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