hands in her lap. All Connie could see were the big tortoiseshell pins that held Dorothy’s hair in an old-fashioned roll at the base of her neck.
“That was nice of you,” Connie said.
“I have to go,” Dorothy said. “I have to pick up my daughter.” Her hands twisted again. “You have a daughter, too,” she added.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Scanlan likes her. Your daughter, I mean.”
“I know.”
Dorothy rose heavily. She wore a cameo at the throat of her white cotton blouse. Connie thought she looked out of time, like a visitor from the last century. Her eyes were red. She picked up her purse from the floor, and a paperback book. At the door she turned and looked at John Scanlan.
“He’s dying,” she said.
“Yes,” said Connie.
“I’m glad,” said Dorothy, and for just a moment there was a blaze of savagery in her eyes and an acrimony in her voice that made her seem half mad. Then she turned and left.
“Jesus Christ,” whispered Connie, sitting down, repelled by the warmth still lingering from Dorothy’s body. “What did he do to her? How many others are there? Jesus Christ, what a life this man has led.” For a long time she sat there and watched him sleep. Twice a nurse came in, glanced briefly at the blue cardboard visitor’s pass and at the patient, then left again. The level in the IV ebbed slowly. Connie read the Daily News. She left the little bottle of Four Roses in the top drawer of the bedside table. The light outside deepened slightly, from a white to a pale, pale yellow. Finally Connie came to accept that if the key to a prison were on her husband’s key ring, he had put it there himself.
She had nearly made up her mind to leave when John Scanlan turned his head on the pillow and opened his eyes. The deep blue was masked by a rheumy film, like the shadow a dog’s eyes develop when old age has set in. For the first time that she could remember Connie looked him in the face, eye to eye, and did not flinch, did not look away.
He stretched out his big hand, soft and dry as a snake’s skin. The veins on the back were enormous, and by some trick of the light or because of his illness, they seemed to be throbbing.
“Franny,” he said hoarsely, reaching for her.
Connie drew back, but he pulled her arm closer and threaded his fingers through hers, engulfing her palm in his own. “Don’t be angry, sweetheart,” he said, almost as though he was talking to himself. “You’re prettier when you smile.” And he grinned, a kind of rictus now that his face had been pared down to bone and sinew. Connie thought she had never heard his brogue so thick, even when he was telling stories at parties and had had too much to drink. His grip made the stone on her engagement ring cut into her finger.
For a long time he said nothing, just stared and breathed heavily, as though he had been running. “The children are in bed,” he said once. “Good riddance.” A few minutes later he winked at her, and said “You’re my girl.” Connie was pink with embarrassment, although she knew that it was not her he was seeing; she was afraid, too, afraid that he would somehow suddenly snap out of it and be enraged at so revealing himself, be enraged at being duped, even if he had done the duping himself. His lids drooped and he began to breathe more evenly; then they snapped up, like shades that had been pulled at the bottom, and he began to talk as though there was not enough time to get out all the words.
“I’m sorry you lost the baby, Franny,” he said groggily, his voice catching on every consonant. “It was the blood that did it. The doctor said it happens sometimes, but there was no blood with the boys. She was a beautiful little thing, but the doctor said ‘She won’t live, Mr. Scanlan,’ and you wanting a daughter so bad, after the three sons, wanting someone you could put in little dresses with the ribbons and things.” He fell silent but his breathing was loud. “I remember when you said ‘I’m not having any more to break my heart. You have all your boys.’ And you didn’t want to let me come near, but that kind of thing can’t be allowed to last.” Connie could hear the sounds