Abigail knows that this conversation will leave her exhausted and wounded, like one who has run naked through briars, but she seems incapable of breaking it off. She says, "I didn't try to kill Jared, Harry. You know that-don't you?"

A long pause. "I don't believe you deliberately wanted to kill Jared, or yourself. You aren't a deliberate woman."

Abigail laughs, annoyed. "What am I then, an instinctive woman? A primitive woman?" She has a flash of aboriginal females living in some desperate place like the outback of Australia, swollen with pregnancy, tubular breasts-"dugs"-drooping to their crotches.

"You're a very feminine woman."

"Meaning-?"

"Meaning you don't always anticipate the consequences of your actions. You act, then you reflect."

"And you never reflect at all."

Harry laughs. "Only in reflection do we feel regret. So why?"

Abigail thinks, you can never get the better of Harrison Tierney. He's one to agree with the most extreme interpretations of his motives, always he eludes you.

" 'There are no accidents,' the kid says. Some crap he got from your buddy Berendt."

Abigail will let this pass. She reveres Adam Berendt too much to drag him into her old quarrel with Harry Tierney.

Harry laughs. "Except the kid nearly killed me, his dad. I'm limping from it."

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"Harry, what happened?"

"We were skiing, in Aspen. Somehow, don't ask how, Jared loses control of his skis and sort of fishtails and slams into me, going down a pretty steep hill, and I'm down and skidding into Kim's skis on my stomach and next I know, I'm waking in an ambulance. Two bad breaks, I mean bad breaks, in my right femur. But at least I don't have a plate in my skull, eh?"

Abigail thinks quickly, he's going to blame her. This is what it will come to.

"Harry, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm-"

"You're smiling your dazzling-debutante smile. Every one of your beautiful teeth lit up." Harry laughs. "Don't bullshit me."

It's true, Abigail is smiling. Just her mouth, stretched and twisted.

"Was-Jared hurt?"

"Minor lacerations. You know the kid: unkillable."

"I'm sure it was an accident, Harry. Jared would never deliberately hurt you."

"Right."

Abigail knows she should hang up the phone. Talking with Harry is psychic Ping-Pong. But her pulse is quickened, it's impossible to resist.

Harry says, "You've heard about Roger Cavanagh?"

"He's 'fathering' another child."

"Fantastic! At his age."

"Roger isn't old."

"None of us is old, Abigail. We just aren't young."

"Roger seems very happy. He-"

"He's in a state of shock. Poor bastard."

"Have you met the girl?"

"No, I have not," Harry grunts. Pregnant women have no attraction for him. "Frankly, I was surprised. Roger had a thing for you, I'd always thought."

Abigail lets this pass. She says, "You've heard that Lionel has come home? He and Camille are reconciled."

"Lionel is home, yes I know. The poor asshole is a wreck. But he isn't what you'd call 'reconciled.' "

"This exotic mistress of his, the rumor is"-(why is Abigail saying such things, like bringing a lighted match to something flammable, she knows she'll regret it)-"that you introduced her to Lionel. One of your 'therapists.' "

Middle Age: A Romance *

Harry laughs heartily. But doesn't deny it.

Another of Harry Tierney's stratagems. Don't apologize, don't explain.

Don't deny. Abigail says slyly: "A therapist who's also a part-time hooker. A light-skinned 'exotic'

from Jamaica."

"Jamaica? Who the hell told you that?"

Abigail smiles. The look on Harry's face! She can imagine. Few of his friends know that Harry Tierney is a closet racist.

"People. You know Salthill."

"I know Salthill," Harry says furiously, "which is why I moved away."

"You didn't know that Lionel's girl was-is-a light-skinned black?"

There's a pause. Abigail can hear her ex-husband breathing. She wonders if Kim, the replacement wife, has quietly picked up the receiver to eavesdrop on her husband's conversation with his ex-wife; these intense, adrenaline-pumping sessions are a special sort of adultery, available only to the formerly married. Abigail wonders if Jared is anywhere near.

No, Jared would be away at school. On neutral territory, at a safe distance from both Dad and Mom.

Harry says, "Siri isn't. She is not. What you've said-Siri is not." Harry makes a grunting noise to indicate the subject had better be dropped.

Asking, in his own sly way, "And how the hell are you, Abby? I've heard things."

Abby! This translates into you pathetic bitch. "What sort of things?"

"Things."

This will be like poking a comatose body with a stick. Abigail's the body, Harry wields the stick. Not to torture, exactly. To see if the comatose can register pain.

Still, Abigail is alert, interested. Lacking an inner life, she requires knowing that others imagine a life for her.

"You 'date' a lot of men. Mostly cripples."

Abigail laughs, stung. "Actually, I'm thinking of quitting."

"Quitting what?"

"Dating a lot of men." Abigail laughs again, a sound as of a small creature being strangled. She adds, almost inaudibly, "No. Life. Quitting fucking life."

Silence at Harry's end. Not a profound silence but an awkward fidgety silence. Here is a man who'd been embarrassed by a pea-sized growth in his wife's breast. He'd been embarrassed, and annoyed, by his father's

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death, which had been prolonged, and in the end, to Harry, needing to travel abroad for business purposes, impractical and tedious. Then Harry manages to laugh, nervously. Abigail can imagine his cheeks flaming crimson. Quickly Abigail amends, "Hey. I don't mean it, of course."

Flatly Harry says, "I know you don't," and hangs up.

" ' L.' What we take for granted other people have a knack for."

Abigail speaks aloud into the silence that surrounds her. She can't recall if Adam originally made this gnomic remark, or if it's her own discovery. "If Adam said it, it's profound. If I, 'Abby,' have said it, it's just another wistful little wounded-cunt remark."

Silence.

Abigail waits for Adam, or someone, to refute her.

She laughs. "Of course I date 'cripples.' Who else?"

Does Adam Berendt disapprove of Abigail's self-hating mood? Is the man being stubborn, or coy? Or is Adam simply-not there?

Abigail, cut the crap. You know I don't exist. I'm ashes. You said it yourself: fertilizer.

S ! Abigail insists upon meeting Gerhardt Ault at the restaurant, the Swan's Ferry Inn on the river, so she has her own car, and the possibility of escape. Though she's hopeful. She is not cynical. "I like him. 'Gerhardt.' " She doesn't recall what he looks like very clearly. She wonders if Hitler's architect's name was Gerhardt. You date a lot of men. Mostly cripples. Abigail wants to protest, she doesn't date many men. She never has.

It's a mild spring evening. Daylight Saving Time has caused the sun to prevail through lengthy days. If you like lengthy days, this is an upbeat season. If you like manic fluorescent "splashes" of azaleas blooming everywhere, this is not a cynical season. Why not be hopeful. That very day, Abigail volunteered to introduce Donegal Croom, the Irish-American poet who will read from his work at the Festival of Flowers luncheon in mid-May; she has committed herself to remaining alive that long, at least.

"I would never let my women friends down. Never!"

Abigail arrives twenty minutes late at the Swan's Ferry. Gerhardt, seated at their table, squinting at a book he's brought along to read in flickering candlelight, has the look of a man who has arrived twenty Middle Age: A Romance *

minutes early. When Abigail approaches him, he glances up startled, as if he's forgotten who Abigail is, and why he's here. At once, Gerhardt struggles to his feet, and his napkin, unfolded in his lap, falls to the floor, somehow twisting in his ankles. "Abigail! This is so-it's-" Gerhardt stammers, blinking and smiling at Abigail, clumsily shaking her hand.

"Yes! It is, " Abigail says. Quickly she sits, smiling her most vacant smile.

As always the koan Why, why am I here, why here begins in her head, but she beats it back like a housewife with a broom. The next swirl of words is A drink, a quick drink! but this, too, Abigail beats back. Gerhardt has already begun talking. His melancholy-dog eyes are fixed upon Abigail eagerly. He is telling her-what? She tries to listen. She tries. Gerhardt Ault is a very nice man. You see them everywhere in Salthill: very nice deadly-dull middle-aged men. Most of them are husbands. (Why isn't Gerhardt Ault a husband? Abigail has a sinking sensation, she'll soon be told why.) In the romantically flickering candlelight Gerhardt looks alarmingly vulpine. Tonight he's wearing a very white boxy-looking shirt with a large collar, a checked bow tie (snap-on), and another loose-fitting tweed coat.

His fair, colorless hair lies in odd collapsed tufts on his head like transparent Thai noodles. When he smiles, Abigail has an impulse to count his teeth: surely there are too many? Gerhardt is wearing bifocal reading glasses, which he hurriedly removes and stuffs into his coat pocket, with the vanity of a shy, homely man who hopes he isn't, somehow. To be redeemed in another's myopic eyes. The aim of all romance. Abigail asks what Gerhardt is reading, and Gerhardt tells her.

Drinks are ordered: Perrier water, with a twist of lime, for both.

Abigail would like to ask if Gerhardt, too, has a good reason for not drinking, but of course she doesn't. She's far too tactful. And it would only be depressing to learn that he's "always been" allergic to alcohol.

As Gerhardt talks, animatedly, his bright blurry gaze fixed upon her face, Abigail glances covertly about the restaurant to see if any of her friends are here tonight. Or maybe it's just Adam Berendt she seeks. The Swan's Ferry Inn (**) is one of the "historic" sites on the river, a three-star restaurant, costly, dungeon-dark, with equestrian prints on the walls, riding crops and horse gear; on a nearby wall there's a large oil painting of President George Washington in ceremonial attire, stiff curled wig, royal-red coat, gold-braid epaulets, brass-handled sword, the jeweled insignia of the Society of Cincinnati on his lapel, and in the background, like a child's

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cartoon drawing, the president's gorgeous canary-yellow coach drawn by six white horses. Though Washington was relatively young at the time of the portrait, he looks dour and middle-aged as if his face has been baked.

Washington had been a frequent patron of the Swan's Ferry Inn, it was claimed. As he'd been a patron of Deppe House a few miles away. (The tavern exclusively, or the brothel as well?) Adam used to joke darkly of bones buried in the dirt floor of his cellar . . . In the near-to-the-end days of Abigail Tierney's marriage she'd met Adam Berendt sometimes here; their favored spot wasn't the pretentious dining room but the pub, beside the fireplace. What a setting for romance! Abigail sighs. Abigail recalls with sudden clarity the winter evening her feet were freezing, in thin kidskin open-heeled sandals, and Adam lifted her stocking feet into his lap beneath their table to warm them with his hands. His strong sculptor's hands. The gesture was both intimate and nonsexual. As if Abigail were a child, and Adam her mildly chastising father. But Abigail couldn't resist wriggling her toes into Adam's groin. And Adam visibly blushed, and pushed her feet away. "Hey. I'm sorry," Abigail whispered. Not that she was. Abigail's rarely sorry. Adam shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, looking at her with his good eye, saying, "You're a married woman, still.

You shouldn't play at adultery." Abigail said, "Play? Who's playing?" It was true, she and Harry were still officially living together, when Harry wasn't in their Manhattan apartment, but Abigail understood that her time as Mrs. Tierney was rapidly running out. Only a few weeks before, she'd had the biopsy; her husband had seemed repulsed by her, as if she were already disfigured. Abigail hadn't wanted to tell Adam about this (was she ashamed of herself, too?) but she did tell him, "When I was a girl, I thought 'adultery' was something you got to do, when you were an adult.

Like playing bridge." (Was this true? Were any of Abigail's disarming little tales of herself true?) Adam grunted a vague disapproving reply, and changed the subject.

Why had Abigail agreed to meet Gerhardt at the Swan's Ferry, of all places? Suddenly she's frightened, she'll begin crying.

Gerhardt is speaking of his "deceased wife, Gail." So soon! And at an awkward time, as the smiling waiter looms over them with enormous menus that look like engraved slabs of marble. As Abigail scans the blurry cursive script, appetizers, first courses, entrees, she tries to concentrate on her companion's words, a rush of words, a waterfall of words, as if the wounded man hasn't uttered such words to anyone, and has chosen Middle Age: A Romance

Abigail, and this damned awkward moment, for a reason fathomable only to himself. Dividing her attention between appetizers and Gerhardt Ault's stammered grief! He confides in her that his wife died six years before, of pancreatic cancer-"The oncologist told us five months, at first. But it was less than three." The deceased Mrs. Ault had been an architect, too; her specialty was churches; Gerhardt has "yet to recover from the trauma." Abigail, nodding sympathetically, glances at the blurry column of entrees, no red meat for her, possibly coq au vin, possibly sword-fish steak, scampi, no sweetbreads . . . Gerhardt is leaning both elbows on the table, leaning forward hunched, his melancholy eyes gleaming, big pit-nostrils contracting and expanding, pouring out his grief to Abigail Des Pres as one might blindly dump a gallon container of liquid into a teacup. She interprets Gerhardt's pronouncement perhaps unfairly: Don't think you will ever wedge yourself into my life. I'm pure, I'm deep. I'm a mourner. When Abigail says nothing, biting her lip, reluctant to offer the congealed remains of her own domestic sorrow, the Divorce and the Loss-of-Son, Gerhardt swerves on more severely, hunching farther forward with the crisis-look of a downhill skier on the brink of losing control. "And there's our daughter Tamar. She's eleven. She's adopted. She's still traumatized. She's mute sometimes-for days." Tears well in Gerhardt's eyes. Abigail swallows hard. "It must be hard to communicate with her," Abigail says, "-if she's, well, mute. It's hard enough to communicate with-" (But what is Abigail saying? She can't possibly say normal children.) Her words trail off vaguely, apologetically. "Tamar is adopted," Gerhardt says. He has pushed aside his marble-slab menu, not having glanced into it. Abigail feels cruel, crude, greedy, for having glanced into hers, and shuts it. "Gail was so yearning for a baby-'Someone to live for, beyond just us.' I saw her point of course. A man might not be quite so r-ready for this next stage as a woman, but-I-I loved Gail-I would have done anything Gail wanted. To make her happy.

There was this entire side of her I hadn't known about until after we were married, a sort of-maternal-spiritual side. I have to admit, I was surprised! I wasn't very mature perhaps. I've always focused on my work. I've been called a workaholic. Well, I w-wanted a baby, too. I mean-I didn't not want a baby." Gerhardt looks as if he's drowning. Abigail murmurs, to console him, "Of course! It is different for a man." A man shoots his seed into a small hole out of which, nine months later, a woman pushes a watermelon with arms and legs. That's the difference. Gerhardt says, grateful for

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Abigail's understanding, "We tried! And we tried. We went to fertility specialists, clinics. We prayed! Finally we went to a Christian adoption agency-Gail's from a family of Presbyterian missionaries-and were put in contact with a 'birth mother' in, first it was Romania, but that didn't work out, and finally-" Gerhardt is speaking now with an air of mystifi-cation and aggrievement. Does this kindly, confused man regret his daughter? Does he wish the burden of her gone from his life? Abigail sees their waiter hovering a few yards away, with a frayed, stoic half-smile.

Abigail begins to say something both conciliatory and practical, to nudge Gerhardt into acknowledging the very real, actual setting, the expectation that they will order meals and eat them and pay for them and leave, within a calibrated two hours at the outside, but suddenly tears flood her eyes, Abigail Des Pres is beginning to cry, Abigail Des Pres is crying, sabotaging her flawless cosmetic mask of a face; she's astonished at such weakness, such gauche social behavior; breaking down in a public place; she blames Adam, his damned puritanical behavior in their cozy pub corner. Abigail hides her flaming face in her white linen napkin. She rises from the table blindly. Murmuring an excuse, an apology-"I c-can't stay.

Good night!"

Abigail flees the dining room of the Swan's Ferry Inn. In a haze of tears, mortification, grief, she hears a man calling after her-"Abigail!"- but it isn't a voice she recognizes, a voice to stop her dead in her tracks.

Cross what's- his- name off the list. One less cripple.