One Cold Night

him in close to her body. He felt her warmth and smelled the elusive scent of chocolate that seemed always to hover around her, mingled with her sweet perfume. And in a reaction disproportionate to her gesture, he felt an urge to weep, but contained it for fear of alarming her.
    These two Octobers had stripped the skin off his life, and he felt weary to the core; weary yet strangely renewed. In one cold night and one long day, he had been made naked before death, a man unclothed and alone with only what he held in his hand, in his life, in his heart. Susan and Lisa, now more than ever, meant everything to him. Susan had explained that, in planning her confessions, she had been paving the way for a new baby. He would be a father! His imagination conjured the unfathomable beauty of life — how tenderit must feel to hold your newborn baby in your arms — along with all the hazards he knew too well. What if he failed to protect his own child? Panic swelled at the thought that he might not be up to the task of fatherhood, once it became real; and then he looked at Lisa. Lisa. He already had a child, flesh and blood, standing beside him. There was no question that he would attempt to father this very particular girl, and that it would be the hardest and best challenge he had faced. He would watch every strand of her progress carefully; listen without judgment to each word she said; be an eager audience to her songs; love and protect her in every possible way; and if she was ever assigned to read Lolita or decided to tackle it on her own, he would read it with her — they would discuss every scene late into the night, if necessary, but most of all he would urge her to interpret the story fearlessly and on her own terms. That was the key to what he could give Lisa: the courage to reject prepackaged answers, to question and to constantly seek.
    Susan loved the way Dave looked in the dark blue cashmere coat she had bought him last Christmas. With the polished black shoes he almost never wore, he looked a little like a businessman. But he wasn’t. He was a husband and a cop and soon, she hoped, a father. He was so many things and none of them simple. She felt she knew him now. He had allowed himself to travel the depths of despair for her, but not only for her; he had also journeyed for Lisa and for Becky and probably for dozens of people Susan had never heard of. He was an anomaly of hopefulness and cynicism, determination and accommodation, loneliness and devotion. She had come to adore him more, probably, than any other person she had ever known; except, of course, for Lisa.
    Terrifying as the last few days had been and mournful as this hour was — across the gulf of Becky’s grave, where stood Marie, her heart now a rattling gourd of lost hope — Susan felt within herself a slow trickle of returning life. Somehow, their family had endured a double threat intact. It had been like a roll of the dice, Becky perishing and Lisa surviving, and Susan would never forget how close she had come to being Marie. How Marie was Marie. She was resolved to return the friendship this kind woman had extended during the worst moments of the ordeal. She would never, she decided, abandon Marie, who at this moment looked as if she might dry up in a cloud of dust and blow away.
    It was over. Becky was buried. Lisa was safe. Peter was getting the help he needed. Susan’s secret was out. And Dave was coming to terms with all kinds of truths. She wanted nothing more than to forget the memory of that horrible face trying to reach her in the elevator. Couldn’t Dave try to forget, too? Couldn’t he just... stop? Stop worrying, stop thinking, stop being a cop... there, she had dared to think it. Her business made enough money to support them all. He could retire early from the police force; learn piano so he could accompany Lisa’s songs, which he had once said sounded interesting to him; or just stay home and be a full-time dad for a while. She didn’t care so long as she had him in her life.
    But Susan knew that Dave didn’t live his own life easily, that his was a quest and he would probably never quit the police until he could no longer chase the bad guys. He would never stop hunting for all the grooms in the universe, because there had to be moreof them; just as he would never allow faith alone to guide him, because it didn’t explain everything. She couldn’t really fathom why he felt so responsible for solving society’s ills, or