Bride & Groom

know?”
    “Bruce stalked those women. He cyberstalked them. Is that the word? On the World Wide Web. Strange, isn’t it? In a way, of course, he knew them intimately, but some of them he hardly knew. It sounds melodramatic to say this, but Bruce led a double life. Once he was jolted out of his trance, once he really got it that he’d almost lost me, and almost lost his real life, this life, he saw those women for what they were. He kept... well, let me show you. I’ll be right back.” She rose. Uli got to his feet. “Uli, wait here, sweetheart,” she said gently. “I have to go downstairs. I’ll be right back. Holly, there’s a bag of liver brownies in the freezer. Your recipe. Could you give him one? Distract him?”
    I did as Judith asked. Uli nibbled at pieces of the liver brownie, and he listened as I babbled nonsense to him, but he’d obviously have preferred to be with Judith. When she came back, he moved toward her as if he hadn’t seen her for weeks. Her face brightened and softened. She was carrying a stack of manila folders. Instead of showing them to me right away, she put them on the table, knelt next to Uli, and hugged him. Then she turned her attention back to me by sliding the folders toward me and saying, “You’re welcome to look at these. In fact, take them! I want them out of this house.”
    I opened the first folder, which was, of course, devoted to Laura Skipcliff.
    “There’s quite a bit about their professional lives,” Judith commented. “Laura Skipcliff. Anesthesiologist. She made a career of blotting out pain.”
    “Victoria Trotter lost her AKC privileges,” I said. “A long time ago. For abusing a dog on show grounds.”
    Judith looked delighted. “I didn’t know that! What I know about her was that she was a drunk. Bruce told me that much. Very little else, I might add. As you can imagine, I read books, a great many, about surviving infidelity, and Bruce read some of them, and every book, every single one, said that it was vital to get everything out in the open, to be able to ask and answer questions. But Bruce simply could not do it. He saw how much pain I was in, and he felt convinced that discussing things would cause me yet more pain. At first, he didn’t even want me to know who these women were, but he came to see that I had to know. It was inevitable that I’d run into some of them. I was humiliated enough as it was without having to take the risk of seeing one of these women socially and not knowing. Of course, when I did see them, it was far from easy. But I wasn’t made such a fool of all over again. And we simply had to keep seeing Daniel Langceil. And Gus. A child changes everything. Gus didn’t choose to have a slut for a mother. It seemed best for me to endure seeing her. And I was so used to being hurt, you see! And then there were chance encounters. That signing and talk that you and Bruce did? Where that scummy little plagiarist had the nerve to show up?” Judith reached out and found the dossier on Elspeth Jantzen, and then pushed it in front of me. “Did you read that manuscript of hers?”
    "I thought it was outrageous. And stupid. Zazar! As if no one would see the similarity!”
    “Yes.”
    “Judith, I had no intention of blurbing her book. I hadn’t decided how I was going to get out of it, but I wasn’t going to do it. You know, I thought that Mac...”
    “That was just a reflex with Bruce. He was generous with his colleagues. Always. His first impulse was always to say yes.” She evidently heard what she’d said. “In more ways than one.”
    “Judith, when did you begin to realize? When Laura Skipcliff...?”
    She winced at the name. “Bruce and I had separate rooms. So it wasn’t as if I’d be aware if Bruce left. And we’ve always been quite independent. I do a fair number of readings and talks. We’d occasionally go to each other’s events, but there was no obligation, and each of us had heard what the other had to say a million times. That night, I went to bed early, and for once, I slept. In the morning, when I listened to the radio, I had to wonder. I knew how terrible Bruce felt. Once he came to his senses, he couldn’t come to terms with how he’d degraded himself. And me. So the thought crossed my mind. But I didn’t take it seriously, I suppose. And an underground parking garage? So, it seemed like an ordinary urban crime. But then when that horrible tarot woman died, I knew. And then, of course, he began