would need to prove himself again and again and again. If anything, the strife became more ferocious, the stakes higher, as the lesser men fell away. Todd's firm hired only the best, and expected to dismiss fully half of them. Todd had no intention of being dismissed, and further, he had no intention of ending merely as a successful attorney. He wanted to govern. He wanted to create new systems of order. In whatever time he could shave out of his schedule he advised the city planning commission in Darien and provided counsel to the school board. He was getting his name around. He had reason to believe he could one day become a representative, a senator; he might even be able to go beyond that. There was nothing stopping him. He was smart and handsome, he had a solemn undangerous charm. He was married to a smart and handsome woman who had worked to help support him through college and law school and who now took classes at the community college. The idea that Susan would do terrible damage if discovered seemed abstract to her, like tales of the punishment inflicted on women accused of witchcraft. She did what she needed to do, lived on the edge of a forest far from what Todd meant by the world. She worked on the house, attended her classes, comforted her husband after the long struggle of his days.
What happened with Joel kept increasing. She wanted nothing beyond the sensations and the simple friendship. She wasn't looking for love. She didn't bother with birth control. She'd come to believe she couldn't have babies, anyway. What she loved about Joel was not thinking about babies; not thinking about defeat and insufficiency. With Joel she unabashedly sought pleasure. She straddled him, pushed herself up and down on his big red cock. She thrust herself in his face, tugged screaming at his hair, told him he must not stop. She'd never expected this, the hot ragged climb and the implosion. She'd never imagined herself so washed in it. Afterward, driving home again, she felt cleansed, lightened, as if a layer of dust had been scrubbed off her. The cold air touched her differently. Her skirt lay differently on her thighs.
Her mother called early one morning the following September. “Hi, honey,” she said in a cheerfully haggard voice, and Susan knew immediately that something had happened.
“Mom. What's up?”
“Well, I have something to tell you.”
“What? Mom, what's happened?”
“Sweetheart, I've asked your father to leave. He's staying at the Garden City Hotel, for now.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“We've separated. I don't know exactly what will happen. I'm sorry to be telling you over the telephone, but I thought I should let you know.”
“What happened?”
“This has been brewing for a long time, honey,” her mother said. “You must have known your father and I have always had, well, a little trouble.”
“But why now?” Susan said. “Something must have happened.”
Her mother paused. The line hummed faintly with static. “You know what it really is, honey?” her mother said. “It's that I'm finally coming into my own. I haven't turned into a women's libber or anything like that, believe me. I'm not going to start burning my bras. But. I'm not sure how to say this. I guess I've known for a long time that I need my own life. Your father and I raised you kids, we hung in there, and now that you're all on your own we need to be on our own, too. Does that make any sense?”
Susan had stiffened. All she could think of was that she had failed. She'd been discovered. She wasn't sure what she meant. She wasn't sure what she thought.
“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know what to say.”
“This is a shock,” her mother said. “I understand.”
“I have to go.”
“Susan, it'll be all right. We're still your parents, nothing about that has changed.”
“Mother, I really have to go. I can't talk to you right now.”
“Whatever you think is best. I understand.”
“You don't understand,” Susan said. “You don't understand anything.”
“I don't blame you for being angry.”
“Thank you.”
“Your father, well. His temper. I just—”
“I have to go. I'm sorry.”
“Okay, honey. Whatever you want.”
Susan was sitting at the dining-room table when Todd came home. She hadn't called him at the office. She hadn't called anyone. She'd kept the receiver in her hand and touched the dial, intending to call her husband, her brother and sister, anyone. Then she'd taken her hand away and walked