Strange awareness moved across her face, a shadow of understanding. “Maybe it was Ezra,” she said, then jerked, as if stunned that she had actually said the words.

“‘Maybe it was Ezra’?” I repeated.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, but it was too late. I knew what she meant, and suddenly my ears roared, a cacophony that threatened to knock me from my chair.

Maybe it was Ezra.

Maybe… it… was… Ezra.

I gaped at my wife as if from a distance and I understood. Ezra wanted me to carry on his tradition of greatness. She wanted me to make more money. Children would distract me. Her features rippled into something that terrified me. Wife and father had conspired to rob me of my children and I’d let them do it, as plodding and dumb as any farm animal. The clarity overwhelmed me. I stumbled from my chair, her voice a distant buzz. Somehow, I found the bottle of scotch and poured a full tumbler. Barbara was looking at me. Her lips moved, and then she walked to the kitchen on a stranger’s legs. Time stood still as she rinsed plates, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped down the counter. She looked at me as she worked, as if worried that I might disappear. But I could not move; there was no one to lead me. I think I laughed at that.

When she finally came for me, I was drunk beyond words, lost in depths I never believed could exist. Stolen! The children I’d always wanted, the family I’d looked forward to since college. By those I should trust the most, my life had been stolen from me. And I’d let it happen. Call it blind trust. Call it cowardice. Call it the complicity of inaction. I shared the guilt, and the enormity of that fact overwhelmed me.

As if through fog, my wife’s hand reached for me. She led me to the bedroom, put me down, and stood before me. Her lips moved and the words followed sometime later. “Don’t worry, darling. We’ll figure it all out. I’m sure Ezra provided.” Her words made little sense.

She undressed, hanging her top carefully before turning back to present her breasts to me like manna from some other man’s heaven. She slipped off her skirt, revealing legs of carved bronze. She was a statue brought to life, a trophy for good behavior. Her fingers found the fasteners of the clothes that should have armored me but didn’t; she took my pants with a victor’s smile, told me to relax, and knelt before me. I knew this was wrong but hid behind closed eyes as she spoke in tongues and wove spells of terrible power; so I surrendered myself, and in surrender knew the damnation of the utterly corrupt.

CHAPTER 10

Sunday morning, early, I cracked my eyes to cold gray light. It stole under the blinds to touch the bed but left most of the room dark. Barbara slept beside me, her leg sweaty against my own. I edged to the far side of the bed and held myself still. I felt fragile. Glue bound my eyelids, and the tongue that filled my mouth tasted like something long dead. I thought of the brutal truths so often borne on predawn light. I’d had a few in my time, and they’d all led to this. I was a stranger to myself. I’d gone to law school for my father, married for my father; and for that same man, and for the vile woman who shared my bed, I’d surrendered my dreams of family-my very soul. Now he was dead and all I had was this truth: My life was not my own. It belonged to an empty shell that wore my face. Yet I refused to pity myself.

I lifted my head to peer at Barbara: sleep-matted hair, creased skin, open mouth that glistened on the inside. My face twisted at the sight, but still, even on this dawn of revelation, I had to acknowledge her beauty. But I hadn’t married her for her looks; I could tell myself that and believe it. I’d married her for her intensity, her energy. The tail wind of her convictions had swept me into her wake: She would make the perfect wife and only a fool would let her go. Somehow I’d come to believe that, and I thought that now I knew the ugly reasons why. Vanessa had said it: I married her for Ezra. Jesus.

My feet found the floor and I groped my way out of the room. In the laundry room, I found a pair of dirty jeans and some flip-flops. I collected the telephone and a pack of cigarettes and sat on the front porch. Mist was over the park and it was cold. I shivered as I lit up and blew smoke at the world. Nothing moved, and in the stillness I felt very much alive. I dialed Vanessa’s number. Her machine answered and I knew that she was already out of bed, barefoot in the wet grass. As I waited for the beep, I decided to tell her the truth: that she was right and that I was sorry. Not that I loved her. Not yet. That had to be face-to-face, and I wasn’t ready. There were other issues there, stuff that had nothing to do with truth or with the fact that my life was a mess. But I did want her to know that I understood. That she was right and I was wrong. So I let it all out. The words were just words, a pale start all in all, but they had to count for something. As I turned the phone off, I felt good. I had no idea what the future held, but I didn’t care.

So I sat and I smoked, and something moved inside me that I recognized from a long, long time ago. The sun rose and put its warm red fingers upon me, and for a moment I was at peace. Then I felt Barbara’s presence and she stepped through the door.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Smoking,” I said, and didn’t bother to turn around.

“It’s six-forty-five in the morning.”

“Is it?”

“Look at me, Work.”

I turned around. She stood in the open door, wrapped in a fleece robe. Her hair was a mess, eyes puffy above a miserly mouth. I knew that her thoughts, like mine, were on last night. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

I gave Barbara my eyes as a warning, but I knew that she could not decipher even that pale message. She’d have to know me to get it, and we were strangers. So I gave her my thoughts, spelled them out in flat black letters that any moron could read. “I’m thinking that my life has been hijacked, held for ransom that I could never pay. I’m looking at a world that I’ve never seen before and wondering how the hell I got here.”

“Now you’re being silly,” she said, and smiled like she could play this off.

“I don’t know you, Barbara, and I wonder if I ever did.”

“Come back to bed,” she commanded.

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s freezing out here.”

“It’s colder inside.”

Her frown deepened. “That hurts, Work.”

“I’ve figured out that truth often does,” I said, and turned my back to her. In the distance, a man was walking toward us along the street. He wore a long trench coat and a hunting cap.

“Are you coming or not?” she insisted.

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” I told her.

“You’re half-naked,” she said.

I turned and smiled at her. “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t that a hoot?”

“You’re frightening me,” she said.

I turned back to watch my park walker and felt her step out onto the porch. For a long minute, she stared down at me, and I could only imagine what she might be thinking. Suddenly, her hands were on my shoulders, her fingers kneading me. “Come to bed,” she said in her voice of oiled silk and bedroom pleasures.

“I’m awake now,” I told her, meaning it in so many ways. “You go.” I felt her hands withdraw, and she stood silently-angry, puzzled, or both. She’d spread her angel’s wings, offered to lift me up, and I’d shot her down. Where would she go now? What lever could she trust to move me when the last resort of ready flesh had failed her in the end? I knew only that quiet retreat was not an option for her.

“Who’ve you been talking to?” she asked, a new edge in her voice. I glanced at the phone at my side, thought of Vanessa Stolen, and marveled coldly at my perspicacity.

“Nobody.”

“May I have the phone?”