Roger said gravely, "Not for me."

It was about this time that Roger encountered Lionel Hoffmann on a midtown street, and went with his old Salthill friend for drinks in a Sixth Avenue hotel cigar lounge. What a change in Lionel Hoffmann! Where Lionel had long been one of Salthill's middle-aged husbands, even as a relatively young man, he had now the air of a lone wolf; lean-faced, and vigilant; edgy, anxious, restless; as Roger spoke, Lionel continually glanced up at the scantily clad cocktail waitresses, and was continually sniffing and blowing his nose, which annoyed Roger; though Roger was forthcoming about the extraordinary development in his private life, Lionel was close-mouthed about his private life, until finally Roger told Lionel he was sorry to have heard that Lionel and Camille were separated, and Lionel blew his nose loudly and mumbled what sounded like, "Yes, I'm sorry, too." And the subject was dropped.

Yet: not long afterward, Roger saw his Salthill friend in the company of a young woman, in an expensive Midtown restaurant, and kept his distance to observe, through a mirror, the disparity in their ages and types.

The girl was very young, stylish; a light-skinned black, or an East Indian; her hair was braided and scintillant, like a nest of snakes; and her eyes moved restlessly, even as Lionel spoke earnestly to her, clasping both her hands. For some painful minutes Roger watched, fascinated and repelled.

"Poor Lionel! What a sucker."

E * ** Roger began to read of pregnancy, childbirth, infants. He bought out most of the baby shelf at the Salthill Bookstore. ("Mr. Cavanagh," Molly Ivers said, startled, "what's your sud-Middle Age: A Romance

den interest in babies?" "I'm going to have one, in July.") He began to make inquiries among his Salthill acquaintances into full-time nannies.

Except when he was most absorbed in his work there wasn't an hour when Roger didn't brood upon the baby-to-come. On principle Volpe disliked "intrusive medical technology" and refused to have an ultrasound to determine the baby's sex. "You'll just have to be surprised, like daddies through the millennia." As her pregnancy advanced Roger fell into the habit of calling Volpe on her cell phone frequently. Always he was casual, calm.

"How are you, Naomi?" "Mr. C., I'm fine," Volpe said, laughing, exasperated. "If I weren't, you'd be the first to be informed." Roger kept a calendar of Volpe's medical appointments and made certain she kept them, for Volpe disliked even female doctors. The "capitalist-consumer enterprise"

of childbearing sickened her, she said. "We were meant to squat in the fields and ditches and have our babies, cut the umbilical cord with our teeth, and get on with it."

Get on with what, Roger wondered.

Yet Volpe complained of her pregnancy, once she began to get heavy, seriously heavy, in her sixth month. She complained of bladder trouble and of "everything swollen" and she hinted that maybe she'd made a mistake, agreeing to bring the baby "to term," maybe it wasn't too late (in the final trimester) for an abortion, somewhere? Roger shuddered, hearing such words. He couldn't gauge if Volpe was sincere or testing him, taunting or teasing him, if at such moments her deepest wishes emerged, or whether she was simply playing a role, carelessly improvising. I must be very careful how I respond. I must not contradict her. Oh, God! He dreaded calling her one day to be told bluntly that the baby was gone, she'd changed her mind after all.

He drove her to the obstetrician's office and waited for her in the outer room, self-conscious as any expectant father. Under Volpe's influence he'd begun to dress "younger" when he wasn't in a professional setting; true, his hairline was eroding, what remained of his thick, wiry hair was turning an innocuous gray; he'd become somewhat edgy, restless (like his friend Lionel?); yet he was unfailingly optimistic, youthful . . . One afternoon the obstetrician's new receptionist asked Roger where he and his "daughter"

lived, and Roger said, stung, "My daughter is a boarder at a prep school in Maine, and I live in Salthill, New York." The young woman stared at him with a puzzled smile, but asked no further questions. When he told Volpe about the exchange, she expressed indignation on Roger's behalf. "Your

J C O*

daughter! That's ridiculous. My father looks old enough to be your father.

Our ages are nobody's business but our own." She grabbed him, and kissed him fiercely on the mouth. If anyone was going to insult Roger Cavanagh, it would be her.

" W I * , I didn't believe it. But of course I believed it.

You selfish bastard!"

Had to tell Lee Ann knowing that (of course) Lee Ann would tell Robin. Had to make the dread call and yet guiltily, shamefacedly he delayed long enough, mid-April, Volpe in her sixth month, knowing that by this time Lee Ann would already be informed by mutual Salthill friends.

Roger Cavanagh is having a baby with a woman no one knows. A much younger woman of course. Imagine! At his age. Roger said, "What's 'selfish'

about it, Lee Ann? I didn't get your permission first?" and Lee Ann said angrily, "Do you think of anyone beside yourself, ever? Did you think of Robin, how she'll take this?" "The pregnancy was an accident, Lee Ann.

Frankly, I wasn't thinking of Robin at the time." "There you go, your sick sense of humor. You truly are a selfish bastard," and Roger said, trying to remain reasonable, "But what is selfish about bringing a baby that's wanted into the world, a baby that will be provided for, loved-" and Lee Ann cut in, derisively, " 'Loved'! What a joke! Ask Robin about your 'love,'

you son of a bitch," and hung up the receiver.

Roger was astounded, and hurt, and eventually furious with his ex-wife. What right had she to pass a moral judgment on him? Lee Ann had hated pregnancy. She'd hated the hormonal tyranny as she called it, and she'd hated the changes in her body. Lee Ann's female vanity which she'd managed to hide, or to deny, had emerged, sometimes in outbursts of considerable emotion; it was at this time she'd first begun to be unreasonably jealous of Roger. (When Roger, a devoted young husband and father, was wholly innocent of being attracted to any other woman, he swore!) And then Robin was in their lives, fully in the center of their lives. A giant infant squeezing their marriage out of shape. They'd talked vaguely of having a second child, they'd hoped for a boy, but Robin was simply too demanding, even as an infant; by the time she was four, she was requiring an extraordinary investment of time and emotional effort, especially on the part of her mother, and any thought of a second child filled Lee Ann Middle Age: A Romance

with revulsion. Of course, she tried to temper this revulsion with good humor. It became Lee Ann's reiterated marital joke, "One Robin is enough!"

To which Roger sometimes amended, silently One Robin is more than enough.

I * *- voice he said, "Naomi? I don't mean to be critical or intrusive-" and Volpe interrupted, "So? Don't be either, Mr. C."-and he persevered, hoping to God not to offend this volatile woman who bore his happiness, his reason-for-being, his very future in her belly-"but pregnant women are advised not to smoke, yes? Your doctor has informed you I'm sure, and there are warnings everywhere, yes?"

Volpe exhaled smoke lavishly from both nostrils and fixed her defiant little ferret-eyes on Roger's face. "Look: I smoke possibly two-three cigarettes a week. I don't even finish them." A week? A day was more likely. But Roger said, "Still, Naomi, you do smoke. And I think you promised-" "You smoke." "I'm not a pregnant woman." "I didn't choose to become a 'pregnant woman,' " Volpe said angrily, "it was forced upon me." She made a show of stubbing out her cigarette in an ashtray. "And I don't like to be spied upon, Mr. C. That's grounds for sexual harassment in itself."

Volpe's laughter was high-pitched and sobering to hear.

Roger had fantasies of the baby born deformed, stunted. Brain-damaged. He'd heard of a baby born with its organs exposed, including the brain stem; he'd heard of a baby born without a spine; an aunt of his had had a breakdown when, it was said, she gave birth to a misshapen infant with facial features scrunched together as if melted . . . In the night he woke agitated and moaning. "This is a mistake. Lee Ann is right. What was I thinking of!"

He wished he'd never met Naomi Volpe. He wished he'd never arranged to do pro bono legal work for the Project to Free the Innocent.

Somehow, it was Adam Berendt's fault.

He would name the baby after Adam. If there was a baby.

S the first of July, Naomi Volpe disappeared.

She left behind a cryptic note for Roger:

J C O*

I'm sorry- I'm not sure if I can go through with this. Giving my baby up even to its (biological) father.

I know, I have signed a contract.

But you & I know that such a contract is not enforceable. Especially if mother & infant are whereabouts unknown.

N.V.

This was a handwritten note, on the reverse of a printed page; after three hellish days a second message appeared, glimmering on Roger's computer screen: Sorry to cause you grief.

I guess you are regretting you ever met me.

I wish I could be this baby's true mother.

You are a good man, Roger. Your faults are those of your class which you have struggled against.

I know: I promised you I would bring this baby to term & it would be yours.

Please cease looking for me.

It's futile, I am not within 1,000 miles of you. But I know of your efforts, I'm kept informed.

You are making a fool of yourself.

I wish we could have loved each other don't you?

N.V.

Hurriedly Roger typed a reply and sent it to N.V. at her e-mail address (if located in space this address was the flat in Jersey City, but Roger knew no one was there) and there followed several more days of virtually unrelieved panic. Why was Volpe doing this to him? Had she always despised him?

Or were her feelings sincere? These days preliminary to the baby's antici-Middle Age: A Romance

pated birth ( July eleventh), Roger would recall as indisputably the worst days of his life, though afterward a perverse amnesia would obscure them as (it's said) a woman forgets the agony of childbirth. And on the eve of July eleventh there came this remarkable message out of cyberspace: The FIRST CONTRACTIONS have begun.

Approximately 15 minutes apart.

Now there is no going back, this baby will be BORN.

If a man could feel the pain of labor, would the race EXIST?

You wanted this baby killed, do you remember?

Another party has expressed interest in this baby. You must concede that a loving & educated & well-to-do couple (in their 30's) is preferable to a single male (middle-aged).

If you wish the best for this baby Roger you will concede this point, yes?

N.V.

"No!" Never would Roger concede this point, Roger was in a state of delirium waiting at his computer, by his telephone, pacing his Salthill town house in which Naomi Volpe had never set foot, and would not; he was drunk, and he was chain-smoking, and he didn't undress to sleep but lay across his rumpled bed wakeful and murderous and in a state of suspension for forty-eight hours, until at last this message appeared on the glassy screen: Dear Roger Cavangh, NV has instructed me to inform you- there is good news. The baby has been born. The baby is a BOY.

He weighs 8 lbs 11 oz. He is 21''

long & has thick dark hair & blue eyes. He is nursing well.

J C O*

NV wishes to say that it is her wish to do the right thing. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SEEK HER, SHE WILL CONTACT.

YOU WHEN IT'S TIME.

The message was unsigned. Roger knew it was pointless to send a reply to the sender at the e-mail address provided. Like shouting into an abyss.

Maybe it was Volpe herself? Testing him, tormenting him? Torturing him?

Slyly misspelling his name? Don't do this to me. God damn you gave your word, is it more money you want, yes, I'll pay more. Only just give me my son!

I * of shopping a few weeks before at Baby-World in the Palisades Mall, Roger had bought furnishings for the nursery. This magical room, white-walled, dominated by a glowing white wicker crib, was next to Roger's room on the second floor of the three-storey townhouse. The nanny Roger had engaged, a Guatemalan-born woman named Herlinda, was to live in a room that opened onto the nursery; when Roger showed Herlinda through these quarters, leading her on a quick tour of the house, the woman had many questions to ask of which the most awkward was: where was Mrs. Cavanagh?

Roger said carefully, "Herlinda, there is no 'Mrs. Cavanagh' at the present time. The mother of the baby-to-be is a friend, and she has gone away to have her baby in private. Maybe," Roger said, inspired by Herlinda's dark attentive eyes and clay-colored face, "she has gone back to her hometown, to be with her own mother? We're temporarily out of touch.

But everything is fine, Herlinda! She'll be back soon, I promise. Though you may not meet her. The baby will be here soon, I promise." If Herlinda, a nanny with years of experience and superlative recommendations, was suspicious, or doubtful, she gave no sign. How practiced Herlinda was in the enigmatic ways of the American-Caucasian suburban class! Politely she asked Mr. Cavanagh for a "prepayment"; a check for a considerable amount of "nonrefundable" salary, which Roger eagerly made out for her, his hand badly shaking.

Yes, I'll pay! I'm the man who pays.

Only just-please, God-GIVE ME MY SON.

Middle Age: A Romance

H * for an unhappy ending. He was not prepared for a happy ending.

He'd lost his faith in romance. If he never touched another woman again in his lifetime, good!

Still he waited to hear from Naomi Volpe. Rarely did he leave the Salthill town house, fearful of missing a call from her, or an actual visit from her. (Maybe she'd bring his son to him, to "deliver" him in person?

Was that too fantastical a hope?) Roger had brought work home with him, and kept in touch with Abercrombie, Cavanagh, Kruller & Hook by phone and e-mail; he was capable of losing himself in sixteen-hour-workdays; he worked on behalf of his rich Salthill clients, and he worked on behalf of the indigent Elroy Jackson, Jr., completing the motion to be presented in federal court the following week. What purity, in work! Impersonality, integrity. You could keep your mind brilliantly focused, and sane. Though afterward Roger would acknowledge, yes he'd been close to the edge, those days. Forcing himself to shower, to shave. Forcing himself to change his clothes. Those long midsummer nights, unable to sleep.

Waiting for Naomi Volpe to "contact" him. Waiting to see his infant son.

Not daring to think It's all a ruse. A fucking scam. The baby was never mine.

She planned this, she's sold him to strangers.

On the evening of July thirtieth he fell asleep at his desk, head on his arms. How heavy his head was, like one of Adam Berendt's stone shapes!

He was allowed to know by dream-logic that in fact he was one of Adam Berendt's sculpted figures. There came into his presence the elusive baby.

The baby weighing eight pounds, eleven ounces, twenty-one inches in length, the baby with thick dark hair and blue eyes, the baby that, when Roger reached for him, seemed to drift away. Where was Roger?-in a place of confusion like Penn Station. Crowds of persons with indistinct faces. Trains were being announced yet at the same time there was swampy, spongy soil underfoot. There was Adam Berendt speaking to Roger, consoling him. But the words were lost. Adam, and the baby to be called "Adam." This was dream-logic. If it made no sense elsewhere it made sense here. Roger was stumbling, groping for the baby, but the baby dissolved-where? Roger woke groaning, utterly spent.