Indeed she has forgotten him. Approaching a ringing phone, lifting the receiver without a stab of dread.

  For what is dread but the fear of hope.

  For what is the loss of dread but the loss of hope.

  He lets her speak. A rattling kite, set to soar but trapped in the lowest branches.

  Quietly he asks when can he see her.

  She says she can’t. No more.

  But when can he see her?—he asks.

  Kiss Mommy

  Terror of waking too late: The children have been fed breakfast and driven to school, the husband has been fed breakfast and has driven to his office at the Fisher Center at West Grand Boulevard, no one has required Mommy or even noticed her absence since the live-in nanny is so competent.

  Terror of waking too early: When the sleeping pill wears off waking with a jolt before objects are defined in the visual field inducing panic of blindness, paralysis. In that unmeasured hell before dawn.

  He has been with her, she knows. In the night.

  As an infection slips into the bloodstream. Undetected, until a fever erupts.

  A sensation in the lower belly, in the soft moist folds of flesh between her thighs that are the portal to the interior, where nerve endings are highly sensitive, as uncontrollable as firing neurons …

  He enters her body at will, in unmeasured time there are no defenses.

  Her cries are muffled, inaudible. She wakes, her knuckles hard and wet against her mouth. Beside her and facing outward in the enormous bed the husband continues sleeping, oblivious.

  Yet, there is no memory. No words, and so no memory.

  And at last there’s dawn, where objects are clearly defined and the persons with whom we live have names.

  By the time the children are ready to leave for school she has been awake for hours. Very tired, her head aches.

  Ma’am?—Ismelda offers to drive Conor and Katya to school.

  But no, Hannah insists. She will drive them.

  Driving the children to school is the focus of the early-morning hours. Driving the children to school is the meaning of the early-morning hours.

  Preparing breakfast for the husband, that is also a focus of Hannah’s morning.

  “Thanks!”—lifting his head in affable acknowledgment even as his eyes continue to rapidly scan the newsprint before him.

  Clean-shaven jaws, slight thickening of jowls, tiny tucks and puckers in ruddy flesh. Fresh-laundered and ironed white cotton dress shirt, necktie, coat, slow thickening of the body, opacity of being. A man accustomed to giving orders quietly and not needing to repeat himself.

  And when Hannah brings his coffee to place before him, again he will lift his head, nodding affably, reluctant to break his concentration on the column of newsprint, not impolite, certainly not rude, only just oblivious, a kind of mercy.

  See?—I don’t loathe you, your touch. Your smell. I do not even see you, how could I loathe you, my dear wife? No.

  The children are finicky eaters who will eat only their favorite (cold) cereals (Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Cinnamon Alpha-Bits, Rice Krispies), they are not interested in Mommy’s (hot) prepared breakfasts which are too much like real meals and take too much time and are not sweet enough.

  Ismelda will clear the table, rinse the dishes, and place them in the dishwasher.

  Precision timing: leaving the house with the children promptly at seven-forty before the husband leaves for his office at eight, returning after the husband has left thus minimizing time spent with the husband, or rather with the impenetrable affability of the husband. This, too, gives focus to the morning.

  Of course Mommy intends to drive the children to school!—annoyed with Ismelda asking this question for the second time in fifteen minutes.

  Both children in the backseat of the Buick for safety’s sake. Though Hannah drives cautiously, taking back roads at a slow speed knowing how easily, irrevocably an accident can happen.

  Rumor is, Robbie Hayden will not be returning to Far Hills Day. At least not at the present time.

  Rumor is, the Haydens are considering selling their house, leaving Far Hills.

  Still, turning into the school grounds Hannah glances about looking for Jill Hayden.

  The other one—Hannah has come to think of Jill Hayden.

  At the school, a slow procession of cars at the rear of the school, letting children out to run inside.

  Kiss Mommy goodbye at the rear of the school. Wet smacking kisses, lingering hugs from which fretful Conor shrugs before Mommy can release him; Katya, still fragile after the meningitis scare, allows Mommy to hug much, much longer.

  “Oh! I love you so. So much …”

  In hot September gusts of warm air lifting grit, dust, desiccated leaves in swirls.

  So soon, fallen leaves? In early September? Parched-brown, papery-thin shaken from the branches of the weaker trees.

  “… will pick you up this afternoon, honey. Bye!”

  Climbing back into the Buick startled by the sight of the strained face in the rearview mirror: she’d left the house unaccountably without brushing her hair, no lipstick on her mouth that appears lipless, and her eyes lashless, realizing belatedly why Ismelda had spoken to her as she had and dared to regard her employer with perplexed eyes.

  Who is it in the Jarrett household who sees Hannah?—not Wes, not the children. Only Ismelda.

  Mortified at appearing so disheveled in public. Being seen, possibly recognized, at the children’s school.

  The other one of us, that is me.

  The Lover: The Call

  At first, she doesn’t recognize the (male) voice.

  Only belatedly realizing, his voice.

  Must see her, he says urgently.

  Something he must tell her. Which he has just realized.

  In his own life, much has happened since they’d last been together. I am free now, I was not free before.

  “If you won’t come to me I will come to you, Hannah.”

  That lightly inflected name—Han-nah.

  Quickly Hannah says no!—that isn’t possible.

  “But I love you, Hannah. You have come to dwell in my heart.”

  And these words, too, mysteriously inflected as if translated from another language, uncertain in English, yearning, vulnerable: Hannah has never heard her lover speak in such a way.

  It is him. Yet—something has altered.

  Hannah is feeling exhilarated, light-headed. Barely can she hear Y.K.’s voice through the beating of blood in her ears.

  “Hannah? Darling? You will let me, won’t you?”

  They could meet in Far Hills, he is saying.

  Hannah doesn’t think so. No.

  Astonished, galvanized with fear. Yet with excitement, hope—the impossible has happened, her lover is begging her.

  Now that she no longer loves him. Now, emotionally detached from him.

  Not possible to be seen in public with Y.K. Not in Far Hills.

  And she is wary of him, the power he’d had over her, that she’d been so heedless, reckless, risking her marriage, losing her children in a custody battle … She considers herself a survivor, one who has narrowly escaped a deadly disease.

  And so, she should hang up the receiver. Quietly.

  For if she allows him to speak she will weaken, she will give in.

  She has ceased loving him, that part of her life is finished. In a week she will be forty years old.

  Barely remembers him. No.

  Sending her home with the ponytailed boy. Getting her drunk, rendering her helpless, she has tried to forget, she has forgotten.

  And then, he hadn’t called her for months. Obviously no thought of her, she’d meant nothing to him. Regardless of what he is claiming now.

  Yet: stepping into the house just now hearing the phone ring. Plaintive sound as of pleading, begging, the ringing of a phone in an empty house.

  She’d hurried to the kitchen to pick up the receiver.

  “Yes? Hello? Who is this? What do you want?”

  Only your heart, I want to eat your heart.

  Of what use is your heart, otherwise? Than to be eaten?

  The Lover: The Assignation

  On the sixty-first floor of the hotel tower he awaits her.

  A final time, they have agreed.

  Gliding upward silent, weightless in the sleek glass cubicle in which Hannah is the sole passenger.

  Such silence, a kind of deafness. Scarcely daring to breathe in such suspension.

  Cannot hear her own clamorous thoughts.

  Mistake! Mistake, mistake.

  Below, the crowded lobby floor of the hotel sinks away in a vertiginous drop like a stage set.

  At eye level, open floors and railings sink away as in an accelerated film.

  Above, the atrium ceiling is clear glass dissolving into the mottled-blue sky like the top of the skull sawed off.

  Since she is no longer in love with the man who calls himself Y.K.

  Since she is no longer vulnerable to Y.K. as one who has survived an infectious disease is no longer vulnerable to reinfection.

  Since (she tells herself) this will be the final time …

  Since, admittedly, Hannah has been flattered: he begging her!

  His words echoing in her ears—You have come to dwell in my heart.

  It has been decided, they will see each other one more time. Most practicably, at the Renaissance Grand Hotel.

  Impossible to continue, they have agreed.

  Her marriage, her children. Impossible!

  Since all that has happened between them, has happened most intimately in the suite sixty floors above the river.

  Wide Detroit River gliding like liquid lava.

  Fact is, not a river but an estuary, linking two lakes …

  Intending (this time) to be utterly frank, truthful in her relationship with her lover yet Hannah hesitated to ask on the phone why he hadn’t called her in months.

  Or why, so suddenly, he has decided to call her now.

  Welcome to the Renaissance Grand, ma’am!

  Handing the ignition key to the attendant brightly smiling at her—Thank you, ma’am!

  Hannah’s heart clutches, for a moment she thinks the dark-skinned young man is—

  (Has Hannah forgotten the name?)

  —Zekiel Smith.

  —Zekiel Jones.

  For if this is so, if the smiling young parking attendant is Zekiel Jones, Hannah has the opportunity to relive and to redeem …

  Except: This is September 1977. Time has jolted forward, there is no going back.

  He is dead. You are alive. You are the murderer.

  Always present tense in the silently ascending glass cubicle in which numerals flash in succession above the door: 26, 38, 49, 53 … Stare transfixed: Never will you reach your destination.

  Sleepless through the night. White-water rapids splashing amid rocks, boulders. Foam, froth, broken things in eddies swirling, too swiftly passing to be seen.

  At dawn, numbed, exhausted. But now, Hannah’s brain has become a thrumming hive.

  The lethargy of weeks, months has melted away. Melancholy of sharing a bed with one who does not love you, melted away.

  In the hot stinging shower that morning a grimy patina of old, dead cells, skin cells, washed away in a delirium of joy.

  You have come to dwell in my heart.

  Preparing herself with care. Hair brushed to a glossy sheen, makeup flawless, poreless. Beautiful understated clothes, autumnal colors. Saint Laurent stiletto heels not worn for months as tight on the feet as foot-binding.

  That thrill of such pain. Stirred memory like muck rising in water.

  Too soon, the glass cubicle stops with a small jolt at the sixty-first floor.

  Not prepared. Never are you prepared for the sixty-first floor.

  Blindly Hannah steps out of the elevator. He is awaiting her.

  “Darling! You came.”

  Y.K., sooner than Hannah has expected him.

  For never has Y.K. waited for Hannah by the elevators, always Y.K. has waited for her in his suite halfway down the corridor.

  Taken by surprise, weak-kneed as her lover kisses her, covers her stunned face with kisses. In her stiletto heels Hannah clutches at Y.K. to hold herself erect.

  His lips feel cold against her heated skin, like the wings of moths.

  Overcome with emotion. Helpless, as disoriented as a compass whose needle has begun to spin.

  “You came, darling! I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  Almost, Y.K. is sounding surprised, himself.

  “Yes, I—of course, I …”

  “I’ve been waiting out here, watching the elevators. The rising numbers. All those people in elevators, none of them you. Until now.”

  Is this Y.K.?—speaking so lightly, lyrically? There is nothing reproachful in his voice, only just pleasure, relief.

  Behind Y.K. is a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass panels overlooking the sprawling city. When Hannah leans back to see her lover more clearly, his face is obscured from her by blinding light.

  Awkwardly, stooping, his arm around her waist, Y.K. walks Hannah down the corridor to his room. He has left the door open, hanging from the doorknob is the sign DO NOT DISTURB.

  Hannah is aware that Y.K. is walking stiffly, with a near-imperceptible limp, as one walks to mitigate pain, trying not to wince.

  Embarrassed, Y.K. explains that it’s an old injury from wartime—shrapnel in his thigh that acts up if he strains the muscles.

  Shrapnel!—Hannah is moved to sympathy.

  “Yes, but it’s nothing. I didn’t want to use a cane just now—out of vanity.”

  And this, too—affable self-mockery. Not like Y.K. as Hannah recalls him.

  Hannah wonders at this change in her lover. As if he has been ill and is now convalescent. He seems to her less aggressive, gentler in his manner.

  With a flourish Y.K. shuts the door behind them, and secures the safety lock.

  “Hannah, you’re so beautiful! As I remember you.”

  Hannah feels her face smart with blood. In Y.K.’s presence, Hannah is beautiful: She’d caught a glimpse of her reflection in the elevator mirror, impressed by the flawless cosmetic mask she herself had composed that morning.

  Shyly Hannah laughs. She tells Y.K. that he, too, is looking very good—very well.

  “I am. I am well. At least now that you’re here.”

  Framing Hannah’s face in his hands. It has been a very long time since anyone has gazed into Hannah’s eyes with such adoration.

  This new sobriety in her lover, and this new gaiety! Hannah feels a wave of vertigo, too much is happening too soon.

  Gravely he kisses her mouth another time. He leads her into a sitting room which is bathed with light, blinding autumnal light from windows whose heavy drapes have been pulled open; Hannah notes, there is something wrong about the drapes, some small snag in the mechanism, that have opened asymmetrically like a drooping eyelid.

  On a marble-topped table, a pear-shaped vase filled with creamy-white roses surpassingly beautiful.

  “For you, darling. As soft and white as your skin.”

  Hannah stoops to smell the roses, though thinking that roses have no scent, do they?—indeed, she can smell nothing.

  “Beautiful …”

  Glancing about the room, which is a room she has seen before but which does not look familiar to her at all.

  As beautifully furnished as a stage set. Sofas, chairs, tables meant to suggest antiques of a bygone era—Edwardian? Framed sepia illustrations on the walls, the City of Detroit in the 1890s.

  History of Detroit: trains, lake freighters, Model-T, Ford Motor Company, Ford Tri-Motor Airplane (1925).

  Incongruity of “antique” furnishings with sleek modern white walls, recessed lighting fixtures, tall windows.

  Incongruity of luxury hotel, superficial glamor, pounding of Hannah’s heart and that sensation of wheezing in her lung, childish hope, adult female dread.

  There appears to be nothing of Y.K.’s in sight. Not an article of clothing, not a briefcase or anything to suggest his work. (What is Y.K’s work?) Except, on a chair, a cane of polished dark wood startling to Hannah, as an unattached prosthetic limb would be.

  Wanting her to see this, Hannah thinks. As in a stage set.

  Through a doorway would be the bedroom. With the enormous king-sized bed.

  A medium-sized roller suitcase had lain on a stand at the foot of the bed, looking newly purchased, dark blue fabric, unlocked.

  She had dared to open the suitcase. Dared to slip her hand into an unzippered pocket.

  Why had she done such a thing? Hannah is astonished at the recklessness of her behavior, recalling.

  “This time, dear Hannah, we must tell each other only the truth. Yes?”

  “Y-yes.”

  Hannah laughs nervously. Not sure to what she is agreeing. Has she admitted that, previously, she hadn’t been truthful with Y.K?

  Can’t recall telling this man anything of a personal or a private nature, there hadn’t been the opportunity.

  “‘The truth will set us free.’ So it’s said.”

  Y.K. is smiling but Hannah can see in his face an expression of obscure hurt, woundedness. I have suffered for you, you are not the only one who has suffered.

  Indeed there has been a considerable change in Y.K.: the lighter tincture of his skin, his height, the width of his shoulders, his eyes—the heavy, bluish-tinged lids Hannah remembers, suffused now with a look of tenderness.

  A tall man, at least six feet, yet not so tall as Hannah remembers, nor so solid-bodied. Where once Y.K.’s manner had been ironic, playful, (subtly) mocking, now he appears to be intense, sympathetic. Hannah is acutely conscious of him looking at her—at her.

  His jaws are clean-shaven, smelling of something astringent. Tiny welling of blood on his cheek for he has shaved within the hour.

  He is wearing a blue-striped cotton shirt with a miniature, near-invisible monogram on the pocket, his trousers are khaki-colored but of a much finer fabric than khaki, fitting his hips loosely as if he has lost weight. His cheekbones are more sharply defined than Hannah recalls.