Redemption by Howard Fast

for Sarah, so I’m glad.”
    â€œShe was one of my best students and she’s a hell of a lawyer.”
    â€œThen why does she have to work at night?”
    â€œPartly because public defenders are underpaid—like so many people today—and I think, because she likes me.”
    Liz nodded. “I can understand that.”
    â€œYou know, Liz, those agreements you signed when you were so depressed—they’re all signed under duress. They wouldn’t stand up in court. William Hopper is a millionaire many times over.”
    She was silent for a few minutes, and then she said, “Ike, I want nothing from Mr. Hopper, only to forget that he exists.” Then, again, we sat in silence for a while, until Liz said, “Ike, last night I did something—oh, I don’t know how to explain it, except that I had a nightmare of sorts about Sedge, and I was frightened, and I crawled into bed with you. I didn’t want to awaken you but just to feel you there, and you reached out and put your arm around me without waking. I fell asleep like a child, and in the morning, I slipped away very quietly—”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œAnd you never said a word?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI love you, Ike.”
    I thought about that for a while and then said, gently, “Liz, my dear, you’ve been through all kinds of hell. I reached out a hand to you. I’m an old man, and you’re a lovely young woman. What can I offer you?”
    â€œYou gave me life and hope. You must care for me a little.”
    â€œMore than a little—a great deal more.”
    â€œAnd you’re not an old man, Ike. If age is the accumulation of a knowledge of pain and wickedness, then I’m older than you’ll ever be. They say a woman who has just been divorced is not to be believed in her reactions, but I never really knew Sedge Hopper and I knew you from the first day. I know you ask yourself, Who is she?—this Elizabeth Hopper who stayed for years with a man who brutalized her and degraded her. But thousands of women remain with men who brutalize them. You can’t know what it is to spend fourteen years—your growing-up years—attending a convent school, to be taught to love, honor, and obey the man who will be your husband. But now I’m breaking all those rules. I love you. I never thought I could say that.”
    This was not a conversation that moved back and forth, like the dialogue in a play. I had no immediate answers for Liz, but I moved close to her and put my arm around her, and she laid her head on my shoulder. Then we sat quietly and watched the fire burn down to coals. For me, the closeness and warmth of her body were like a benediction. Love is a peculiar thing, and there is little love in what goes for it on the screen and in books, which is mostly a tearing apart of flesh and soul. I looked into myself for some truth, and that’s the most difficult of all things—it’s so much easier to lie to yourself than to others. And if the comfort and completeness I felt with Liz pressed up against my body was love, then I loved her; and at least I knew one thing with certainty, that I never wanted her to leave me.
    â€œThe fire is almost out,” Liz said. “Do you have more wood, Ike?”
    â€œEverything is virtual reality today, Liz. That’s not wood but some kind of pressed stuff that I bought in the hardware store. No more now, but tomorrow I’ll buy some.”
    â€œYou’re real, Ike. I’m real.”
    â€œWill you come to bed with me, Liz?”
    â€œYes,” she said simply.
    That night, I made no effort to make love to Elizabeth. That was still in the future, and in all truth, I was afraid. Lena and I had used separate rooms for the last few years of her life. She was a sick woman who fought desperately to live, and I had existed as a monk of sorts, successfully denying any libido. But Liz curled up against me, her