mess of the TV room after hours of male occupancy Beverly entered with a steely smile carrying the folder from Barron, Mills & McGee which she set on the table beside her husband with a neutral, not-unfriendly remark: “Here is something for you to peruse.”

Peruse. She’d decided on this canny word, an oblique word. The precise word for this occasion.

Steve blinked and squinted at the folder, shuddering. “Oh God. Is it the will?”

“There is no ‘the’ will. There is your will, and there is my will.”

In her neutral voice Beverly spoke, calmly. Though her heart was beating rapidly with sympathy for the man who was looking so apprehensive.

“Jesus, why now? I mean—Thanksgiving night…”

How tired the husband was sounding! Hours of TV football had drained him of his youth.

Even now Beverly was tempted to touch him. Wrist, shoulder. Just a fleeting touch. And Steve might grasp her hand as he sometimes did, and kiss it. A casual and yet touching gesture that cost him very little and meant a good deal to Beverly.

She’d meant to bring him a bottle of club soda, as she often did at such times when he’d been watching TV sports intensely. In danger of dehydration. Even now, she might return upstairs to get a bottle from the refrigerator for him… He would appreciate that.

But Steve’s gaze drifted back to the TV screen as if drawn by an irresistible gravity. Nothing there except an advertisement and so he switched channels. Another advertisement and so he switched again.

The air in the basement was stale, stuffy. Masculine odors. An atmosphere of depletion. Excitement that had plummeted to fatigue. Chairs had been dragged in front of the large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall and unwanted cushions had been tossed about. The children’s stacks of DVDs had been pushed aside. On a cabinet shelf, leaving a ring on the maple wood, was a tall emptied Molson’s bottle. The husband was in no hurry to rouse himself from the recliner and come upstairs. He’d loosened the top buttons of his shirt, and undone his belt. Kicked off his shoes. Drunk, or in the lethargic aftermath of drunk.

Beverly picked up scattered beer cans, bottles, plates bearing sticky remnants of desserts. Crumpled napkins on the carpet.

The last time. No more.

Steve made no move to open the folder. Cartoon laughter blared from the TV.

Politely Beverly asked, “How was the game?”

Steve shrugged, making a grunting noise—Ughh.

Who’d won, who’d lost was a matter of zero interest to Beverly but her principle had always been, regarding men/boys and games: be polite. Don’t sneer. Sympathize, for it seems to mean much to them.

“Your team didn’t win?”

“No-ooo. ‘My team’ did not win.”

It was Steve who was sneering now, turning back to the TV.

For a moment Beverly waited. Would he say nothing about the Thanksgiving dinner? The food, the look of the table? The effort?

As she was about to leave he called after her: “Hon, that was great. The dinner. Really great.” Pausing, and adding, “Could you bring me a club soda? If there’s any left? Thanks!”

UPSTAIRS, SHE WAITED.

Lying on her bed positioning her head on pillows trying not to provoke a headache. Between the folds of her brain were slivers of glass. Take care! She’d had too much to drink, and too much to eat. She’d meant to loosen her belt but discovered she was not wearing a belt. The waistband of her black silk slacks was cutting cruelly into her (soft, flaccid) flesh.

The little white antidepressants had failed to dissolve into her bloodstream and were floating there now like phosphorescent globs of detergent in a stream.

Mom! Why are you just standing there?

What is wrong with Mom? Half the time we come into the house she’s just—standing there like a zombie…

For God’s sake, Mom. What is wrong with you?

She’d liked Mommy. She’d been a young Mommy.

But Mom was something else. Mom meant you are not yourself but a part of someone else. Belonging to someone else.

You had to be My Mom, Our Mom. You could not be just Mom.

It would not be said A Mom was awarded the highest honor of the nation yesterday at a president’s reception in Washington, D.C. It would not be said A platoon of Moms marched into and massacred a border village yesterday. It would not be said A gathering of Moms unveiled a stunning new medical arts center. Nor would it be said Mom Arrested on Rape Charge. Mom Indicted.

Now that Whitey had gone away nothing was certain. The sky had opened. Like venetian blinds yanked open. What was beyond the blinds you hadn’t seen before, could be just another wall. Or a corner of sky.

“What? Who is—” Wakened with a start. She’d thought that someone had entered the room to check on her where she’d fallen asleep in so awkward a way, her neck was aching badly. And her bladder aching badly.

Nearly midnight. Thank God Thanksgiving Day 2011 was ended.

Went into the bathroom to use the toilet. Not walking very steadily. Over-bright lights. Beyond the glare she could not see her face clearly which was a blessing. Mom, for God’s sake. That lipstick is not flattering.

Suddenly she remembered: Steve!

She’d left him downstairs in the TV room. In the recliner.

If he fell asleep watching TV she would wait for him to come upstairs but if he failed to come, she would sigh and go downstairs, two flights of stairs, to wake him, and bring him back upstairs. It was cruel to let the husband sleep in the TV room and crueler still to pretend that you were not aware that the husband was sleeping in the TV room in the recliner that would cause his neck and his spine to ache.

Two flights of stairs she descended, and there was Steve on his recliner in the TV room as she’d left him, now asleep and breathing laboriously through his mouth. Reflected light from the TV played on his face that was slack in repose and looking years older than his age. Gently she extricated the TV remote from his fingers and switched off the TV.

How welcome, the sudden silence! For a moment she feared that Steve would waken. But he did not.

She saw, he had not opened the folder. Of course, he had not touched the folder. He’d drunk two-thirds of the club soda and had set the bottle on top of the folder where it left a ring. One of his legs had slipped from the recliner and lay at an odd angle like a broken or paralyzed leg.

“Steve. It’s me.”

And, “Steve? It’s not too late.”

Great annoyance she felt for the sleeping husband, yet sympathy as well. His neck would surely ache, and his spine. He would need help on the stairs. He would be embarrassed, needing his wife to help him out of the recliner and onto his feet and up two flights of stairs. He was not old, even if his back ached and his legs felt weak!—he was far from old. The wife would disguise the awkwardness of the occasion by counting One-two-three! Up!—as you’d joke with a young child.

Discreetly the wife took up the folder, beneath her arm. She would hide it away in a drawer in the bedroom. She would hide it from the husband until another, more appropriate time.

Wind Chimes

In the night. In the wind. A sound of distant voices, laughter.

She is not certain if she has been awake, or is waking only now. The room is lightless in a way that presses against her eyeballs, like invisible thumbs.

Fumbling for the bedside lamp but her fingers grope in the dark, in vain.

Or perhaps she is in another bed. In another room for she has been expelled from this room, in which she had slept for so many years with her beloved husband.

He is sleeping now in the earth, the husband. It is lightless there, moist and cold though not freezing for the earth is protective of those who lay beneath it.

Snow lies thinly over the grave markers, the tall grasses behind the darkened house. In the fast-running creek, snow melts without a trace.

She has removed the stack of books from beside her bed. Dog-eared at page 111 The Sleepwalkers has been returned to Whitey’s bookshelf in another part of the house.

There are other books here now, on her bedside table. Slender books of poetry, a book of black-and-white photographs.

It is the eve of her wedding. Not to Whitey but to another—his face is obscured.

Yet, Whitey observes. Whitey has not ever ceased observing.

Toss the dice, darling. Be brave!

She is apprehensive for she is going to be married, she is going to be a bride (again).

Is she expected to wear white? A long white gown, a white veil? She has no white shoes, she is undecided what to do. In the end, she supposes she must go without shoes, barefoot.

The white bridal gown will be a sheet wrapped about her. Her arms crossed over her chest, for warmth.

Wind chimes!—that is what she has been hearing.

Close behind the house, wind chimes above the deck, in the lowermost limbs of trees. Who had placed them there? Possibly Jessalyn herself, years ago. In this bed Whitey had lain with his arms behind his head and Jessalyn beside him utterly content listening to rain, wind, the sweet sonorous chimes from somewhere beyond the darkened room.

So beautiful. It’s like heaven here. I love you.