Both Roger and Marina had keys to Adam's house on the River Road but if one saw the other's car in the driveway, of course, that one drove quickly away.

Except, that morning. Spreading Adam's ashes in his garden. It was to be a joint effort, this ceremony. Roger and Marina, and the others looking on.

(Abigail Des Pres had stayed away, she'd told Roger she was sick with grief, and anyway she hated ceremonies-"Any kind of ritual that's impersonal, and phony." And Camille Hoffmann had stayed away, her husband Lionel reported, with mild embarrassment, because it was too painful for Camille to acknowledge that Adam was dead-"She prefers to think that he's alive, only just traveling and out of touch. Temporarily." But there was Augusta Cutler, glamorous as a fashion mannequin in dark glasses, wide-brimmed straw hat, and a low-cut summer dress the color of poppies, staring avidly at Adam's garden, at plants and wildflowers and weeds, as if all were sacred, and she meant to memorize it. A nymph ripened to middle age, yet unbelieving she was middle-aged and not rather young, younger even than her grown children; Roger could sympathize with Augusta, though she made him uneasy. Her sweet rich perfume wafted through the garden, overwhelming even the hearty, musky smell of the tomato plants.

She leaned on her husband Owen's arm only because her stylish high-heeled shoes sank into the soil. Augusta was the only person smiling in Adam Berendt's garden and her smile was porcelain-perfect, adamant.

Even as she swiped at her brilliant smudged eyes she continued to smile as if for Adam's sake, at this ceremony in honor of Adam. Her fingers curled into Roger's hand and squeezed, hard. She leaned close, perfumey and bo-somy, to murmur in Roger's ear, "Roger! Thank you so much for arranging this. Only you have really taken charge, in this disaster. How happy Adam would be, wouldn't he, if he could see us! Adam loved his Salthill friends, we were all he had." This pronouncement, which seemed dismaying to Roger, was clearly a joyous pronouncement to Augusta. Roger was Middle Age: A Romance *

reminded of the nude photos of the voluptuous Mrs. Cutler inscribed to Adam, the lush mammalian body on the sofa, dreamy but masklike face offering itself to be kissed. Unless Marina had taken them away, or destroyed them, which seemed unlikely, these photos were probably still in Adam's studio amid the cache of adoring women, and it seemed to Roger that Augusta knew this, and knew that he knew, she looked at him so pointedly, with that mysterious smile. Whispering, "It isn't really over, is it?-with Adam, I mean. Our love.") Adam's weedy garden! It was beyond the old stone house, marked off by a five-foot wire fence Adam had himself erected; in his practical mode, Adam was one to get things done, and capably. But he'd never been a fastidious gardener, and now his garden was overgrown with weeds. In a promiscuous tumult it seemed to be celebrating his absence. The very air was thicker here, more moist. Clouds of gnats drifted against your mouth, caught in your eyelashes. There were monarch butterflies with wide puls-ing wings, and other varieties of flying insects glittering like tiny gems in the air. And bees making their way from one ripe blossom to another, especially thick amid the pale yellow tomato blossoms, bent upon the task of spreading pollen. There came mosquitoes out of the tall grasses above the river, drawn by the scent of living blood, and gently these frail creatures, hardly more than line drawings by, say, Saul Steinberg, alighted upon their victims' bare skin; Roger absentmindedly crushed a mosquito against his forehead, his fingers came away stippled with blood. He saw a mosquito hovering near Marina Troy's neck and daringly brushed it away and Marina, white-lipped, frowning, took no notice. I love you. Can't you forgive.

For an occasion of such gravity, Marina wasn't very well groomed. She wore a shapeless black sheath that drooped to mid-calf, shimmering fabric that clung to her slender hips and thighs with static electricity; you could see, if you chose to look, the impress of her pelvic bones; her legs were very pale, and bare. Tangled dull-red hair falling down her back. The sight of this hair, its imagined rich rank scent aroused Roger's senses, even as he carried the urn into the garden, he saw himself as Marina's lover shutting his fist in that hair, pressing his mouth against the white neck beneath the hair, licking the clammy skin, except the thought was repugnant, Roger Cavanagh who was fastidiously groomed, clean-shaven and his hair recently trimmed, like his friend Lionel Hoffmann, like his friend Owen Cutler, like his friend Avery Archer- Roger Cavanagh was one of these men.

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Spreading human ashes, raking them into the soil: not so easy a task as Adam had imagined. (But Adam hadn't imagined any of this, really. Roger was pissed at Adam, setting these wheels in motion.) Before you can rake ashes into the soil you have to dig up the soil, you have to tear out weeds, and plenty of weeds there were in Adam's garden, among the tomato plants, among the sweet-corn stalks, among the pole beans, the bush beans, the zucchini and squash vines; dominating over the remains of the lettuce, now bolted and gone luridly to seed like exposed genitals. Everywhere in the garden were dandelions, thistles grown knee-high, a stringy-nasty bastard of a vine with tiny golden flowers that, when you tugged at it, as Roger had done, cut into your hands like wire. Marina had tried to help but wasn't very effectual, swinging a hoe, so vacant-eyed, clumsy.

Roger, who had absolutely no patience for outdoor work, was the one who'd cleared a patch of soil near the tomato plants, before the others arrived, but now that they were here, naturally they had opinions, Beatrice Avery was saying how, last time she'd visited this garden, in Adam's company, in June, Adam had been particularly proud of the sunflowers, look how tall the sunflowers were growing, taller than any man, ruddy-faced, blazing-yellow, let's spread Adam's ashes beneath the sunflowers at the back of the garden, but Roger cut off the woman's proposal, before someone else could chime in, God damn it was too weedy there. He wasn't doing any more weeding, hoeing, and raking in this God-damned garden, now or ever.

This quieted Beatrice Avery, and anyone else who'd had a new idea.

Roger thought Fuck you all, if you don't like my attitude. He was sweating, conscious of a sick churning sensation in his gut as awkwardly he held the urn, turning it sideways, and Marina pressed near, breathing quickly, as if Adam's very spirit were present, and his dignity at risk, Marina murmured, "Let me do it, please let me do it." Roger would recall afterward that she had not called him Roger, she had called him nothing at all as if he'd had no identity to her. Almost forcibly Marina took the heavy urn from Roger, and with misgivings, Roger relinquished it, and suddenly it slipped from Marina's fingers and fell heavily to the ground, and on all sides there were indrawn breaths-"Oh!" Roger cursed under his breath, or maybe not under his breath, "Fuck it," and, face burning, squatted above the urn and dumped the ashes out of the God-damned thing, not very ceremoniously, simply lifting the bottom of the urn and shaking the ashes, bone chunks and powdery grit, out onto the soil. How'd I deal with this absolutely freaky Middle Age: A Romance *

thing, Roger would afterward recall, I pretended it wasn't me doing it and what came out, wasn't anything human.

Solemnly they hoed and raked this residue of a human being into the soil. It took some time, for it was more than simply an idea, it involved actual hoeing, raking, patience, concentration. Overhead an enormous airliner passed with excruciating slowness, both the air and the ground vibrated, it was maddening, yet had to be endured. Some twenty of their Salthill friends were witnesses, mostly silent and solemn and only just Augusta Cutler broke into unexpected tears, but just possibly these were tears of ecstasy, the moment was for her a moment of sacred consummation with Adam Berendt, who could tell? Roger's concentration was on not sneezing but he began sneezing anyway-"Excuse me! God damn."

Following the ceremony everyone quickly departed. Except Marina Troy lingered, kneeling amid the fresh-tilled soil. "Marina, you'd better come with me," Roger said in his severe-lawyer manner, but Marina scarcely acknowledged him. He knew, if he touched her, the force of that touch would strike him in the groin, sharp as a knife blade, halfway he wanted this sensation, but no, he was a man of reason and wanted nothing to do with it, or with the woman. She wasn't even attractive! If he wanted to be involved with a woman, he much preferred a beautiful woman, a woman like Abigail Des Pres. He hurried to his car, eager to escape.

Spreading Adam's ashes had been strangely exhausting. And being in Marina Troy's company was strangely exhausting. His sexual being had been nullified by that woman, she seemed utterly unaware how she'd insulted him in his masculinity, why was he drawn to her again?

"I'm not. Adam, you had the right idea: don't get involved."

The last glimpse he'd had of Marina Troy she was kneeling in the garden, a small figure nearly obscured by vegetation, bright-winged butterflies fluttering above her head.

Since that time he'd seen Marina only infrequently in Salthill, at a distance; out of tact and resignation he stayed away from Salthill Bookstore, and never called her. He would never! Except, one evening in early September, returning from an engagement with a woman he knew in Manhattan, with whom sometimes, as if to keep up a fading acquaintance, he slept, there he was dialing Marina Troy's home number, intending to leave a short, neutral message, "Marina? It's Roger. I'd like to see you, O.K.?"- but the phone rang and rang in the shingleboard colonial on North Pearl Street, unanswered. Next day Roger entered the Salthill Bookstore to *

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learn, from a woman he'd never seen before, who introduced herself as manager of the store, that Miss Troy was "away." Astonished, Roger asked, away where?-but the woman shook her head gravely and only just repeated, "Away."

"But for how long?"

"For"-the woman hesitated- "a year."

"A year? Did you say- a year? "

Roger was more than astonished, he was beginning to be enraged.

"That seems to be the plan. That's all I know."

"But-where is Marina? She's a friend of mine."

The woman was young, but prim-faced and disapproving. She frowned like one entrusted with a secret that weighed upon her like a giant key on a chain around her neck. "If you're a friend, Mr. Cavanagh, Miss Troy would have told you where she's gone, I think."

Roger said angrily, "Marina is more than a friend, she's involved in Adam Berendt's estate, she has responsibilities, she can't just disappear for a year."

But the young woman shook her head, adamant. No she would not tell Roger Cavanagh where Marina Troy was. And there was some ambiguity in her remark, some slight, subtle evasiveness in her face, that led Roger, trained to decipher the most subtle nuances of speech in any adversary, to conclude that possibly she didn't know where Marina was, herself. "But you must be in contact with her, if you're managing the store while she's away?"

"Miss Troy contacts me. When she wants to."

In a fury of disgust Roger left the Salthill Bookstore, the little bell trembling above the door.

Not one of their mutual friends knew where Marina had gone. Several women expressed surprise and hurt that Marina had left without saying good-bye. All shared Roger's sense of having been betrayed. Camille Hoffmann admitted knowing that Marina was planning to be away for a year, that she'd leased her house to a tenant, but Marina had refused to tell her where she was going, or to provide a telephone number or a P.O. box.

"It's as if everything is falling apart now, into chaos," Camille said, with a forcefulness that surprised Roger, who'd never taken Lionel's wife very seriously; the woman's warm brown eyes brimmed with hurt, yet with the courage to withstand hurt, "but we won't despair, will we? None of us. I certainly will not."

Middle Age: A Romance **

There came into the room suddenly a large wolflike dog-Adam's Apollo. He seemed not to know Roger, he was growling menacingly, toenails clicking on the floor and hackles raised, his tawny eyes widened.

Roger hadn't seen his friend's dog for months and was surprised that Apollo was so healthy-looking, though lean, with something feral about his jaws. His silver-tipped fur was coarse and gnarly, yet he was a handsome dog. "Apollo! You know me." In that instant Apollo recognized Roger, his master's friend, and began to bark excitedly as a puppy. You could see him transformed into a puppy. Sniffing about Roger's legs and crotch, licking his hands, an old eager friend.

Quietly Camille said, "He's boarding with me. Until Adam returns from wherever he is-the Grecian islands, I think."

T * R on the hockey field!-his heart leapt with pride, Roger sighted his daughter immediately. Her fair-brown hair swinging in a ponytail, that was new. Swiftly and determinedly she was charging at the edge of the pack of girls, hockey stick at the ready. The ball, not at the moment near Robin, was struck by an opposing player, the ball flew, skidded on the field, a Ryecroft center in a green uniform snatched it away, a tall platinum-blond wide-shouldered girl, there were cheers at the sidelines, shouts of encouragement. How beautiful the girls were at this distance, most of them taller than Robin, strong-limbed, bearing their wicked hockey sticks like Amazon warriors. Roger stared, transfixed. It was hard for him to keep Robin in sight amid the confusing action, he'd arrived too late for a seat in the small three-tiered bleachers and stood at the sidelines far from the center of play. There came Robin again swinging her stick, and this time snatching the ball from a rival, her hard-muscled legs pounding as she guided the ball zigzag fashion down the field in the other direction, passed it to a teammate who seemed literally to fly with it, the ball leapt, skidded, slammed into the rivals' net, as the desperate goalie lunged and fell. More cheers! Roger joined in, shouting. "Great play! Great!" He was hoping that Robin had caught sight of him. She'd know now that her dad was here, hadn't let her down.

As in the past, not often but once or twice, unavoidably, for very good reasons he'd been at pains to explain, he had.

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He hadn't been very late after all, he'd missed only the first quarter of the game. The other team was ahead by only two points. He stood with cheering Ryecroft supporters, a scattering of adults and adolescents, mostly girls. Though the Ryecroft School was now co-ed, it had been a girls' school for a century, and had a reputation in the east as a girls' school of the hardy second rank, attracting fewer boys, and not very good students among these; as Robin said scornfully, the girls were what boys are supposed to be, and the boys were mostly losers.

At halftime Roger made his way to the Ryecroft side to wave to Robin, say hello, and saw to his shock that the tall adroit pony-tailed girl wasn't his daughter! There was Robin in fact, shorter, with a thicker frame, her hair a darker brown, frizzed and damp from perspiration; Roger waved at her, caught her eye, and Robin smiled a restrained smile, lifted her fist in a gesture of victory, which Roger mimicked in return. He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Love ya, honey!" Robin didn't appear especially elated to see her dad, playing it cool perhaps, of course she'd been disappointed to get his phone message, he hadn't been able to make it before the game as they'd planned, or maybe she was simply distracted by the game, the pressure and excitement. Team sports: Roger knew the intoxica-tion, the almost unspeakable animal-joy that runs through a pack of young people united in a single, finite effort. He knew, and halfway envied Robin.

The referee's whistle, and play resumed. Roger had found an empty seat in the third tier of bleachers. He was drawn into the game, began to care about the game, wanting the green-clad team to beat the blue-clad team, willing his girl Robin to excel. (The fact was, Robin had never been a graceful loser even as a little girl. Even playing kiddie games with her dad she'd needed to win. He dreaded her sulking through another dinner, this time at the three-star Hanover Inn in Baltimore he'd reserved for them that evening. And beyond that was Washington, D.C., a father-daughter weekend together.) Roger was often on his feet, squinting to see Robin, trying to follow the action. Shouting with other supporters until his throat was hoarse.

A game, any game is any game, a game like any other game, indistinguish-able. Except if you're on the playing field, then each game is unique. It's your life.

In high school, Roger had been on the track team for a while, and on the swimming team for a while. He'd been quick and clever and fairly well-coordinated but, shorter than most of the guys on teams, he hadn't Middle Age: A Romance *

the stamina required for competitive sports, maybe he hadn't had the necessary will, the drive to win at mere games. In college, he hadn't gone out for sports at all. Sports seemed to him an idiotic squandering of time, energy, talent. Student athletes revered by others seemed to him frankly deluded about the world. Victory isn't to the swiftest of body but to the swiftest of mind. Roger Cavanagh would cultivate not his body, though he liked his body well enough, but his mind. And this too, a game. You have no choice but to play.

Ryecroft scored a goal, the game was tied. Then the other team scored two goals. In the final quarter, the teams were tied again. Tension! Sus-pense! Roger stood and shouted with the others, trying to keep his girl in sight. But kept losing her. And kept losing the thread of why he was here.

Look, Robin: you know I love you, don't you? But he kept thinking of Marina Troy. Wondering where she'd gone, and without telling him. For they were co-conspirators. They'd committed a misdemeanor together. Especially, such a violation of law could have serious consequences for Roger Cavanagh, attorney-at-law. Yes, but he was concentrating on Robin's game.

Yes, he understood that his yearning for Marina Troy was absurd, and beyond that it was futile. He did care about the ferocious Ryecroft girls, these Amazon warriors thundering up and down the field, up and down the field, brandishing their scythe-like hockey sticks. The ball might have been a human head. No, too small. Male genitals? Maybe sometime in history, anthropologists would know, morbid research, what it unearths about mankind's playful customs, decorum, civilization itself. Adam Berendt had seemed to view their suburban-Salthill world as if he'd drifted into it from another planet, a place of cooler, drier air, clear-sightedness, that single staring eye, yet he'd seemed to forgive them, too; he'd seemed to like them as, mysteriously, they had not always been able to like or even tolerate themselves.

Cave- dwellers. Dwellers among shadows. How to escape? But-escape to what?

Good athletes become better athletes under duress, less-good athletes begin to falter. Roger felt pain seeing that his daughter was being out-played by the blue-clad wing as the game continued, she'd become flush-faced and surly and clumsy. (In all fairness to Robin, she wasn't the only girl whose playing had visibly deteriorated, as that of two or three star athletes was becoming spectacular.) But there, determined, dogged, Robin galloped on her powerful legs, swung her stick, colliding with other *

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equally determined and dogged girls. Roger recalled his daughter in a bathing suit, the previous summer, those thick fatty-muscled thighs, amazing, sturdier than his own, far larger than Lee Ann's; not that Robin was heavyset exactly, but big-boned, a girl who could never be slender.

And she was easily flummoxed. In the midst of a protracted play, as the ball flew by her, she turned desperately, lunged with her stick, swung and missed and at a clumsy angle, the ball was taken from the Ryecroft girls and went flying down the field for an easy goal, and-where was Robin?

Fallen to the ground.

But immediately on her feet. Before anyone could help her.

Still, she was limping. Time was called, the coach removed her from the game. God damn, just our luck. Oh, honey. She was his little girl again, in need of her dad.

B R **, with a bright plucky smile, that she was all right, she'd only just made a mistake and slipped-"Or maybe she elbowed me. But it was my mistake."

She was trying not to cry. A big-boned flush-faced girl who smelled of exertion, hair plastered to her forehead and her breath still quickened.

After the game, which in the last few minutes of playing the Ryecroft team narrowly won, she gave her anxious dad a quick, hot kiss, twisting away from him even as she pressed against him even as he meant to hug her. Since the divorce there was a physical awkwardness between them.

Roger said, "Honey, you were great. You all played wonderfully. I was watching every-"

Robin cut him off, embarrassed. "Sure, Dad."

Somewhat flippantly, though possibly with pride, since Roger was still a reasonably youthful, attractive man, Robin introduced him to several of her elated teammates who smiled shyly and called him "Mr. Cavanagh."

Then she went off, trying not to limp, with the team to shower and change, and would meet Roger at her residence hall in about an hour.

Roger watched the girls walk away. Their mood was rowdy and jubilant, they'd won by a single goal, and that had been a fluke-the most delicious kind of victory. The kind you don't really deserve.

He was grateful for the free hour. He went for a drink at the town's single hotel, a Hyatt Regency with a cocktail lounge behind a waterfall.

God, how shaken he was! He hadn't realized. The excitement of the game, Middle Age: A Romance *

the shock he'd felt seeing Robin down. The strain to the heart in being somebody's dad. Did you ever get used to it?

A double Scotch, with water.

Madonna of the Rocks. She'd told him about the painting in the Frick. She couldn't recall the artist's name. Mother love gone wrong.

She called Roger often when they were both in Salthill, to invite him for dinner. Sometimes with friends, and he'd accept; sometimes alone, and he'd decline. He knew what might happen if he and Abigail Des Pres were alone together in her house. That beautiful lonely-echoing Cape Cod on Wheatsheaf Drive in which the tragic divorcee continued to live, out of inertia perhaps. Like a princess under a spell. Sleeping Beauty. But I'm not the prince to wake her with a kiss. Abigail Des Pres was a lovely appealing woman, and not in need of money, but she was one of those women who adored Adam Berendt even after his death, and Roger wasn't going to compete with a dead man. Adam had been formidable enough when alive.

Still, he saw Abigail occasionally. They were romantic friends. They shared certain secrets. Abigail had been a friend of Lee Ann's for much of the Cavanaghs' marriage and believed, with Roger, that he'd been unfairly treated by Lee Ann. "If a man isn't absolutely 'faithful' to his wife it should be discounted, to a degree. But when a woman . . ." Abigail's voice trailed off in disapproving silence. Roger said, annoyed, "I was not unfaithful to Lee Ann. That's one of her stories." Abigail listened gravely. "Yes. I suppose."

He and Abigail were like brother and sister. Their relationship had become, since their mutual divorces, subtly incestuous. They even resembled each other, dark-haired, intense, inclined to suspicion and paranoia.

Where Abigail's laughter was high-pitched like glass shattering, Roger's laughter was low-pitched, like gravel being shaken. Abigail was a woman who eroticized her friendships with men, even the husbands of her women friends, out of a nervous desire to please, not out of actual desire; Roger believed that, like many beautiful women of her class, Abigail had been raised to feel no physical desire for anything, not sex, not food or drink. Like one of those exquisitely overbred greyhounds so taut with nerves you can see them trembling. Where Marina was all will, steely and remote, Abigail was without will, soft, yielding, unresisting as water to *

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the touch. Roger knew he could be Abigail's lover if he wished. Sink and sink in the woman, finding no bottom.

In July, shortly after Roger had helped spread Adam's ashes in his garden, Abigail telephoned Roger in distress. She called him at his law office and insisted to his secretary that he speak with her at once, though he was in a meeting-"This is an emergency. It can't wait." When Roger came on the line, Abigail burst into tears. He had difficulty understanding her.

"Roger! I need your help. Something terrible has happened."

Roger would recall: something has happened. Not I am to blame. I nearly killed my son and myself.

Roger drove at once to Middlebury, Vermont, to bring Abigail home.

The rental car had been wrecked, Abigail and her fifteen-year-old son Jared had been treated for minor injuries in a local hospital. Abigail's face was bruised and lacerated, one of her eyes blackened. When Roger came into the room she seized his hands and wept with gratitude-"Roger! I will never forget this." Later she would say, "I should have died. It was meant to be." Roger told her not to be ridiculous, she'd only just had an accident. But when he spoke with Jared, separately, the boy was furious, hostile. He too had a battered face, a swollen jaw, cracked ribs and a badly sprained forearm. "Keep her away from me, Mr. Cavanagh! I hate her. I never want to see her again." The boy's father, Harrison Tierney, whom Roger had never much liked, was en route to Middlebury to deal with the crisis.

Roger identified himself to Middlebury authorities as Abigail Des Pres's attorney. Charges against Abigail were serious. It seemed Abigail had been drinking, the alcohol level in her blood was beyond Vermont's legal limit. She'd been speeding along a narrow country road, lost control of her vehicle going into a turn, crashed through a low guardrail, through a ditch, and into a stand of trees. The front of the Lexus had collapsed like an accordion. There were no skid marks on the road. It was purely luck that neither Abigail nor Jared had been seriously injured or killed. Jared hadn't buckled his safety belt, he might have been thrown headfirst through the windshield.

No skid marks. No attempt to brake the car?

Roger told authorities that his client was by nature a gentle, loving mother who since a difficult divorce had been under "severe mental strain." He told authorities that the boy was emotional, and what he might be telling police (that his mother was crazy, had tried to kill them) should not be taken altogether seriously.

Middle Age: A Romance *

Roger would not intervene between Abigail and Jared. The boy refused to see Abigail no matter how she pleaded. He was rude to Roger, whom he called, with obvious contempt, "Mr. Cavanagh." He wanted to quit summer school, he wanted to go home with his father for the rest of the month, then to Africa-on a safari?-mountain-climbing?-if he was sufficiently recovered?-and never see his mother again. Nor did Roger want to meet with Harrison Tierney. In Salthill he'd played doubles tennis with Harry a few times, the man was vicious. Alone among the Salthill men, Harry was known to cheat at tennis. And at golf, and squash. Other Salthill men were gentlemen and would not contest Tierney's claims. Roger had disapproved of Harry, found him personally abrasive but had to admire the man's air of bravado. He seemed always to be having a good time. "Harry doesn't care what we think of him," Lee Ann said, "that's why we think of him." "Don't tell me you find him attractive?" Roger asked incredulously, and Lee Ann said with her thin infuriating smile, "Of course. Women are masochists, haven't you noticed?

It's the unspoken cornerstone of marriage." Roger recalled an evening at the Tierneys' house some years ago, one of those large dinner parties that mean so passionately much to women, and which are mostly tolerated and endured by men. Harry joined Roger where he was leaning in a doorway after dinner, smoking a cigarette, for it was a time before cigarette smoking had been completely banished from such occasions. Harry was the evening's host and might have been expected to behave like a host, except he nudged Roger in the ribs, said laughingly, "What's it all about, eh? Some riddle, is it? Chr-ist." Roger smiled, confused. His lawyer-training kept him vigilant at all times. The men were watching a ring of Salthill wives, Harry's wife Abigail, Roger's wife Lee Ann, Beatrice Archer, and one or two other women talking together excitedly, their faces shining like fresh-opened flowers. Candlelight made these women, in their late thirties, strangely beautiful. There was an uncanny innocence and simplicity to their beauty, as if it had never been tested; as if none of these women had ever screamed in the agony of childbirth, writhed and groaned in orgasm, sweated, defecated. As if beneath their expensive clothes their bodies were sleek in perfection as expensive dolls. They floated in that state of party-euphoria when they needed to touch one another, their praise of one another's hair, skin, clothing, beauty was extravagant. Of course, these women were all friends, they'd known one another for years. They were sisters, hatched from the same great egg. It was as if-Roger saw, with Harry's hand on his shoulder in *

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mock-brotherhood-the women sought in one another, as in magical reflecting surfaces, some measure of their immortality. They were bright shimmering petals floating upon the lightless, depthless chaos beneath Salthill which reached to the very molten center of Earth. Roger shuddered, and eased away from Harry Tierney's hand. Harry said, "It means so much to them, doesn't it?" Roger said, "What? Friendship?" "Is it 'friendship'?" Harry seemed to consider this for a moment, then dismissed it. "I don't know what 'friendship' is. Call it 'social life.' Like pond algae. Tiny organisms locked together in the most intense intimacy, sym-biotic and 'synergistic' and yet-it's only just, in the end, pond algae."

Roger, who valued friendship, or wanted to think that he did, as well as love for Lee Ann and his daughter, said, "Harry, come on. You're hosting this terrific party tonight. You come to all our parties." Harry laughed.

He had the ease of a killer for hire, he couldn't be touched, himself. "It wouldn't matter in the slightest if I never saw anyone in Salthill again.

And you feel the same way, Cavanagh." Roger said stiffly, "I do? Thanks for the insight." "No need to thank," Harry said, punching at Roger's shoulder as if they were high school kids, "it's gratis."

Through Vermont and New York State countryside of surpassing beauty, Roger drove Abigail Des Pres back home to Salthill. He'd dealt with the car rental agency. He'd arranged for his client to pay a stiff fine for charges of DWI and reckless driving. Abigail's driver's license would be suspended for six months. He did not ask her pointedly about the absence of skid marks on the road, but after some time, roused from her lethargy, examining her bruised and lacerated face in a compact mirror, Abigail began to speak of having been "under a spell" and unable to act at the time of the accident. She was always such a careful, cautious driver; such a timid driver; but something had forced her to drive fast that evening, though she wasn't familiar with the Lexus, and didn't know the road. She had not been actually intoxicated, she insisted. She'd experienced everything with a terrible clarity. "It was as if a hand turned the wheel. Turned the wheel to the right. To take us off the road. A demon-hand." Roger said casually, "A 'demon-hand'?" Abigail said, "Yes. It had the power to turn the wheel to kill us but it wasn't, I don't think, actual. I mean, physical." She hadn't told the Middlebury authorities about this demon-hand because it would have seemed like an accusation of Jared, that Jared had reached over to twist the wheel, and Jared had not, Jared too was innocent; she hadn't dared tell them for fear of being considered Middle Age: A Romance *

mad. She would not tell anyone except Roger, and begged him not to tell any of their friends for word would spread everywhere in Salthill-"I'd be so ashamed!" Roger questioned her about the "demon-hand" and Abigail conceded, possibly it had been a force rather than an actual hand. But it took the shape of a hand. She'd seen it! Certainly, she'd felt it. "As soon as the hand took hold of the steering wheel, I became paralyzed, I couldn't react. I could no more have brought the car out of the skid, turned the wheel the other way, put on the brakes, than"-she paused, breathing quickly, her anxious bruised eyes on Roger-"I could perform these actions now, in this car. With you in opposition." Roger laughed uneasily.

Abigail was joking? Or-Abigail wasn't joking? "Jared refuses to speak with me now. He says I tried to kill us both. And I did not, Roger. You believe me, don't you?" Roger said, "Abigail, of course. I'm your attorney." He laughed, it was a joke. "Hey, no. I'm your friend."

As they crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge high above the Hudson River, Abigail began to speak resignedly of having lost Jared, so soon after having lost Adam. "It was fated, I guess." Roger objected, " 'Fated'? Hardly."