Act of God

counselor?”
    “Maybe it gives him a chance to think out what he really wants to do with his life.”
    Rivkind brought the glasses over and sat down across from me. “You know, this is almost the only thing we brought with us from the old house.”
    “This nook?”
    “Yeah. Abe and me bought it for our first place together, because we were just kind of scraping by. Then, when the store was doing well back in the early eighties, we moved here. Good idea, and we gave our old furniture to Hadassah, let somebody else get some use from it. All but this little nook, where we’d have our coffee every...”
    Rivkind looked away from me, out the window, biting her lip as she seemed to check the shrubs for flowers. No tears though. “Your Sprite, it’s all right?”
    I hadn’t tasted it yet. “It’s fine, Pearl.”
    She nodded, still at the bushes.
    “You and Larry went away for a while?”
    “Yeah.” She came back to me. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I guess I should have called you.”
    “No problem. I stopped out here once today, but it was on my way. The police swung by, let me know everything was okay.”
    “Everybody’s been real good that way. Mr. Khoumanian. across the street, he mowed our lawn. Then his back went out, he couldn’t get over to pick up the papers, but he said he called the cops on somebody this morning. I’m sorry if they scared you or anything.”
    “They didn’t. How was the trip?”
    “It was good, John. Real good. A chance to get away, have some fresh air. This is where I want to be, this house, I mean. At least for a while. But getting away like that, Larry taking care of all the arrangements... for the trip, I mean. It’s funny, how your child comes to be an adult and take care of you when you need it. All Abe’s stuff is done except for the lawyer and”—she looked at me differently— “I guess, for you.”
    I drank some of the Sprite.
    “You found out anything, John?”
    “Not really.”
    “Does that mean you think it’s hopeless?”
    There was emotion behind her voice, but it was hard to gauge which one it was. “I’ve talked to everyone I can think of, except your son.”
    Rivkind bit her lip again, then tasted her Sprite, more for something to do than something to drink. “Larry, he’s like my lawyer, he doesn’t think it’s so good for you to be working for me.”
    “I’d still like to talk to him.”
    A nod. “I’ll go upstairs, try to get him to.”
    She slid out from her bench and stood, but didn’t move right away. “Back there in your office, you told me... you said being widowed, it... passes with time?”
    “Some, anyway.”
    “How long does it take, John?”
    I just shook my head.

    “So you got my mother to do your dirty work.”
    Larry Rivkind lay on a platform bed, his head and shoulders against one of those corduroy back rests at the wall. There were a couple of football posters in his room, and a framed program showing a hockey player in full stride wearing a crimson uniform with HARVARD across his chest and the legend NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS—1989 beneath the player. A fourteen-inch television with a cable box was on a low bureau, the station MTV or VH-1. The sound was off, the rock group mouthing their lyrics in pantomime.
    I said, “How do you mean, ‘my dirty work’?”
    “You know what I mean. Sending her up here because you knew if she asked me to talk with you, I’d do it.”
    “I figured you might do it anyway.”
    “Why should I?”
    “Because I spared her some heartache, not telling her about you swinging on me in your father’s store.”
    “Yeah, well, heartache, that’s something you’re just trying to bring her more of.”
    “She has questions, and she wants answers to them.”
    “Even if it means ruining my dad’s memory for her.”
    “Is that what the answers would do, Larry?”
    He turned away from me, looking at the figures gyrating 0n the small screen.
    Very slowly, he said, “Was my father having an affair with somebody? I don’t know. If my mother found out he was, Would it kill her? I don’t think so. But it would sure as shit ruin a nice part of her, a part of what she believes in, what keeps her going through all this.”
    “Do you know anybody who had a reason to kill your father?”
    Another scowl. “No. He was the best. The kindest, I mean. He hated violence, hardship. He once told me he had to lie all the time in the camp, lie to stay alive. He said he’d ever lie