relief. There is a cause now for the effect, an occasion for Barbara's black anger, a reason we do not get along. There is now something to get over and, as a result, a shadowy hope that things may improve.
That is, I realize, the issue now: whether we will give up whatever progress has been made. For months Carolyn has been a demon, a spirit slowly being exorcised from this home. And death has brought her back to life. I understand Barbara's complaint. But I cannot —
cannot
— give up what she wants me to; and my reasons are sufficiently personal as to lie within the realm of the unspoken, even the unspeakable.
I try a plain and quiet appeal.
"Barbara, what difference does it make? You're talking about two and a half weeks. Until the primary. That's all. Then it's another routine police case. Unsolved homicide."
"Don't you see what you're doing? To yourself? To me?"
"Barbara," I say again.
"I knew it," she says. "I knew you'd do something like this. When you called the other day. I could hear it in your voice. You're going to go through everything again, Rusty. You want to, that's the truth, isn't it? You want to. She's dead. And you're still obsessing."
"Barbara."
"Rusty, I have had more than I can take. I won't put up with this." Barbara does not cry on these occasions. She recedes instead into the fiery pit of a volcanic anger. She hurls herself back now to gather her will, bound, as she sits on the bed, within her wide satin sleeves. She grabs a book, the remote control, two pillows. Mount Saint Helens rumbles. And I decide to leave. I go to the closet and grope for my robe.
As I reach the threshold, she speaks behind me.
"Can I ask a question?" she says.
"Sure."
"That I always wanted to ask?"
"Sure."
"Why did she stop seeing you?"
"Carolyn?"
"No, the man in the moon." The words have so much bitterness that I wonder if she might spit. I would have thought Barbara's question would be why did I start, but she apparently decided on her own answers to that long ago.
"I don't know," I say. "I tend to think I wasn't very important to her."
She closes her eyes and opens them. Barbara shakes her head.
"You are an asshole," my wife tells me solemnly. "Just get out."
I do. Quickly. She has been known to throw things. Having nowhere else to go, and craving some form of company, I cross the hall to check once more on Nat. His breath is husky and uninterrupted in the deepest phase of sleep, and I sit down on the bed, safe in the dark beneath the protecting arms of Spider-Man.
5
Monday morning: a day in the life. The commuter coach unleashes the gray-flannel flock on the east side of the river. The terminal plaza is surrounded by willows, their skirts greening in the spring. I am in the office before 9:00. From my secretary, Eugenia Martinez, I receive the usual: mail, telephone-message slips, and a dark look. Eugenia is obese, single, middle-aged, and, it often seems, determined to get even for it all. She types reluctantly, refuses dictation, and many times of day I will find her staring with immobile droopy-eyed irritation at the telephone as it rings. Of course, she cannot be fired, or even demoted, because civil service, like concrete, has set. She remains, a curse to a decade of chief deputies, having first been stationed here by John White, who did so in order to avoid the carping that would have followed if he'd assigned her to anybody else.
On the top of what Eugenia has given me is a leave slip for Tommy Molto, whose absence remains unaccounted for. Personnel wants to dock him as Away without Leave. I make a note to talk to Mac about this and graze through my communications. The docket room has provided me with a printout naming thirteen individuals released from state custody in the last two years whose cases had been prosecuted by Carolyn. A handwritten note says that the underlying case files have been delivered to her office. I position the computer run in the center of my desk, so that I
That is, I realize, the issue now: whether we will give up whatever progress has been made. For months Carolyn has been a demon, a spirit slowly being exorcised from this home. And death has brought her back to life. I understand Barbara's complaint. But I cannot —
cannot
— give up what she wants me to; and my reasons are sufficiently personal as to lie within the realm of the unspoken, even the unspeakable.
I try a plain and quiet appeal.
"Barbara, what difference does it make? You're talking about two and a half weeks. Until the primary. That's all. Then it's another routine police case. Unsolved homicide."
"Don't you see what you're doing? To yourself? To me?"
"Barbara," I say again.
"I knew it," she says. "I knew you'd do something like this. When you called the other day. I could hear it in your voice. You're going to go through everything again, Rusty. You want to, that's the truth, isn't it? You want to. She's dead. And you're still obsessing."
"Barbara."
"Rusty, I have had more than I can take. I won't put up with this." Barbara does not cry on these occasions. She recedes instead into the fiery pit of a volcanic anger. She hurls herself back now to gather her will, bound, as she sits on the bed, within her wide satin sleeves. She grabs a book, the remote control, two pillows. Mount Saint Helens rumbles. And I decide to leave. I go to the closet and grope for my robe.
As I reach the threshold, she speaks behind me.
"Can I ask a question?" she says.
"Sure."
"That I always wanted to ask?"
"Sure."
"Why did she stop seeing you?"
"Carolyn?"
"No, the man in the moon." The words have so much bitterness that I wonder if she might spit. I would have thought Barbara's question would be why did I start, but she apparently decided on her own answers to that long ago.
"I don't know," I say. "I tend to think I wasn't very important to her."
She closes her eyes and opens them. Barbara shakes her head.
"You are an asshole," my wife tells me solemnly. "Just get out."
I do. Quickly. She has been known to throw things. Having nowhere else to go, and craving some form of company, I cross the hall to check once more on Nat. His breath is husky and uninterrupted in the deepest phase of sleep, and I sit down on the bed, safe in the dark beneath the protecting arms of Spider-Man.
5
Monday morning: a day in the life. The commuter coach unleashes the gray-flannel flock on the east side of the river. The terminal plaza is surrounded by willows, their skirts greening in the spring. I am in the office before 9:00. From my secretary, Eugenia Martinez, I receive the usual: mail, telephone-message slips, and a dark look. Eugenia is obese, single, middle-aged, and, it often seems, determined to get even for it all. She types reluctantly, refuses dictation, and many times of day I will find her staring with immobile droopy-eyed irritation at the telephone as it rings. Of course, she cannot be fired, or even demoted, because civil service, like concrete, has set. She remains, a curse to a decade of chief deputies, having first been stationed here by John White, who did so in order to avoid the carping that would have followed if he'd assigned her to anybody else.
On the top of what Eugenia has given me is a leave slip for Tommy Molto, whose absence remains unaccounted for. Personnel wants to dock him as Away without Leave. I make a note to talk to Mac about this and graze through my communications. The docket room has provided me with a printout naming thirteen individuals released from state custody in the last two years whose cases had been prosecuted by Carolyn. A handwritten note says that the underlying case files have been delivered to her office. I position the computer run in the center of my desk, so that I
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