The Lesson of Her Death

kitchen, occasionally in the woods—they spoke not of phonemes or the Visual Aural Digit Span Test or Sarah’s book but of more personal things. The schools he had taught at, his former girlfriends, her first husband, Diane’s life as the daughter of a riverboat worker, vacations they hoped to take. Where they wanted to be in ten years, and five. And one.
    Yet the nature of these minutes they spent together was ambiguous. Though they talked intimately Breck had not kissed her; though they flirted he seemed bashful. Their contact was plentiful but often seemed accidental: fingers brushing when passing coffee cups, shoulders easing against each other when they stood sideby side. She once shamelessly seated her breasts against his arm as she leaned forward to look at an article on learning disabilities. She thought he had returned the pressure but she couldn’t be sure. In any event he neither backed away nor prolonged the moment.
    She didn’t know whether to expect a proposition or not.
    A proposition she would, of course, refuse.
    She
believed
she would refuse. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to leave. She now touched his arm and he swayed close to her and Diane sensed again the boundary between them that was continually being redefined. They were like teenagers.
    Today she believed this barrier was clear and solid. Jamie was only thirty feet away, in his room, and although Bill was at work it wasn’t unheard of for him to drop by at this time of day, stay for dinner then return to the office. She and Breck looked at each other for a long moment and she was vastly relieved when he looked at his watch and said, “Must depart, madame.…” (She was also pleased that he said this frowning with genuine disappointment.) He gathered his notebooks.
    That was when Diane kissed him.
    Like a sly college girl, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure Sarah was out of sight then pushed scholarly Breck into the corner of the room and kissed him fast, open-mouthed, then stepped away.
    Ohmygod ohmygod
.…
    Panic bubbling inside her. Terrified—not that one of her children had seen, not that word would get back to her husband. No, a more chilling fear: what if he hadn’t wanted to?
    Breck blinked once in surprise. He put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her quickly to him. As he kissed her hard, his forearm was leveraged against her breast and his hand made one slow sweep along the front of her blouse then wound around to the small of her back. They embraced for a long moment then Diane willed herself to break away. They stood staring at eachother, two feet apart, in surprise and embarrassed defiance.
    He whispered, “Can I see you before you go? I have to.”
    “I don’t know. The deputy’ll be watching us like a hawk.”
    “I have to see you. Let’s get away somewhere.”
    She thought. “I just don’t see how.”
    “Look, I’d like to tape Sarah taking some tests. If you’re not going to be back for a couple weeks I should do it before you leave. Maybe you could come with us to the school. We could have a picnic.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I want you,” he whispered.
    Diane stepped away, rubbed her hands together. She stared out the window at her daughter prancing about in the grass.
    “Did I say something amiss?” Breck asked.
    Oh, my. All these highfalutin’ words, all these snappy things he does for Sarah, all the places he’s been, and what is at the heart of it all—him being a man and me being a woman
.
    Do I want this or not? I just can’t tell. For the life of me I can’t tell
.…
    But she said nothing. She kissed him once more, quickly, then led him by the hand to the door. They walked out to his car and she said to him, “It’ll be a couple weeks at the most.” In a whisper intended to convey grave significance she added, “I think it’s for the best anyway, don’t you?”
    “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t.”

T he big problem with the My-T-Fine Tap was the dirty plate-glass windows. They let in bleak, northern, cool light, which turned the afternoon patrons all pasty and sick.
    Also, sitting at a table you could look up under the bar and see the mosaic of twenty years’ worth of gum wads.
    Corde ordered an Amstel, so tired he wasn’t even thinking it was a weekday, and Kresge said, “I just want to get this right. It’s okay to drink
light
beer on duty?”
    Corde changed the order to an iced tea.
    They sat on stools upholstered in jukebox red