And so she isn't. The cop checks her driver's license and the car registration. He notes she still has four minutes of meter time remaining. He says, with a half-smile that might be pitying, or flirtatious, or mildly contemptuous, "O.K., ma'am. Good luck."

D Mountain View Inn, giddy as a soaring balloon.

"I'm free! Not arrested."

Abigail laughs, she isn't remorseful in the slightest. Still less repentant.

She's eager to get to her hotel room and move into the next phase of her strategy.

A beautiful, not inexpensive suite overlooking the fabled Green Middle Age: A Romance ***

Mountains. Will Jared be impressed? It takes a lot to impress a spoiled fifteen-year-old kid, but Abigail will try.

She calls the front desk to inform the management that she'll be staying another night. She calls Jared's number in the residence hall, which she has apparently memorized. No surprise-Jared isn't in. In a warm, but not heated voice Abigail leaves a message: "Jared? It's your mother. I'm in Vermont. I'm staying in an inn about two miles from the college. Don't be alarmed, honey"-(here, Abigail's voice is beginning to waver, she can envision Jared's scowl)-"it isn't an emergency. I just-became a little lonely, suddenly. Missing you. And-Adam. And the house is so empty . . .

Don't be angry with me, please? This visit will be just between you and me, your father doesn't have to know." Abigail pauses, breathing quickly.

It's a scene in a foreign film of another era, a murky tale of sexual obsession and impending doom. She sees her face, a pale floating petal, in a mirror across the room. Why are beautiful women so shallow, like cutouts?

Presented at the *6 International Debutante Ball, Waldorf-Astoria, New York City. Trying not to beg: "Call me when you can, Jared. I'll be here waiting. We'll have dinner tonight, that's all. I promise! Just one night. My number is-"

Abigail gives the number and quickly hangs up. Too late, her fatal incriminating words can't be revoked!

Exhausted suddenly. She removes the black silk tunic that has become unpleasantly damp beneath the arms and the silk trousers wrinkled and damp at the crotch, kicks off the elegant Gucci sandals and collapses in her underwear, ribs and collarbone pushing against her pale-pasty skin, onto the high, hard bed with the ruffled bolster to drift into a sleep of delicious delirium-oblivion. In that region where Adam Berendt is not yet dead, and her baby is not yet born but tight and warm and snug inside her where he's safe.

Like a sparrow's heartbeat.

The artery in Abigail's throat, he suddenly pressed his big thumb against where it throbbed. Alarming her who had not been prepared for the sudden intimate gesture.

She didn't recoil from him, she gripped his hand and pressed it tighter against her throat. Oh! Adam.

J C O*

Why so intense, Abigail? You'll burn yourself out.

To this reasonable question, which Adam Berendt would ask her, in varying ways, many times, Abigail has no answer even now.

That evening. After the divorce. Jared was gone, at boarding school.

She invited Adam for dinner, nervously she prepared dinner for just the two of them, the telephone off the hook. They were not-yet-lovers.

They were very good friends. Though sometimes reckless Abigail would press herself against the man as a hostess has the privilege of doing, greeting a guest who's a dear friend, saying goodnight to a departing friend who has been a guest, smiling dreamily, yes perhaps seductively; yet playfully, too; for Abigail Des Pres is a playful seductive unaggressive female, willowy, hot-skinned despite her pallor, the kind of divorcee who mocks her loneliness even as she presents it, as one might present a heart, torn bleeding from its breast, on the palms of one's trembling hands. See? Mine.

But, hey- you can ignore it!

Adam was rummaging through the deep frayed pockets of his sand-colored camel's hair coat (purchased at the Trinity Church secondhand fair for forty-five bucks, as Adam boasted) looking for his gloves, and pulled out a handful of vouchers from Caesars Palace, Las Vegas; which Abigail flirtatiously snatched from his fingers, saying she hadn't known he was a gambler, he patronized casinos, was this his secret life?-and Adam hesitated a moment before saying yes, he gambled sometimes, he had a weakness for craps in particular: "To see, not if you will win, but if you have luck; and if you don't have luck, how far the absence of 'luck'

will take you, and do to you." Adam spoke so strangely, with such an air of vulnerability, Abigail could only ignore his enigmatic words; she played almost exclusively to the man's exuberant side, not the other, the brooding and philosophical, saying, "Take me with you, Adam? Next time? Vegas? I've never been. But I love to gamble-I think!" (Was this true? Half of what sprang from Abigail's lips surprised her utterly.) But Adam merely laughed, his face warm, his single sighted eye narrowed in a wink.

He snatched the vouchers back from Abigail and slowly, thoughtfully tore them into pieces.

Like a sparrow's heartbeat beat beat.

Such yearning.

Middle Age: A Romance **

A growing boy needs a . . .

. . . a second penis, a giant Daddy-penis, in the household.

Shaving? A fifteen-year-old boy shaves, how often who knows, it's a small enough secret, a touching small secret; but a secret from Mother.

Among other secrets. For instance how much Harrison allows Jared each month on his credit card. (Under the custody arrangement, Harry is in charge of their son's allowance but, of course, Abigail, who has money of her own and has, with dignity, refused to ask her ex-husband for money, can't resist contributing, too. And buying the boy things directly.) Like how much Harry spends on the skiing trips, backpacking trips, mountain-hiking trips calculated to win back their son's love. Excursions to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Alaska (Mount McKinley). One memorable Christmas break, to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, a world away. (When Abigail was weak with grief, and flu, mourning her mother's death.) And how much Harry has paid for his condominium in New York City, on Beekman Place; and for his new country house in Cornwall, Connecticut; and what Harry and the new wife, the glamorous twenty-nine-year-old stepmother, say of Abigail Des Pres that isn't meant to be repeated to her.

Abigail persists in querying Jared-"What do they say of me, Jared? Is it cruel? It it accurate? Do they laugh? Do you all laugh?" Provoking Jared to laugh, and blush, and shrug his neck in that way of his when Mom asks such uncool questions. As if he's got a crick in his neck. "Oh, jeez, Mom."

" 'Oh, jeez, Mom'-what?"

"They never say a thing about you. We never do."

Secrets. Abigail told Adam, her chief adviser through the crisis of the divorce, and the depressive aftermath, that the fatal split between her and her son began when Jared was about eighteen months old. Baby's first attempt at obfuscation. Baby's first untruth! Trying to make Mommy believe he has eaten his pureed beets when in fact he has cleverly sloughed the mess off his plate and onto the floor. In that futile but somehow noble little gesture Baby set himself in opposition to Mommy, like a mutinous cherub against an omnipotent God. Following this, Abigail makes an entertaining anecdote of it, a Mother's Fable, a flood of untruths followed; in time, once Baby could actually speak, these became outright lies.

Abigail and Harrison, who were still in love at the time, young parents, laughed at Baby's awkward deceptions, not alarmed but delighted. Jared **

J C O*

was normal. Telling transparent baby-lies is funny-isn't it? Abigail mused, "Gosh! I wonder if all our lies are so obvious, even as adults?"

Harry said in his evasive mumble, "Yes. I wonder." Now in weak moments, which seem to be ever more frequent, soaking in a hot bath, sipping whiskey, sleeping this drugged delirium-sleep in an air-conditioned hotel room, Abigail recalls with a stab of pleasure that once-upon-a-time when there were no secrets, absolutely none, between mother and son.

When Baby was still in the womb, for instance. (She'd expected to be sick through the pregnancy, all Des Pres women are, her neurasthenic mother warned her, but in fact Abigail had been surprisingly healthy, and in good spirits, happy and thriving and taking for granted that her boy-baby would be perfect.) Nor were there secrets during Jared's infancy. Tenderly she'd presided over nursing, which she quite liked, and which seemed to her (almost!) better than sex, and tenderly she'd presided over the diaper-ritual, which Jared's fastidious father couldn't bear (Abigail was required to virtually scrub herself down after a diaper-changing session, before she could again approach Harry); tenderly she'd presided over bathing the baby, an exuberant kicking baby, at times a fretful willful baby, shampooing his thin fawn-colored hair, rinsing his head, his skull delicate as an eggshell it seemed to her, and gently washing his penis, that tiny appendage, smooth as a snail, hardly snail-sized, silken-smooth and so much nicer, Abigail couldn't help thinking, than anything adult-male. In awe Abigail held the tiny sac in her fingers, in the warm bathwater.

How to foresee the rage that would one day quiver through her beautiful son's body. His contorted face. His boy-maleness. During the worst insomniac months of the divorce siege when Jared was thirteen, likely to break into furious tears shouting-"I hate you, see? Hate both of you! He's a bastard fucker and you're a, a-what you are! Why don't you both die!"

And Abigail, struggling to remain calm, stoic, conceded yes Jared was right, he was right to be so angry, none of this was his fault-"Only mine, and your father's."

(But mostly the father's fault. Yes?) Secrets. Bound up with that tiny penis-snail, silken-smooth and perfect, that would grow inevitably into an adolescent boy's penis, hidden inside his clothes; of which Abigail, who is not an incestuous mother, refuses to think. Of course there must be secrets in a fifteen-year-old boy's personal life. There will be ever more secrets, a rush of secrets, mostly sex-secrets, to be kept from Mother. For my own good. He wouldn't want Middle Age: A Romance **

to shock or disgust me. His seed welling up in him frantic to spill. Oh God I know.

At least Abigail Des Pres has never behaved like the obsessive mothers of prized adolescent boys in certain Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries who check their sons' bedsheets every morning to determine if . . .

"Never!"

Abigail, sleeping fitfully amid damp twisted bedsheets, wakes suddenly, in revulsion.

H* . The bedside phone has failed to ring. She is a woman floating on the surface of a now disheveled bed like a cluster of rotting water lilies on the surface of a stagnant pond. Yet swallows down defeat, that sour but familiar taste. Swings her slender sword-legs off the bed, sits up smiling and hopeful and dials his number another time.

The telephone rings in Jared's room in the residence hall on the Middlebury campus two miles away. Abigail has seen this dormitory beneath tall oaks, built of solid-looking brick, from a discreet distance earlier today; she now sees a boy's hand hovering over the receiver, hesitating-and lifting it. But no one speaks. Abigail says softly, "Hello? Jared?" In the background, there are voices, rap music. After a pause, a boy says guardedly, "H'lo?" It isn't Jared. One of his suitemates. Abigail identifies herself and asks to speak to Jared and the boy says vaguely, in that appealing, adenoidal way of a lying boy, "Jared isn't here right now, Mrs. Tierney.

He's-" But there's another pause, and an exchange of voices. Abigail can envision the receiver snatched from the boy, in fury and dismay.

"Yeah? Hello?" It's Jared, sounding as if he's been running.

"Jared! It's me, did you get my message?"

"Sure." Jared speaks in his flat voice. Abigail can see his deadpan expression. "I got your message."

"I'll-pick you up at the residence hall? Is seven-thirty good?"

"Six-thirty is better, I have work to do tomorrow."

"Six-thirty! I'll be there."

"O.K., Mom. Sure."

"And, Jared-"

The line is dead. Jared has departed.

J C O*

I *, Abigail turns her smiling face into the warm spray and tries not to think of whatever it is: a death, a departure. She understands that Jared is angry with her for violating the terms of the agreement with his father (not a legal agreement, nothing truly binding), and for putting him in the difficult position, which Jared is frequently in, of needing to protect one parent from knowledge of the other. He won't inform on me, I can trust him. At the same time, Abigail would be devastated if Jared protected his father from her; if, for instance, Harry had violated the terms of the agreement himself and driven up to see Jared. But Jared would tell me! I can trust him.

Abigail's too-thin body, streaming water. Her knobby vertebrae, ribs and collarbone and wrists; the smooth, creamy pallor of her skin, which gives her the look, as Adam once remarked, of an Italian Renaissance madonna.

Abigail's face, at least.

Her body is no longer a maternal body. She's been sexually neutralized.

Her breasts have shrunken. The incision in the left breast (she touches it gingerly with her fingers, never looks) has mostly healed, the scimitar-shaped scar faded.

"Proof of my good luck! So far."

Six years ago, Abigail was made to realize that Harrison no longer cared for her, still less loved her sexually, when he'd become upset and angry after a routine mammogram showed up a pea-sized cyst in her left breast. Abigail's Salthill gynecologist scheduled her for surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, a biopsy that might, if necessary, be followed by a mastectomy if the cyst was malignant, and Harrison warned her not to tell anyone. "I don't want this getting out. I don't want other men pitying me." Abigail wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. "Pitying you? "

"That's right." "Because you have a wife with-cancer?" "No. With a missing breast." A moment later Harry added, as if only just hearing what he'd said, "I mean, honey, I'm not ashamed of cancer. Anyone's cancer. It happens. I just don't want people around here feeling sorry for us. Discussing us. You know Salthill, Abigail." Quietly Abigail said, "Yes. I know Salthill." And I know you. The fact was, Harry hadn't hugged her. Hadn't even touched her. Already I am flawed to you. Yes?

In fact, Abigail had already told several women friends about the cyst.

Middle Age: A Romance **

Of course! They'd been immediately sympathetic, supportive. They'd told her of similar scares, and biopsy experiences; each woman offered, independent of the others, to accompany Abigail into the city if Harrison was out of town.

Later, Abigail would realize that her friends knew, or guessed, what she hadn't: Harrison was unfaithful to her, and Harrison would likely be "out of town" when she needed him.

The pea-sized cyst turned out to be benign. The healthy breast was not removed. Subsequent mammograms turned out negative. Harry chided her for taking a "morbid attitude." Still, Abigail is in the habit of crying. In the shower, where no one can hear her. As she is crying now, shyly stroking the subtly scarred breast.

Always buy designer clothes, Abigail. Understated, never showy. That way, you will be unassailable. This was Abigail's mother's most profound advice, but it has turned out to be worthless.

Still, Abigail dresses with care. It's become a ritual with her, like saying the rosary for Catholics, by rote, without thinking; a talisman for good luck. Though she knows that in Salthill, among even the protective friends of her circle, Abigail Des Pres has a reputation for vanity; her diffi-dence and insecurity misinterpreted as a kind of arrogance. Look, I can't help it. If I'm not beautiful- what am I? For this illicit visit to Middlebury, Abigail has brought with her several changes of clothing, and is wearing, for this evening with her son, an Italian import, a cream-colored silk shift with spaghetti straps, a fitted jacket and a skirt that just skims her slender knees; and a pair of cream-colored kidskin pumps with medium heels.

Jared, at five feet eleven, will loom over her. Abigail wears the shift with no bra beneath, and the jacket loosely buttoned. She brushes her smoke-colored, wavy, very fine hair until it rises and floats about her head, and she makes up her face with care, porcelain-pale, black-edged eyes, long lashes, a pale opalescent mouth. Gold hoop earrings, platinum wristwatch and rings. But no wedding ring. Though knowing that Jared will be wearing his usual baggy clothes, filthy Nikes, and baseball cap and that he will react to her with a sneer or, worse, a chill stony stare; but it's true, Abigail can't help it. Every quiver of her eyelids is a plea. Only love me! Eager and anxious as a young bride she drives to the idyllic college, parks the rented black Lexus and crosses a quadrangle in the direction of Jared's residence **

J C O*

hall, it isn't yet dusk, still a balmy summer day, Abigail has put on dark-tinted designer glasses and a floppy-brimmed straw hat; the campus is populated with young people, in shorts, jeans, tank-tops, and many of them barefoot playing Frisbee on the lawn. Abigail seems to move in her own element. Gliding, glimmering. Among the noisy Frisbee players is her son, Jared, who sights his mother by way of others who are staring at her as if trying to place her. A model? A TV personality? Maybe there's filming on the Middlebury campus? Jared, his face darkening with blood, tosses the Frisbee back to his friends and mumbles, "Got to go now. It's my mom." He comes quickly to meet her, to head her off, no need to introduce her to his companions, and there's a painful moment when it looks as if Jared's anxious mom is going to grab him, kiss him wetly, burst into happy tears, as sometimes she has done, as if they were survivors of a cataclysm, only just finding each other; but, thank God, Abigail is restrained, though clearly anxious, trembling, squeezing Jared's hand and lightly kissing his cheek. Her greeting is a breathless sigh-"Hello, honey!

You washed your hair?"

Together, but not touching, they cross the quadrangle to the rental car.

Jared hates it, though he's excited too, that his mother is so conspicuous; imagining herself shy, in fact she's fantastically vain; strangers' eyes tracking her don't seem to upset her, like a performer blinded by stage lights, earnestly playing to a fellow actor. "Jared! It's so-such a relief-to see you! You seem well?"

"Sure, Mom."

"And this is all right-isn't it? Coming up to see you?" Her voice is wistful, and willful. "It was just so damned lonely back home."

When Abigail wants to link herself with Jared, a co-conspirator, a fellow adolescent, she will slip in a mild profanity. Jared is unmoved. "Sure, Mom."

Abigail looks around, smiling blindly. "It's-lovely here. It seems so-"

She pauses, unable to think of the appropriate word. "Do you-like it?

Are you happy here?"

"It's O.K."

"Only 'O.K.'?"

Jared shrugs. "It's summer school, Mom. It's just what I'm doing."

"And this," Abigail says gaily, squeezing her son's surprisingly brawny forearm, "is what I'm doing."

If Jared is surprised at the unfamiliar car, he tries not to show it. He Middle Age: A Romance **

has become accustomed to his mother's impulsive, irrational surges.

Throwing out "old" china, potted plants, furniture-redesigning rooms of the house, even the gardens and lawn-with such fervor, you'd think it meant something, had some purpose. Possibly Jared's mother has totaled the white Acura, and has no car of her own to drive; he isn't going to inquire. The wrong question, she'll burst into tears. Almost, Jared wouldn't be surprised if she has been driven up to Middlebury by someone, a man, whom he won't meet: but it can't be Mr. Berendt, her friend who has died.