"Well, we don't all brand it across our foreheads, do we?" she said gently.

Ca.s.sie shook her head. "But things are better now?" she asked, trying to take as much hope as she could home to Alex.

"Yes," Dr. Pooley said, sighing. She looked at Ca.s.sie for a long moment. "Now that we're divorced."

ALEX WAS CIRCLING HIS HIPS, PRESSING DEEP INSIDE OF HER, RUNNING his mouth in a hot path down the curve of Ca.s.sie's neck, when Connor began to scream through the monitor beside the bed.

Ca.s.sie's b.r.e.a.s.t.s tingled as her milk let down, and she felt it dripping down both sides of her as Alex rolled off her for the second time that night. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, his jaw clenched.

"For G.o.d's sake, Ca.s.sie," Alex bit out. "Can't you make him shut up?"

But she was already pulling on a peach satin wrapper and making her way toward the door. "I'll be back in a minute," she said.

It turned out to be nothing at all, just a pacifier that had become wedged underneath Connor's neck when he shifted. She rubbed his back and watched his sobs soften into hiccups, thinking how absolutely helpless he was.

Tiptoeing out the door, she made her way down the hall to the bedroom again. Alex was still, his back turned away from her side of the bed. When she closed the door behind her, he made no move to face her.

Ca.s.sie slipped under the covers and curled her body against Alex's back. "Where were we?"

"Jesus, Ca.s.sie. I can't turn myself on and off like a G.o.dd.a.m.n faucet.

I can't make it through a meal, I can't sleep the entire night, I can't even finish making love to you without being interrupted by that kid."

"That kid," Ca.s.sie said, "is not doing any of this on purpose, Alex.

You're not the only parent in the world. Everyone's life changes when they have children."

"I never asked for him."

Ca.s.sie's hand froze on Alex's hip. "You don't mean that," she whispered.

Alex glanced at her over his shoulder. "If you won't accept a nanny, then you'd better find a night nurse. I'm not putting up with this.

Either you hire someone or I move across the hall." He pulled a pillow over his head.

Ca.s.sie thought of something Dr. Pooley had mentioned during her group session the previous night, something about the personality traits of the abuser. Husbands don't want their wives to have close friends, she had said. They don't like the thought of someone else making demands on the person whom they see as belonging entirely to them.

At the time, Ophelia had come to mind, and Alex's inability to forgive her for the one and only mistake she'd ever made in connection with him. But now Ca.s.sie was starting to see Dr. Pooley's statement in a different light. She glanced at Alex's hands, clutching the pillow to his head. He couldn't stand to see someone who needed Ca.s.sie as much as he did. Not even his own son.

"Alex," Ca.s.sie whispered. "I know you're not asleep yet." She tapped his shoulder and tugged the pillow away from his ear. Alex groaned and rolled onto his stomach. "I'll hire someone. I'll start looking tomorrow."

Alex opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows. He smiled hugely at her, and with his hair all mussed he looked like a child. "You mean that?" Ca.s.sie nodded, and swallowed past the lump in her throat. She listened to the background noise of Connor's breathing over the monitor. "Good," Alex said, gathering her into his embrace. "I was beginning to feel neglected."

His mouth came over hers hungrily, stealing her breath and her reason. "No," she whispered, ignorant of the tears balanced at the corners of her eyes. "Never."

Dear Ca.s.sie, I hope you and Connor are doing okay and that you're happy back in L.A. Pine Ridge isn't the same without the two of you. In fact I think the only reason I was starting to like it was because it seemed different when you were here. Brighter, I guess. Not so dingy and not so faded. I'm writing because I promised to let you know when I got a new job. In another week I'm moving out to Tacoma, WA, and starting with the department there. One of these days, when I get my act together, I may actually stick around long enough somewhere to get promoted. If you're not completely sh.e.l.l-shocked by L.A., like I was when I first got there, then maybe you even think about us from time to time. I miss the baby. I miss you. And, d.a.m.n, if that isn't the worst kind of hurt.

Take care, wasicu w'nyan.

Will Alex hung up the telephone and glanced at his watch. He had just made an appointment to meet Phil Kaplan in an hour to finalize a verbal commitment to produce the movie Alex planned to do next. He'd found the script by accident in a slush pile; it was priceless but had serious flaws that he now had an Academy Award-winning screenwriter working on. He was already daydreaming about the scenes, directing them over and over in his mind. He'd scribbled down his first choices for the primary roles, stuffed the list into his pocket to discuss with Phil.

Of course, if he had dinner with Phil, he was going to miss that therapy group for the second week in a row.

Ca.s.sie had taken Connor to the beach with Ophelia and a carload of sun-shading umbrellas; she wouldn't have to know right away.

Alex picked up the phone to call Dr. Pooley, then put the receiver back in its cradle.

He had promised Ca.s.sie.

He could reschedule Phil.

Who, no doubt, would commit himself to somebody else by tomorrow morning.

He told himself he wouldn't even be considering skipping the group meeting if he didn't feel in his gut that this film could be even more successful than The Story of His Life. And all the elements had unfortunately happened to fall into place on a Sunday afternoon. He told himself that a year from now, when he swept the Academy Awards again, Ca.s.sie wouldn't even remember this.

He picked up the phone again. There was another session next week, and Ca.s.sie would understand.

She always did.

THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY DR. POOLEY PULLED Ca.s.sIE ASIDE AFter the women's group session. "You should consider asking Alex," she said carefully, "if he's really serious about getting some kind of help."

Ca.s.sie stared at the therapist. "Of course he is," she hedged, trying to imagine what kind of things Alex could have said at his own group session that would bring a censorious remark from Dr. Pooley. When she had asked him about it, he'd said it went fine.

"I know you are," Dr. Pooley said. "But that's not the same thing. I understand missing one session for a business commitment, but two in a row seems a little extreme. If he's going to try to save your marriage with therapy," she pointed out, "he ought to start by showing up."

"He wasn't there last Sunday," Ca.s.sie said slowly, suddenly understanding. She turned the words over in her mind, wondering where Alex had been, why he had lied. Lifting her eyes, she smiled apologetically at Dr. Pooley. "He just closed a very important deal," she said.

"I'm sure things will be different now."

"Ca.s.sie," the doctor said gently, "you don't have to make excuses for his behavior anymore."

During the long ride home, she didn't bother to make conversation with John like she usually did. She stormed into the house, calling Alex's name so loudly her anger filled the corners of the front parlor.

"In here," Alex said.

Ca.s.sie opened the door to the den, where Alex was sitting on the couch with a newspaper opened over his lap. A bottle of whiskey was wedged between the cushions to his right. "You're drinking," she said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the bottle away from him and setting it on the bar across the room. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, beside the playpen where Connor was gurgling.

Alex smiled lazily. "Connor had his bottle," he said. "I figured I deserved one too."

"You didn't go to the group session last Sunday," Ca.s.sie said flatly.

"No," Alex admitted, the word long and drawn. "I was busy resurrecting my career. My reputation. You know, the one you keep knocking down so easily." He stood up and thrust the newspaper into her hands. "Tomorrow's Informer, pichouette. Came on the front doorstep in a plain brown envelope. And don't just stop at the headlines. The story's on page three, and it's real good."

Ca.s.sie folded the paper in half, scanning the front page. ALEX RIVERS FOOLED BY WIFE'S HALF-BREED LOVE CHILD. There was a picture taken at the airport of Alex with his arm around her; and another of Ca.s.sie with Will, walking into the police station months ago, the day Alex had come to claim her.

"This is ridiculous," Ca.s.sie said, starting to laugh. "You can't possibly believe this."

Alex rounded on her so quickly she dropped the paper. "It doesn't matter what I believe," he said. "It matters that everyone's going to see it."

"It's not like this is Time magazine," Ca.s.sie said. "Anyone who reads this rag knows the stories are trash." She paused. "We'll sue them. And we'll put the money into Connor's trust fund."

Alex took a step closer, grabbing her arm. "They quoted the letter he wrote you that's upstairs. Said you're going to meet him in Washington."

For a moment her mind considered the mechanics of how Will's note, carefully tucked into her lingerie drawer, had become public knowledge. Ca.s.sie was disappointed that someone on the household staff had sold her secrets, but she was absolutely shocked that Alex had been upset enough to go through her mail. "You don't really think I'm leaving, do you?"

"No," he said simply, "since I'd kill you first."

Ca.s.sie felt the air grow heavy in the room, pressing down on her temples and making her limbs swing slowly. She backed herself against a wall. "Alex," she said softly, "listen to yourself. Look at Connor." She reached out to touch his arm. "I love you," she said. "I came back with you."

"G.o.ddammit," Alex exploded, his eyes darkening. "This s.h.i.t is going to follow me forever! I could win every f.u.c.king award in the world and they'll still be dragging up dirt from our private lives. Someone is always going to be out there looking more closely at that baby than they ought to. Someone is always going to be calling you a wh.o.r.e behind my back." He grabbed Ca.s.sie by the shoulders and threw her heavily to the floor, then ran his fingers through his hair. "This never would have happened if you hadn't left," he said, and even as Ca.s.sie rolled away from him she could feel his shoes kicking at her sides and her back, his fists swinging at her shoulders and striking her across the side of the head.

When it stopped and Ca.s.sie opened her eyes, she was staring into the mesh of Connor's playpen. The baby was screaming the way every inch of her body was, a red, hollow sound. His face was turned toward Ca.s.sie's; toward his father, who was bent over Ca.s.sie's side, crying.

When Alex touched her, Ca.s.sie pulled herself upright. Blood was running from her right ear and she realized she could not hear out of it. She lifted Connor from his playpen, soothing him, whispering to him the a.s.surances she used to whisper to Alex. She stared at the form of her husband, drunk and keening on the floor, and she began to understand. That for the first time, Alex's anger had not simply been displaced and rerouted toward Ca.s.sie-it had been caused by her. That the rest of her life would simply be strung loosely between hard knots of fear. That her son would watch Alex hurt her over and over, and without any choice in the matter, might grow up to be just like his father.

That Alex, through no fault of his own, could not keep his promises.

She walked across the room and opened the door of the den, glancing at John, who stared a moment too long at the blood running down the side of her face. She turned Connor's face to her chest so that he would not have to see, but she looked once more at Alex, bent over by his own misery. And in the way the most ordinary things have of rearranging themselves into the unfamiliar, Alex no longer seemed to be suffering.

He only seemed pathetic.

SHE NEVER REALIZED THAT HE KNEW SHE WAS CRYING. IN THE PAST when it had happened, she waited until she a.s.sumed Alex was asleep, and then she'd let the tears slide down her cheeks in silence. She never made any noise, but Alex could hear it all the same.

He wanted to touch her, but every time he started to reach across the endless three inches between them he couldn't make himself do it.

He was the one who had hurt her in the first place. And if she shrank away from him, because after all, there was always a first time, he thought he would break down.

"Ca.s.sie," he whispered. Shadows crowded the bedroom, listening.

"Say you aren't going to go away again."

She didn't answer.

Alex swallowed. "I'll go to Dr. Pooley's tomorrow morning. I'll postpone the film. G.o.d, you know I'd do anything."

"I know."

He turned his head toward her voice, clutching at the two syllables like a lifeline, unable to see Ca.s.sie except for the silver map of tears on her skin. "I can't let you go," he said, his voice breaking.

Ca.s.sie faced him, her eyes glowing like a ghost's. "No," she said calmly, "you can't."

She slipped her hand into his, linking them together. And only then did Alex let his own tears come again, just as quietly as Ca.s.sie's. He told himself that there was solace in knowing he hated himself even more than Ca.s.sie could. As penance, he counted his way off to sleep, imagining in flashing succession the ravaged faces of his father, his mother, his wife, and his son-all of the people he'd failed.

THIS TIME SHE DID NOT HOLD HERSELF BACK. EVEN THOUGH SHE knew Alex was awake beside her, she was crying. It was not just a matter of leaving, as Alex thought. It was a matter of freedom. She could leave Alex and never be free; look at what had happened when she went to South Dakota to have Connor. To truly make a break, she was going to have to make Alex suffer as much as she did. He couldn't let her go-he wouldn't-unless she did something to make him hate her. So she would have to do what she had scrupulously avoided doing for four years now-become one of the people who had hurt him.

She tried to convince herself that if she really did care about Alex, she'd force the break, since having her as a crutch for his rage was only worse for him in the long run. It wouldn't mean that she didn't need him anymore. And it certainly wouldn't mean she didn't love him. Alex was right when he said they had been made for each other. It just wasn't in a healthy, wholesome way.

She remembered Alex standing on the porch at Pine Ridge, telling her she was a part of him. She remembered him holding his hands over her own as they fished without poles in a frigid Colorado stream. She remembered sitting beside him, watching the pair of lions in the Serengeti. She remembered his taste and his touch and the heaviness of his skin against hers.

She did not understand how she had ever reached this point, where she loved Alex so very much that, literally, it was killing her.

Ca.s.sie watched the night take on different and somber shades of black as she ran her options through her mind. She closed her eyes, and to her surprise, saw not Alex but Will, tied to a sacred pole during the Sun Dance. She felt the heat rising from the plain, heard the running of the drums and the eagle-bone whistles. She pictured the moment Will tore himself loose, the rawhide ripping through his skin. It had driven him to his knees, but it had been the only way to break free.

The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest marks faded over time, until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained was your memory of how painful it had been.

Ca.s.sie slipped her hand into Alex's, trying to memorize the temperature of his skin, the smell and the very sense of him lying beside her in the night. These were the things she would let herself keep. She rubbed her thumb over the soft lines of Alex's palm, stroking into his grasp an apology for what she had yet to do, and the gentle broken edges of a goodbye.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN FOR one awful moment, Ca.s.sie looked at the pinched, expectant faces spread before her and she thought, They won't believe me. She figured they would just laugh out loud. Alex Rivers? they'd say. You've got to be kidding. And then they'd snap up their notebooks and rewind their video cameras and leave her standing ashamed and alone.

Swallowing her terror and her pride, she shifted on the metal folding chair the hotel concierge had placed in preparation for the press conference. She smoothed down the pleats of her dark blue skirt. Look like a schoolgirl, she had been advised. Nothing savvy, nothing s.e.xy. As if she had invited the attention, the abuse.

Beside her on an identical chair, Ophelia was holding the baby.

Connor had the hiccups, small ragged sounds that Ca.s.sie couldn't help thinking sounded like sobs. She knew that at almost two months of age, he could not understand and he would not remember. Just as she knew that every time he reached for her, she would do a double take, seeing his father's image in his silver eyes.

Clearing her throat, she stood up. Almost immediately the crowd of reporters quieted, snapping to attention like a huddle of storybook soldiers. "Good morning," Ca.s.sie said, leaning toward the microphone, touching it lightly with her hand.

It let out a shattering scream. Ca.s.sie stepped back, startled. "Excuse me," she said, a little more softly. "Thank you for coming."

She thought how absurd she sounded, as if she'd gathered a group of friends for a tea party. She considered how much easier that would have been, rather than this unconditional surrender to a pride of hungry lions. She had no more illusions; Alex had taken care of that two nights ago. These people were not her friends, never had been. They knew of her only through Alex; they had agreed to come only because they thought she'd say something about him. Ca.s.sie herself was incidental.

If the reporters mentioned her at all after taking away her story, she would be painted as some kind of pitiable freak, or a moron for being unable to stand up for herself all these years.

Ca.s.sie unfolded the tiny piece of paper she'd read over a hundred times since breakfast that morning, her prepared press statement. Ophelia had coached her about making eye contact, about modulating her voice to a low, even pitch-all tricks of actors to appear more sympathetic to an audience. But as her fingers froze at the edges of the frayed sheet, shaking it visibly, she could not remember at all any of the things she had practiced. Instead she began to read, reciting like a secondgrade schoolchild who was too busy sounding out the unfamiliar words to give the performance any meaning.

"My name is Ca.s.sandra Barrett. Most of you know me as Alex Rivers's wife. We were married on October 30, 1989, and our marriage has been the subject of media attention on several occasions, most recently the birth of our son. Yesterday, however, I filed for divorce from Alex Rivers on the grounds of extreme cruelty."

The statement, coming less than a month after the united show of support Alex and Ca.s.sie had given at LAX when they arrived with Connor, created a current of whispers that volleyed over the heads of the reporters and wrapped themselves around Ca.s.sie's neck, choking.

She gripped her fingers on the edge of the podium, stumbling over the last sentences on the page. "After this press conference, any inquiries can be directed to my lawyer, Carla Bonanno, or to Mr. Rivers himself."

She took a deep breath. "In the interests of promoting the truth, though, I'm willing to answer some of your questions now."

Hands shot up in front of Ca.s.sie, blocking her view of the one-eyed cameras. Voices tangled over each other. "Ms. Barrett," one reporter shouted, "are you still living with Alex Rivers?"

"No," Ca.s.sie said.

"Has he agreed to the divorce?"

Ca.s.sie glanced at her lawyer, sitting off to the left. "The papers will be served today. I don't expect him to contest it."

Another reporter pushed himself to the front of the throng, waving a microphone beneath the podium. "Extreme cruelty isn't common grounds for divorce, Ms. Barrett. Are you trumping up your charges to expedite the divorce, so you can get your hands on his money?"

Ca.s.sie's eyes widened at the snide tone of the man's voice, at the absolute gall that would let him ask something so personal. For G.o.d's sake, this was her marriage. This was her husband. "I have no desire to take anything from Alex." Except myself, she thought. "And I haven't exaggerated the charges." She lowered her eyes, realizing that she had come to the point of no return. She carefully cleared her face of emotion and lifted her head again, staring at everything and nothing all at once.

"I've been physically abused by Alex Rivers for the past three years."

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The litany ran through her mind, and Ca.s.sie wasn't sure if she was crying out to G.o.d or to Alex or to herself.