Right to Life

Then this other one, this ordinary-looking woman about the same age as the man, who followed them to the elevator and up and sat there with a magazine across from them in the waiting room staring until Sara's name was called and then got up and left. A more subtle form of harassment. Were they even allowed to do that? They'd never said a word to her though he'd wanted to. And she'd evidently known what he was thinking. To hell with her, she'd whispered, she's not worth the effort.

She could deal with them.

Still he'd feel better if he was with her.

"What's another minute or two?" he said. "Let me just park this thing and we'll go in together."

She shook her head. "Please, Greg. I want to get this over with as soon as possible. You know?"

"Okay. Sure. I understand."

But he didn't. Not really. How could he? For all the talk last night it was impossible to gauge how she felt at just this moment. Not now in the light of day, far beyond the familiar comfort of home and bed and the comfort of lying in his arms and even the comfort of tears. He wanted to know suddenly, needed to know, that she didn't hate him, didn't blame him fundamentally – though twice last night she'd said she didn't and he'd believed her. But now it was different. He wanted to know she forgave him. For everything. For his marriage. For his son. Even for his sex. For being born a man so that he didn't have to carry – couldn't possibly carry – the full weight of this. He'd have done it in a minute if it were possible.

Her diaphragm had failed them. It happened sometimes. They were adults and they knew that. It was her diaphragm. It didn't matter. He'd never felt so guilty in his life.

Do no harm, his mother had told him when he was a boy. The physician's rule. Her personal golden rule. And here he was, doing harm to the woman he loved.

Still more harm.

He could see it in the distance on the corner of 68th Street a block and a half away, an undistinguished grey highrise that was probably built back during the mid-sixties, the bank on the first floor and offices above. Across Broadway a Food Emporium and the huge Sony movie complex. And yes, there were the long blue sawhorses and the two cops standing at the door and people crying signs walking back and forth along the curb.

"Pull up behind them," she said. "I don't feel like getting out right in the middle of that."

He glided to a stop. She opened the door.

He put his hand on her arm and stopped her and then he didn't know what to say. He just sat there moving his hand slowly over the warm smooth flesh of her arm and then she smiled a little. He saw the worry and sleeplessness that ambushed her just behind the smile. The eyes couldn't lie to him. They never had.

"I'll just be a minute," he said. "I can probably find something on 67th or over on Amsterdam."

"I'll be fine."

She got out and shut the door and he watched her walk away toward the dozen or so people ahead of her moving in circles curbside at the oilier end of the block and then he pulled out slowly past her and she glanced at him but didn't smile this time, only hitched her purse up on her shoulder. He passed the stem-faced, holier-than-thou types milling across the sidewalk like flies on a carcass and then he turned the corner.

***

Go on, she thought. You have to do this. You've got no choice. He's got a wife and he's got a son. You knew that going into this and in your heart you never did believe he was going to leave them. Not until his son was grown. Despite what you wanted to believe and despite what he said he wished to do. Greg was faithful as hell in his own peculiar way. It was part of what she loved about him.

In a way it was a shame just how good they were together. In a way it was almost cruelty. If only it had been just an affair. If there hadn't been love, caring, tenderness, sharing. All of it, the whole ball of wax.

You had it all, she thought. And couldn't really have anything.

She realized she'd been thinking about them in the past tense.

Now why was that?

She glanced at him through the window as he drove on by. It was impossible to smile for him again though she knew he needed it. She knew how he was feeling. But a single smile was all she had in her today and she'd spent that currency in the car.

The sound and feel of her heels on the sidewalk seemed to jolt straight through her. The cold hard streets of New York City. She realized she was trembling. A young hispanic delivery boy on a bicycle shot past her. Going the wrong way, against traffic, and on the sidewalk no less. She shot him a disgusted angry glance that he was moving too fast to see.