He is an actor, skilled in more than one role. Hannah regards him with amazement. She may as well concede, she is faint with love.

  “Are you hungry, Hannah? I thought—since it’s midday …”

  Hungry! Hannah is ravenous, Hannah has not eaten yet that day.

  With gentlemanly courtesy Y.K. leads Hannah to a small sofa he has positioned beside a window overlooking the Detroit River sixty floors below; on a low glass-topped table are a lavish cheese-and-fruit plate, a bottle of chilled white wine, two long-stemmed wineglasses, and a slender vase containing just one white rose.

  “How beautiful!—all this—the view of the river …”

  Hannah is overcome with emotion. Y.K. squeezes her shoulder, stoops to kiss the nape of her neck.

  Together on the sofa, side by side. Hannah, closer to the window.

  Y.K. opens the bottle, pours wine into their glasses.

  “My darling! I’m so grateful that you’ve forgiven me.”

  Forgiven him? Hannah tries to think what Y.K. means.

  He lifts his glass to tap hers. Hannah laughs, drinking.

  She’d been too excited to have eaten anything that morning. Now, the wine rushes to her head—a delicious faint-flamey sensation in her mouth, in her throat, expanding warmly in her chest.

  “You have, haven’t you? Darling?”

  Hannah smiles at Y.K., uncertainly.

  “You’ve forgiven me?”

  Hannah laughs, yes. Blood rises into her face. Impossible to utter the somber word forgive, this would mean that her lover had wronged her in some way that she can’t truly remember.

  “My mistake was trying to live without you, Hannah. These months—my life became complicated, my ‘family life’—I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”

  And I couldn’t stop thinking of you. Hannah smiles confusedly into a blaze of light.

  Astonishing to Hannah, that Y.K. is saying such things to her, not ironically, nor even playfully, but with genuine feeling. He has never spoken of “family” before—it’s a jolt to her, to realize that yes, even Y.K. must have a family.

  “You must know, Hannah. I love you. That was my mistake, too—not having told you. Not realizing.”

  I love you. Hannah listens, in disbelief.

  Moved by her lover’s words yet uncertain how to reply. He has always had this effect upon her—this man.

  Not other men, not most men—this man.

  Like an actor who has drifted off script and can’t find her way back. Not daring to improvise for fear of making a fatal blunder. In a mild panic Hannah stares out the window at the river far below. In the pale autumn light the river is dull-luminous, like liquid lead; dispiriting smells emanate from this river if one comes too near. But sixty floors up is not near.

  How odd, Hannah thinks, a river is named. A river is mapped.

  As if anything in nature were in any way connected with its name, its placement on a map.

  Sensuous, luminous. Beauty in polluted waters, seen from a safe distance.

  “… first saw you, Hannah, that night at the fundraiser, it was as if I’d ‘recognized’ you. As if we’d met before. As if we were ‘fated.’”

  Hannah laughs nervously. She tells Y.K. that she, too, felt—a connection …

  Trying to recall: a stranger’s fingers brushing her wrist. Her instinct was to remain turned away, to ignore, assume it was an accidental encounter like many in that crowded gathering.

  “… it’s thought that the feeling is a sort of déjà vu—a neurological tic of some kind. But I think that’s just a rationalization. People need to diminish profound emotional experiences by categorizing them, giving names to them. ‘Infatuation’—‘love at first sight’ …”

  Hannah listens with a sort of pleasurable discomfort. Is this her lover?—is this Y.K.? Her face is very warm.

  “I think—I’m fairly sure—I’ve had a recurring dream. You are at the center of my dream, Hannah.”

  Hannah tries to laugh, nervously. She is flattered, but she is unable to believe; she is unable to believe, but she is flattered.

  “Have you ever dreamed of me, Hannah? I have wondered.”

  Y.K. speaks thoughtfully, wistfully. Hannah thinks—Is he the man in the passport? Is that how I know him?

  And this thought, too, brings with it a pleasurable discomfort, like intoxication.

  Hoping to deflect the intensity of the man’s attention Hannah asks Y.K. about the injury to his leg. Perhaps this is ill-advised, a flicker of displeasure in his face, he shrugs dismissively. Vietnam, south of Chu Lai, his plane had crash-landed in the jungle, he’d been lucky to crawl out of the wreckage alive.

  Does Hannah know what “shrapnel” is?—fragments, tiny filaments, working their way through the meat of his thigh.

  Meat, thigh. Hannah is struck by these words, which seem so clinical and so cold.

  Awkwardly Hannah asks, does he have medals?—and Y.K. laughs saying of course, medals.

  “We all came home with ‘medals.’ That’s the easy part.”

  He might need more surgery, Y.K. concedes. He might need to use a cane more often than he uses it now.

  “But there’s nothing wrong with using a cane!”—Hannah means to console.

  The wild thought comes to her—He will need someone to take care of him. I will be that person.

  A fleet memory of Joker Daddy intervenes: near the end of his life, when he’d walked awkwardly with a cane. Lifting his eyes to his daughter Hannah abashed, resentful … stiffening as she’d helped him with the steps, but allowing her to help.

  Scarcely aware, Hannah wipes tears from her eyes.

  Meat, thigh. A profound truth in these words that seem almost to rhyme but do not.

  Very gently Y.K. leans forward to kiss Hannah’s right eye, on the eyelid; then, her left eye. No one has ever kissed Hannah in such a way, with such gentleness, precision.

  A shudder runs through Hannah, like an electric current. Her eyelids are alight with flame.

  Suddenly they are laughing together like children. They begin to speak at the same time, interrupting each other. They have veered yet more wonderfully off script. Their speech is breathless, clumsy. Yet it is quite all right, to be clumsy. Hannah understands that she is beautiful again, she is desired, there is a blindness in desire, as if a flame were illuminating both her face and her lover’s face. Y.K. kisses her eyelids another time, this time touching his tongue to her. He kisses her throat.

  An artery beating in Hannah’s throat, her lover kisses with sudden feeling, force.

  Something falls startled to the floor, a white linen napkin. A knife, from the cheese-and-fruit plate.

  He will slash my throat. He will use a dull blade, to prolong the ordeal.

  Hannah has begun to shiver, sitting very still, straight-backed, as Y.K. continues to kiss her throat, gripping her slender shoulders with his (strong) fingers.

  Hannah seems to have forgotten, this was to be their final meeting. This is not the outcome she has been led to expect.

  Y.K. lifts Hannah in his arms, half carries her toward the other room. Like a drowning woman Hannah clutches at him blindly.

  A flicker of panic, yet a warm suffusion of lethargy, weakening her limbs. Impossible for Hannah to deflect her lover’s attention, his desire for her; impossible for Hannah to object—No, please—this isn’t what we’d planned …

  As soon as the thought comes to her, it is belated—too late.

  Hannah sees that the king-sized bed has been opened, the brocade coverlet drawn back exposing white sheets; half a dozen pillows neatly arranged along the headboard like decorative grave markers. Bedside tables frame each side of the enormous bed, twin lamps with lamp-shades designed to mute, not amplify light. In a heavy zinc urn with fractal ornamentation, a bouquet of copper flowers, branches.

  Again the dark-blue suitcase on the stand, unlocked but not opened, again the mirrored closet door a few feet away slightly ajar …

  This time, Hannah will not make the mistake of searching through her lover’s suitcase, daring to examine his passport.

  Hannah will not make the mistake of displeasing him. She has learned.

  Yaakel. What if she were to call him by this name, and not by his initials?

  With nothing of his previous impatience Y.K. undresses Hannah as if reverentially. He kisses her mouth, she clasps his head against her breasts. Wishing that one of them had thought to pull the drapes together for the whitish autumnal light pouring through the tall windows is as bright-blinding as a hallucination.

  The nakedness of another person!—Hannah feels faint, she is made to see too clearly.

  Rarely does Hannah glimpse Wes’s naked body. She is familiar only with the naked—perfect—bodies of her children. Because so small, so young, their perfection is of no distinction, it is utterly natural.

  Hannah steels herself for the weight upon her. Steels herself for the discomfort, the abrasive of his skin against hers, the sensation of near-suffocation, but Y.K.’s lovemaking is gentle, as if tentative. As if there is no history between them—no memory.

  As if they are newly lovers, uncertain of each other, each wanting only to please the other.

  “Oh—I love you …”

  “I love you.”

  Hannah hears a raw, brutal sound—a sob escaping her throat.

  Her lover’s face is no longer visible to her, buried in the hot curve of her neck. Her hands on his back discover whorls of flesh, old scars. His breath is harsh, hot. He is straining over her, grunting. She seems to see herself at a little distance, the fleeting white body, naked as if skinless.

  Trembling with desire for him, for this. Lying in the man’s arms, no turning back.

  Clenched tight against him in a frantic muscular anguish, the breath knocked out of her as with a powerful blow.

  And afterward, a voice out of a dream, oddly formal as if reciting a vow: “My darling, you have come to dwell in my heart where no other woman has dwelled.”

  • • •

  Above the sepia sprawl of Detroit, a thin sickle moon.

  Hidden by gusty clouds like rags, then again visible, if faintly.

  By the time Hannah returns to the house on Cradle Rock Road, at dusk.

  Soon then, in secret calling the number Y.K. has given her.

  Just to hear your voice. My dear one.

  And again then, later that night as Hannah has promised, calling her lover before she joins her husband upstairs in bed, in a lowered voice on the phone she has brought into the downstairs bathroom after Wes has (finally) turned off the TV news and gone upstairs.

  Will she think of him that night? His love for her?

  Yes, Hannah assures him. She will.

  And will she call him in the morning, when she is free?

  Yes, Hannah assures him. She will.

  And they will make a plan, when to meet again?

  Yes, Hannah assures him.

  And does she love him, as he loves her?

  Yes, Hannah assures him.

  And she will be with him, one day soon? When she is free?

  Yes. She vows, she will.

  Only after they have hung up does Hannah dare whisper Yaakel into the receiver.

  Armor

  Wears her love, her lover like armor.

  He is always with her, she has become invulnerable, invincible.

  No harm can come to Hannah that does not come from him.

  On the escalator at Saks, ascending. Never alone for she is with him.

  In the Food Mart, unassailable. For she is one who is loved, desired.

  On the street, the eyes of younger men glance at her, through her. She pays no heed, scarcely notices. Her heart lifts: Don’t need you.

  Even the children can’t hurt her, Conor’s sudden tears—Mom-my!

  In Wes’s presence she is quiet, subdued. Her silence unnerves him, it has long provided a cover for him, his unfettered mind. A lustful dog nosing about in curbside debris. Now, she sees him glancing at her quizzically. Perhaps he will love her more, he will find her more beautiful, desirable, as she needs him less. The children press themselves against her legs, needy and clinging. Mommy love me.

  Hannah laughs, she has become almost gay, giddy. Like one who tosses gold coins from her pockets believing that she has an infinite supply.

  For always, she is living for him.

  When not likely to see him, she speaks with him on the phone. He is elsewhere, in another city, but he has not abandoned her as he had in the past. This new phase of Hannah’s life.

  Darling what can do we, how can we be together …

  So badly yearning to be with you …

  One day, soon …

  Her heart has a fine crack, he has entered it like a breath.

  • • •

  “Have you ever been to Bali? No? I will take you there.”

  Hannah laughs nervously saying that would be wonderful—someday.

  “Bali is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The people are the most ‘spiritual’ I’ve ever seen. Nothing like this country—where things are worshipped.”

  Hannah listens gravely. Hannah says yes, but she is married, she has young children.

  “Of course you’re married now. But relationships change, circumstances change.”

  Later, as Hannah is preparing to leave: “You will always be the mother of your children, Hannah—that can’t change. But remaining the wife of that husband—that’s a different proposition.”

  He accompanies her to the elevator. Waits with her. In this interregnum of the present tense Hannah is baffled into silence as her lover continues to speak to her as if hypnotizing her.

  “… what’s to come. That is the proposition.”

  Descending in the elevator, in a state of trance as the interior of the hotel atrium rushes upward, out of sight.

  A succession of floors, too swift-ascending to be comprehended, rushing upward and beyond Hannah’s range of vision, to oblivion.

  And in the car, driving home. Face shining with tears, a radiant hurt smarting her skin.

  You will always be the mother of your children.

  Like armor, his love. More crucially, the secret of his love.

  For Wes can’t hurt her now. She has become immune to him now.

  The husband who’d so long been the dominant one in their marriage. His sexuality—waxing, waning to an algorithm exclusively Wes’s own—determining Hannah’s self-worth.

  But now, no.

  At the Beaumont Hospital fundraiser in late October where Wes abandons Hannah soon after their arrival. Though she has made herself beautiful. Though to her lover she is beautiful. How quickened, Wes’s interest in the company of others. The sound of his laughter tears at Hannah’s nerves. The way in which women friends, greeting him, lean forward to kiss him on the cheek, which inspires Wes to kiss them in turn, more robustly.

  I hate you. I will never forgive you.

  I will have my revenge on you.

  In the open lobby of the hospital, a festive crowd. Familiar faces that turn out to be strangers, strangers that turn out to be old friends. Sleek marble floor, banks of flowers, jazz quartet aggressively loud, uniformed waiters holding trays aloft as they make their way through the crowd like knife blades cutting through uncooked dough: dull-resistant, but parting for the knives.

  Champagne frothing in flute-shaped glasses.

  Seeing how eyes drift onto her, staring. Hannah ignores.

  Hannah’s women friends whom she rarely sees now. The Schell woman—Melissa. (So often seeing this woman in Far Hills, or someone who closely resembles her. Sometimes Melissa lifts her hand in a friendly greeting, smiles at Hannah even as Hannah turns away as Hannah is turning away now.) Heavyset pouch-eyed Dr. T__ is here as well, regarding his former patient more with pity than contempt. Perceiving the filthy gnarled sponge that is Hannah’s soul, that Y.K. (it seems) has never seen.

  For he loves her. His love protects her from insults, harm.

  How badly Hannah misses her lover! She could weep, missing his arms tight around her, the warm eager weight upon her holding her down, a kind of ballast to prevent her soul from flying out of her body, to annihilation.

  He wants to marry her, Hannah thinks. A frightened smile twitches at her mouth. For that is her secret.

  He wants her to leave her husband, to marry him. To take her children with her, and marry him. She thinks so. Yes.

  Soothed by champagne, feeling hopeful. Always hopeful.

  Joker Daddy has said We make our own luck, kids. Excelsior!

  At a little distance Hannah sees the Haydens. Surprised that Jill Hayden would appear at such a public gathering … Hannah intends to speak with Jill but as she approaches the woman she sees that this is not Jill Hayden after all.

  Another time, Christina Rusch. Hannah is sure that she sees Christina Rusch, heavier than Hannah recalls, aloof in matronly navy blue, on the farther side of the lobby beside her stout husband. This friend, too, Hannah is determined to speak with but never manages to find her amid the crowded gathering.

  Later, stout red-faced Harold Rusch turns out to be a stranger who resembles Harold Rusch only to the degree that high-echelon automobile executives who live in Bloomfield Hills resemble one another. With a rakish smile staring at Hannah: “H’lo! Which one are you?”

  Of course, Hannah thinks. The Rusches, local royalty, would never turn up at so plebeian a gathering.

  As the evening winds down Hannah has no choice but to seek out Wes in a corner of the lobby where the laughter is loud and raucous. She is careful to smile before she is within the range of his vision. Always smiling, in public, never melancholy, sad-sulking, always gay-giddy, assured of a man’s love, his love. Not daring to touch Wes’s arm in this public place for fear that he will throw off her hand, and everyone will see, wide-eyed, scandalized, thrilled.

  Poor Hannah Jarrett! Since that rape, or what she’d claimed was rape, the woman has not been the same.

  Poor Hannah? Poor Wes! He’s the one to feel sorry for.

  Raped by a Black man, a parking attendant … Was that it?

  What she’d claimed.

  God! Poor Wes, so humiliated.

  None of this can wound Hannah. No longer.