Summer 1950

I always thought of it as funeral weather. The stillness as a soul leaves this earth. It is both morbid and definite. Someone you love will never return. The silence absorbs everything else as if you screamed your loved one's name and waited in the black infinity for them to answer back, knowing they never would.

That Saturday morning it was just the same. I couldn't move or speak, despite that scream that was tearing me inside. "Mary!" On that bleak day, the sky was gray with billowing clouds that dropped flecks of rain here and there. Not powerful enough to take on meaning. Not a deluge. My mind flipped through memories. The freshly dug grave revealed rich, black soil. I saw Mary's hands sifting through the dirt, finding bugs for Charlie to keep in little baby food jar terrariums. His rapt attention and her careful transfer into his tiny hands. "What are you going to name this one, darling?" She had a special loving voice that was all his. She indulged him for hours as they collected insects, decided on names and filled jars with soil, leaves, pebbles or twigs. "Henry." Charlie had whispered. He looked up at her with his sea blue eyes. His face serious.

"All right. We'd better get Henry the worm into his new house."

Charlie's hand was in mine and it was sweaty and warm. He kept tugging on mine. He wanted me to tell him when Mary would come home. I couldn't do it again. I looked down at him and put a finger to my lips, "shh." I bent down to his level "Mommy will talk to you when they are done with the service." I whispered with my black-gloved hand cupped around his ear. He pouted and silent tears fell from his eyes. I felt guilty for teaching him to swallow his pain. To learn to weep alone and store it all up somewhere else. I should have lifted him up and kissed his cheek. Let him cry into my shoulder, rubbed his back. He was only four years old. I couldn't. That had become Mary's job. I loved Charlie and believed I was a good mother but my capacity for emotion had diminished after the asylum.

"Don't call it that," Carmen would correct me. "Just say the hospital. If you have to say anything." She had become so critical of me. It seemed the more I withdrew into my sadness or pain the more she would try to jolt me back into the person she remembered me being. She couldn't see that person had been just a girl. A girl who had suffered losses, yes, but couldn't see that up ahead I would come to know that life is a series of losses. Maybe she couldn't see that because that hadn't been her fate. But it was mine. My parents, My husband, Mary. Perhaps worst—it's hard to say because each loss seemed like the worst and the end. Perhaps, the most devastating was having been so close to losing everything I loved. To have been taken away despite being very happy and secure in the world I had made for myself. To lose my son for a month. To be held in a dark hospital, tortured with the threat of them destroying me. Not in figurative terms but in real absolute terms. I very well could have been one of the women taken into the back operating rooms. One of the women who's brains had been cut into taking their very soul, making them inhuman impostors moving around a dark hell.

"Eve?" Carmen's gloved hand touched my arm. She was holding Charlie despite her own brood of children hanging on her, crying partly from hunger and partly from the shock of losing one of their favorite aunts. Mary was one of the most loving women I'd ever know. Carmen must have seen that it was worse for Charlie. He had grown up with Mary as his grandmother. When we moved to Bend with no place else to go, without hesitation Mary adopted me as her daughter and when Charlie was born, he was her grandson. Mary and Frank, knowing us for such a short time and not as blood relatives, took us in as family. Frank had held Charlie throughout the night he was born while I was still under the effects of the drugs I'd been given during labor. Frank had sat and rocked my baby in the dim light of the kitchen. As soon as I woke they brought him to me and shared in my awe and joy. Frank and I were close. I respected and loved him, but it was never like my relationship with Mary. I'd never known anyone like her. I trusted her love completely without a consideration that she could be taken from me too. That was how it had been, how I vowed that day in the cemetery it would never be again: every time I loved someone, I was so naive to believe they was mine. They wouldn't be taken away. Perhaps, I even believed that this person I loved was going to raise me from the darkness that lurked around every corner I approached. There was no one left who loved me. It was such a desolate feeling, so lonely. I didn't want it to happen again, but how could I control anything? Up ahead of the loss, was the melancholy. It scared me. It had happened twice. A darkness full of so much physical pain. When Nick was killed in the war, I couldn't get out of bed. Weeks turned to months and almost a year passed without being able to leave the house. Then, Jeff appeared in my life. It was a miracle. He elevated me. Lifted me out of the darkness. Perhaps it was another kind of hell, a more seductive serpent than then my attraction to death's grip. It was meant to turn out bad. That's the sin a woman pays for an affair with a married man.

"Eve?" Carmen had been leading me and we were stopped in front of the car. "Will you ride with me? Frank will take a couple of the kids to make room."

Carmen and I sat close together in the back seat with her oldest daughter on the other side. Her daughter Rita leaned against the window and appeared to be staring at the rain that was now coming down in steady streams. I imagined that if it hadn't been a funeral; if it had been an outdoor ceremony of some other sort, someone would comment cheerfully "we're lucky the rain held out until it was over." No one would say any such thing at that moment. Everyone was too somber over the loss of Mary.

"I want to talk with you when we get back." Carmen said.

I looked at her, my body felt limp, I nodded, "of course." She rubbed my hand and reached her arm around my back. I smelled her familiar scent of Chanel. Her dark hair was pulled back and she looked older than I ever remembered her. Carmen had always been sassy, clever. She was funny and outspoken. Of the two of us, it always seemed she would have been the one to veer off into indiscretion. In high school she did misbehave, but it was always within the parameters of acceptable: drinking a beer, sneaking out to go dancing, necking. She and Harry even had intercourse before they were married. In reality, Carmen was always going to marry Harry; just like I was going to marry Nick. Other than a threat to her reputation her infatuations didn't matter. Of the two of us, I was the well-behaved girl. I did well in school, remained reserved and Nick was the only boy I'd ever gone out with. That was in contrast to Carmen who broke up with Harry every few months and went on dates with different boys—never more than necking, just going out dancing with them once or twice then back to Harry. Carmen was old fashioned and her life had moved in a predictable line towards who she ended up becoming, who she was always meant to become. That was not how it was with me. I had started at the same point as Carmen, but my steady course towards a little house and family was repeatedly interrupted by tragedy.

First my parents died, but still –somehow-- I remained the good girl, stayed the course. Then Nick's death. Looking back I should have known that darkness followed my marriage to Nick. On our wedding day, a warm fall day just after he was drafted, we stood under a canopy in Sellwood Park. And just as we were reciting our vows a flock of crows flew over head, their squawking was loud and distracting. They settled in a tree, a tall gum tree and I'd felt a specter. That night, our wedding night, I'd cried in his arms. I didn't want him to go to war. And, the birds' cackle had been ominous. He was killed only four months later.

I'd died too for an entire year. Then came Jeff. He was so handsome and sophisticated, very different from any of the men in Sellwood, who worked in lumber yards and on construction crews. Jeff was an art professor. More handsome than anyone I'd ever seen. I'd started floral arrangement again. That's how I'd met him, I put together the flowers for his mother's funeral. It wasn't two days later that he started coming to my house. In less than a month our affair started. That was where Carmen and I began to grow apart. She never understood any of it and. It was my opinion that could never consider what she would have done if suddenly she'd lost everything. It was my belief that Carmen considered herself more virtuous than me. She would never have an affair with a married man, she would never have gotten pregnant with his child. She would never have wanted to run her own business. Instead, she basked in the role of the happy wife. Sassy and outspoken but really in the shadows of the men in her life. To Carmen, my choices were wrong. They were indecent. And to me, hers choices were cowardly.

I hated walking back into Mary and Frank's house. Its love and soul, had been sucked out in the violent cyclone that descended when Mary got cancer. It had picked up velocity, taking every good thing from my life. From Frank and Charlie's lives too. Mary was the center of our lives.

As soon as the cars were parked, Frank went off to the back of the house, I assumed he was exhausted; he had to lie down. He was heartbroken and his face looked so old with the absence of the joy and love that filled his expressions around Mary. Their marriage wasn't perfect by any means, but they were kindred and always loved being around one another. My heart sank again. I looked across the room and Charlie was playing with Carmen's little ones. The parlor looked glistening clean as it always had. That was my doing. While Mary was sick, I kept the house and cared for her. Frank had to be out managing the farm. I didn't know that as soon as Mary received her diagnosis he had begun showing it to buyers. I didn't know that when things became dire he signed papers and had arranged to have his belongings shipped to Portland. I had no idea until Carmen told me the day of Mary's funeral.

I sat across from Carmen and looked at her dramatic, Elizabeth Taylor features. She lit a cigarette and shook out the match. I reached for the pack and removed a cigarette. I lit it and blew out the match.

"When did you start smoking?" Carmen asked.

"I haven't. I just wanted one."

Carmen lowered her voice, "Listen Eve. Frank wants to come back to Portland."

"Leave Bend? Leave the farm. Why would he?"

"It's too much work here."

"He's not so old."

"That's not it Eve."

"Doesn't he want to be with Charlie?"

"Of course he does. He thinks of Charlie as his grandson. He assumes --as do I-- that you and Charlie are coming back to Portland too. He's sold the farm and plans on buying something more manageable near Portland. There's plenty of farmland just outside the city. He'll get something smaller and be closer to us. He doesn't want to be here without Mary."

"You know I can't do that."

"Why not Eve? Everyone loves you. It's not going to be as you imagine it. Everyone hates Jeff Lambert. They love you."

"That's not how I see it." I took a drag from my cigarette. I was still getting used to the burning in my lungs, but then the tiny jolt of energy felt good somehow. Bad and good.

"Harry and I have a good reputation. It'll be fine." She insisted.

"You know as well as I do that it won't ever be the same. Not after what happened with Jeff and now with Charlie. You know how things are. I'm not going to have someone like Joanie judging me."

"Joanie? Jesus she's the biggest fool of all." Joanie was a social climber. She had always tried to be something she wasn't. Truth be told, Joanie tried to be like Carmen and me, mostly like Carmen. Even as children Joanie would watch Carmen as we played and slowly, one step behind, she would copy everything Carmen said and did. Then as teenagers, if Carmen had a new hairstyle we could count on Joanie sporting the same one. But, Joanie's marriage wasn't like Carmen's or mine. Her obnoxious husband seemed to turn her into the most vicious type of social climber. Not that there had been any kind of social ladder to climb in Sellwood.

I smiled. "Why are we always so mean about poor Joanie?"

Carmen smiled and took my hand. "All right, I understand, so you're going to stay here? You can start your business, but if you want my opinion," she blew out a drag and raised a finger up to her youngest who was climbing on the back of the couch. She shook her finger, no. no. no.

"I'm certainly not staying here." I said.

"Well then what?"

"I don't know. There is no place for me to go."

Carmen was growing impatient. "Why do you always say that as if we're living in the stone age?"

I stuffed my cigarette out in the ashtray. "It's easy for those words to come out of your mouth. When have you ever had to deal with what I've had to deal with?"
"When have I ever made the choices you've made?"

There was a long silence. The sound of the children playing in the next room reminded me of the last Christmas we'd had in the house. Everything there made me think of Mary. I could see why Frank wanted to leave. I didn't want to stay either.

"I'm glad to know that's how you feel."

Carmen reached across the table and rubbed my hand. When she did, her charm bracelet jangled against the wood. It sounded metallic yet hollow. Everything felt and sounded empty.

"You need to decide, Eve."

I looked up at her. I knew I had to tell her about the letter from Jeff. Or at least, somehow plant the seed that I had another choice. My stomach was in knots because I knew what her reaction would be. Most of the time I felt the same way as she did about Jeff. Carmen was the last person who would understand. Mary would have at least considered it and thought it over. She may have thought it was a practical option, despite the obvious down side. She would have seen both sides and weighed my options with dispassion. But, Mary had been too sick for me to share it with her. Before the cancer, she had become my only confidant. She knew how to advise me. She was the last person to love me. I started to cry.

The night I received the letter from Jeff, I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. A very small part of me entertained the possibility of being a respectable wife, having a home and children. Of course, it bothered me that I would have to care for his other children, but I wasn't entirely opposed. Then, just when I let my mind paint wonderful family-life scenarios with him. When I would let myself remember the passion, the darkness would fall. I would relive the moment his hands grabbed my face while he forced me. His grip on my face so tight that he left bruises where his fingers pressed into my jaw. He had held my face to watch my expression while did it. In the letter, he had written, "I know I was the one who made you so distraught that you had to go to the hospital." It was more than that. He orchestrated it. He told Frank the truth. He brought the nude sketches of me, told them about my melancholy after Nick. Then he convinced them I'd lost my mind. It seemed true, when they came to the house just after he'd forced me. It couldn't have been any worse. Thank God for Carmen and Harry. Frank and Mary. They got me out of the hospital. They saved me.

Carmen was finishing off a cup of coffee and scanning the room, checking on the kids. "I suppose we should make some lunch, although I doubt anyone's hungry."

"The dining room is full of food from friends."

"Yes. But its not going to get warm and get served by itself."

She started to rise but I took hold of her hand. "Carmen can you sit for a minute?"

"Of course, what is it honey?"

I held her stare for a long moment. "A short time ago I received a letter from Jeff Lambert."

Carmen raised her black penciled eyebrows. She shook her head. "What did he want? The gall. This isn't starting again. Why can't that man leave you alone?"

"Carmen there's no place for me to go."

"What does that have to do with him?"

"His wife died. So he wrote to me."

I could see she was growing furious. "I hate to sound crass but I'm sure he had something to do with the woman's untimely—"

"Don't say that."

"I can't listen to this. I don't know where you're going with it, but..." She started to stand again but I kept hold of her hand. "Please listen to me." She sat back down.

"Whatever you're going to say. Eve, I'm just about done with this."

"Done with me?"
"Tell me what the letter said about Jeff Lambert's wife dying."

"He asked me to move to Chicago. To marry him, to care for his children. And Charlie."

Carmen shook her head in disbelief. She put her hand over he mouth and stared at me, shaking her head. When she removed her hand, she said "Why are you telling me this? He beat you—Jesus Eve, do you hear yourself? What's the matter with you?"
"He didn't beat me. Besides, it's not like I didn't hurt him too."

"No you didn't. You just said no to his cruel offer to be his whore and kept in some apartment away from everyone you know. It's not like you have to go be with this man. It's not like you have no money. Would you stop acting like you're some poor women wandering around trying to look for food for your child? Whatever power he has over you, you'd better forget about him."

"You can say that but you don't know the whole story. That's how you saw it.—but maybe back then he was trying to help Charlie and me that was only way he could, given the situation. We were intimate for a very long time. I was very much in love with him once. And, except for the things that happened between us in the end, we were in love. Carmen you know it."

"That's not love. And you know it. It's sick."

"There's Charlie to think of. Jeff is Charlie's father. His children are Charlie's brothers and sisters. You make it sound so easy Carmen, but my life would be hell in Sellwood. I can't go back home. My life would be hell."

"Well, maybe you need to pay a little penance for your actions. I'm sorry Eve. Decent women don't have affairs and get pregnant. You can't expect to just walk back into a respectable life. You can't. So toughen up and move on. Make something of yourself. But, telling me that you would willingly put yourself in that situation. It makes me start thinking that maybe you are a little nuts."

I was stunned. I stood up and walked slowly away from the table. I was in shock over Carmen's true feelings about me. It seemed that if she, my girlhood friend, my closest friend thought that way of me, it seemed certain that everyone else in that town would. Of course they would.

Carmen rushed to me, by then I was walking up the stairs. "Eve come back. I'm sorry. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. Really, I don't feel that way about you. I just don't understand. That's all. "

I went into my room at Frank and Mary's house. I had grown to love the room. I sat on the bed and examined the space thoroughly. It didn't look so different from when I first moved in four years before when I was still pregnant. The windows looked out over the orchards budding with springtime blossoms. The long rows of apple and pear trees, for some reason, always reminded me of Jeff. Over the year, I'd lived with Mary and Frank –before I bought my own farmhouse less then a mile away-- I'd lay in bed at night while Charlie slept. I thought of him so often. I couldn't sleep, and whether it was during the day when Charlie napped or at night when the mood illuminated the pretty scene, my mind would always meander back to him. At least that's how I remembered it. A part of me realized I was falling into a helplessness, that the abyss was seductive. The floors still glistened and the quilt Mary had made for me was tucked neatly into the metal frame. I raised it up and smelled it. It had the starchy smell of Mary's handy work. Her scent in every stitch.

Charlie's cradle was still positioned against the side wall. Frank had made it for him when he found out we were coming. I thought of Mary's bright smile and I could see her the rocking chair rails make a dull rhythm when she rocked my baby, humming a lullaby. I lay down on the bed and put my face in the pillow and wept. I heard a faint knock and I knew it was Carmen. She opened the door slowly and there was a slight creak before she entered.

"Darling," She whispered. She sat down on the bed next to me and put her hand on my back. I turned and looked at her. She wiped my eyes with her free hand. She turned her head and looked at me full of compassion. "I know you've had it so hard so I am sorry for the things I said."

"It's all right. I know you're just worried."

"Let me say my peace on this subject. Please."

"Go ahead." I sat up and leaned against the back of the bed.

"Don't do this. Stop doing this with this man. I don't understand it. You keep convincing yourself that he is your only choice. Eve, its 1950, plenty of women have jobs. You'll meet someone. You're not the kind of girl people are going to shun regardless of whose father Charlie is."

"I'm a grass widow. You know it and I know it. I'll be twenty-seven next year. No one is ever going to marry me."

"Even if that were true, which it isn't. Twenty seven is not so old. But even if you couldn't find a husband, isn't that better than being trapped with a man who beats you?"

"Stop saying that. He never beat me."

"Eve. You're frightening me. He was violent with you and you know it. He did something so horrible to you. I've never heard of a man doing anything so cruel. How have you lost perspective? And isn't forcing a woman into intercourse the same as beating?"

"I don't think it is. Besides Carmen think about what you have. You have a good reputation. You could do whatever you wanted. If I were you I could open a flower shop, I could be a part of a bridge club. I could be who I was with Nick. No one is going to marry me. Even if I do as you say and go somewhere and find employment or even just open a flower shop, I don't want to be alone. A widow, with a married man's baby."

"What makes you think he's not going to put you right back in the hospital? Once he's your husband he can do that any time he wants."

"Why would he?"

"I don't know what's wrong with you? How can you ask why he would? He had no reason to the first time."
"Stop saying something's wrong with me."

"Eve. He'll kill you. One time when you were angry with him you told me he was a criminal--"

"I never said any such thing."

"You did. I remember clearly because I remember thinking that he was a coward when he left you alone when you were pregnant, but I didn't think he was a criminal. If he'd done what he did to a stranger, that would be rape."

I looked at her for a long time. I missed her. I wished Nick had never died. That time was gone too. I didn't know what to say about Jeff. If not for him I wouldn't have had Charlie. I knew I had to stop telling Carmen that the only reason I wanted to go was to make Charlie legitimate and to have a respectable life. I missed Jeff. I missed having someone that close to me, to have a love affair and I missed him. Before the hospital, I thought there was hope with him. A new start. Once I returned from the hospital, I was pulled down by the undertow of melancholy. I descended back into my bottomless grief, the unbearable sadness. I couldn't care for Charlie. I couldn't take care of the rambling farmhouse I'd purchased. After the hospital, the horrors of the hospital, I had once again fallen. Losing Mary was certain to bring about another wave of debilitating melancholy. It had happened with Nick. Over a year staying in bed. Taking baths and dreaming of submerging myself, feeling the water around my body and wanting to die.

"There's nothing left for me to do. I don't want to go back. I can't stay here—besides there's nothing here for me. Carmen, I don't want to fall back into sadness and have no one around to make sure Charlie's safe. Mary and Frank raised Charlie those months that after being sent away."

"Did you tell him you'd go to Chicago and--" She stopped herself from finishing the sentence.

"I didn't say anything yet."

Carmen bit her lip and nodded.

"My life will never be what I thought it was going to be. It will never be like yours. And, honestly I don't want that anymore. Even if I could get married to another Nick, being a housewife in Sellwood, sounds horrible to me now. At least in Chicago--"

Carmen raised her eyebrows and stood up. She held up her had as if to say 'enough.' I had crossed into unchartered terrain. To even imply that Carmen's life wasn't all it was cracked up to be was completely taboo. I always thought that was because before Nick died, she would compare her marriage and life to mine. She felt I had things right and that her life with Harry was messy, unorganized. She'd missed being young and popular. I moved so swiftly into the head of the community with my gardens and club memberships. The only thing Nick and I hadn't had was a child. That too was destroyed by the war. And there I was telling her that moving to a far away city with a man with whom I'd had an adulterous affair, a man who'd physically and psychologically hurt me—I was telling her I'd choose that over her existence.

"Really?" she said in a sharp tone she only used when she was exceptionally angry. "Well then darling, I suggest you follow your hearts desire. Go be with that Goddamned criminal."

The house was nearly empty. I'd had a long talk with Frank and told him I was moving, that I didn't know where but I didn't want to stay in Bend and I didn't want to move back to Sellwood. He was so overcome with grief that he didn't seem to hear me nor was he able to advise me. Until he moved back with Carmen, I took care of the house; washed his clothes and fixed his meals. Charlie and I ate lunch and dinner with him. During that short period before he moved to Portland, the only thing that seemed to brighten Frank's mood was Charlie. Frank had taken to talking with Charlie "man to man." And would tell him to take care of me, or how to cast a fishing line (with a branch and some twine). Frank taught him checkers and they'd play for a long time every day. Even though Charlie was only four, he kept focused on the game. He loved being with Frank.

Then, the day came when Carmen and Harry came to the house and loaded up Frank's trunk with some of the things he'd take with him. I'd packed up all of the keepsakes and items they'd wanted to keep. I was to have one of the workers arrange to have what remained shipped to Carmen's house. Carmen was cool as she walked past me to the house to help Frank load some of the boxes. When she did speak to me it was in such a saccharine false tone. When she looked at me, I felt cheap. I felt like a whore.

Harry stood with me for a while and we talked about nothing in particular. That was Harry's way even with Carmen mad at me. Even though it was small talk or conversations about ordinary things, it never seemed stilted. He was explaining how he'd gotten these concrete footers and beams out of the ground. He was talking about the wooden fence that had stood between Carmen and my house all the years I'd lived there. The wind had knocked a panel down and when it did, Harry said, he realized all of the wood was rotten. "One thing led to another and I found myself out there trying to get these concrete footers out. I'm very handy but—"

"All right Harry," Carmen interrupted and stood beside me. She put her arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. "I love you. You'll be all right," she said.

I turned and hugged her back, "I love you too. I'm glad you still want to be my friend."

She pulled away and held her face close to mine. "I'm worried about you Eve. You are a sister to me. I don't love anyone the way I love you. I don't want you to go there, but anytime you need me, you call me. I'll do whatever it takes to help you." Unexpectedly she started crying. Harry pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to her. She wiped her eyes and looked at me again. The tears made her green eyes look velvety, beautiful. "Darling. Let's think of somewhere else for you to go. At least to give you more time to think it over. You're wracked with grief over Mary. I am so afraid for you."

I just hugged her and held her for a long moment. "Don't be."

I watched as the two trucks made their way down the bumpy dirt road back to the main road. The people I loved were gone. All of them. I felt the vacuum again, taking everything out of my life. I felt as if it were a race. I had to get myself away fast and far enough that it wouldn't catch me. The deadly mood I would end up in. Just Charlie and me, alone out here in the farmland. I didn't want to be so incapacitated in an empty house with my child that I was unable to care for him.

I drove back to my house. The pretty farmhouse Mary and Frank helped me find, buy and fix up. It was a beautiful home and my gardens were abundant. At the same time it was the house where the tragedy occurred so ghosts still moved freely. I couldn't enter a room without a flash of that afternoon, Jeff grabbing me and pushing me down. Two men holding my arms while Jeff's eyes watched them lead me out screaming. Holding Charlie in my arms and having to give him to Mary as they took me out to the van and drove me to the hospital. It was all there in my house in Bend and maybe if I left, all those memories would be buried.

Charlie was playing on the floor with his toy trucks. He had three of them parked in a straight line leading under the couch. I sat on the sofa and picked up the telephone receiver. I had Jeff's letter in my lap with his telephone number at the museum. I hung the phone up and reread the letter. I let out a heavy breath and Charlie looked up at me. He was biting his tongue as he worked in deep concentration, his glance towards me was fleeting, just wanting reassurance that nothing was wrong.

I dialed the number. It was the university secretary. She connected me to Jeff's studio. It rang several times and then he picked up. I was startled when I heard his voice. "This is Jeff Lambert." I found I was frozen and as much as I wanted to I couldn't speak.

"Hello?" He said "Jeff Lambert here."

"Jeff," I finally whispered.

"Yes," he hadn't recognized my voice and was still using his authoritative professor tone.

"Its Eve."
"Oh my God, Eve. You were speaking so softly, I didn't—You received my letter?" His voice softened. He sounded vulnerable to me.

I leaned my head back on the sofa and closed my eyes while I held the phone to my ear. Hearing him, maybe wanting him. Letting him have me and then hurt me again? Carmen was right, something was wrong with me, but the force kept picking up velocity. Ever since his letter had arrived.

"I don't want to be presumptuous or disrespectful," he started. He let out a deep breath. "Do you want to come to Chicago? To be with me? Is that why you are calling me?"
Once the dam had broken, it was an intense flood. He was offering me an altogether new life. I would travel to a big city. I imagined myself anonymous, no fear of isolation and rejection. Since I'd seen him last, I had become a different person altogether. Even if I considered the respectability Carmen described, even if one of the boys from high school --so smitten with me back then-- even if one of them offered me marriage and a legitimate life, I honestly didn't want it. The truth was, it seemed to me that Carmen's life was more stifling than what I could have ever imagined a life with Jeff to be. We'd had an affair for two years, he opened my eyes to a different sort of life; a more passionate and sophisticated one.

"I'm not the same," I confessed.

"Neither am I," he answered. "When can you come?"

"Mary died," I blurted.

There was silence, then "Oh, Eve. I'm sorry. That's why you're coming to Chicago? Is that why you called me?"

"I can come anytime."

"Soon then. I'll have tickets at the station next week. Is that too soon?"

"Jeff," I paused but I had to ask. "You won't do..."

"What is it, Eve?"

"You won't hurt me like that again will you?"

"No. I will never hurt you again. I want you to be my wife. I want to love you."