First Daughter

IN SHARON'S new digs, he picked up one of the photos of Emma, but the image seemed flat and empty, a shell of what once had been a vibrant and mysterious girl. As for photos of other people in Sharon's life, he knew there would be none.

Sharon had no past, and so couldn't understand what appeal it could possibly hold for Jack. She had parents, but she never saw or spoke to them. A brother, as well, in Rotterdam, where he was an international lawyer. For reasons he'd never been able to fathom, Sharon had cut herself off from her family, her past. When they were dating, she told him that she had no family, but after they were married, he found photos in the trash, spilled out of an old cigar box. Her mother, father, and brother.

"They're dead to me," she'd said when he'd confronted her. She'd never allowed the subject to come up again.

Did that mean, he often wondered, that Sharon didn't dream? Because he dreamed only of his past, iterations of it with intended outcomes, or not, bizarre twists and turns that he often remembered after he awoke, and laughed at or puzzled over. It seemed to him that there was a richness in life that came with the years, that only your past could provide. It was unbearable to him to think, as Schopenhauer had written, that no honest man comes to the end of his life wanting to relive it. But it seemed possible to him that Sharon believed just that, that her erasing of her past was an attempt to relive her life.

He put the photo back, turned away, but his mood didn't improve. The house's aggressive homeyness produced a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. As for his heart, it had gone numb the moment she appeared at the door.

Below her short skirt, Sharon wore little pink ballet slippers with teeny bows and paper-thin soles. They made her movements around the house elegant and silent, even on the hard tile of the kitchen floor. No matter which way you looked at them, her legs were magnificent. Jack tried not to stare, but it was like asking a moth to ignore a flame.

Sharon opened a glass-fronted cabinet over the sink, stretched up to reach a pair of stemmed glasses. Her figure was highlighted in such a way that Jack felt the need to sit down.

She uncorked a bottle of red wine, poured. "Fortunately, I made enough food for two."

"Uh-huh," was all he could muster because he'd bitten back one of his acerbic replies.

She brought the glasses over, handed him one. "What?"

"What what?"

She pulled a chair out, sat down at a right angle to him. "I know that look."

"What look?" Why all of a sudden did he feel like a felon?

"The 'Baby, let's get it on' look."

"I was just admiring your legs."

She got up, took her wineglass to the stove. She stirred a pot, checked the chicken in the oven. "Why didn't you say that when we were married?" Her voice was more rueful than angry.

Jack waited until she paused to take a sip of wine before he said, "When we were married, I was embarrassed by how beautiful you are."

She spun around. "Come again?"

"You know how you see a hot movie star-"

Her face grew dark. "Where do you live, Beverly Hills?"

"I'm talking about a fantasy figure, Shar. Don't tell me you don't have fantasies about-"

"Clive Owen, if you must know." She took the bird out, set it aside to allow the juices to settle. "Go on."

"Okay, so I'm alone with… Scarlett Johansson."

Sharon rolled her eyes. "Dream on, buddy."

"I'm alone with her in my mind," Jack persevered, "but when I try to-you know-nothing happens."

She dumped the rice into a serving bowl. "Now that's just not you."

"Right, not when I'm with you. But Scarlett, when I think about her-really think about her-well, it's too much. I'm wondering why the hell a goddess like that would be with me. Then the fantasy goes up in smoke."

She stared intently at the steaming rice. Her cheeks were flushed. After a time, she seemed to find her voice. "You think I'm as beautiful as Scarlett Johansson?"

If he said yes, what would she do? He didn't know, so he said nothing, even when she turned her head to look at him. Instead, he got up, rather clumsily, and helped her serve the food.

They sank back down into their respective chairs. Wordlessly, she handed him the carving utensils and wordlessly he took them, parting the breast from the bony carcass, as he always did. Sharon served them both, first slices of the chicken, then heaping spoonfuls of rice, and broccoli with oil and garlic. They ate in a fog of self-conscious silence, sinking deeper and deeper into their own thoughts.

Finally, Sharon said, "You're feeling okay now?"

Jack nodded. "Fine."

"I thought…" She put her fork down. She'd hardly eaten anything. "I thought maybe after the hospital you might call."

"I wanted to," Jack said, not sure that was the truth. "There's something I want to tell you."

Sharon settled in her chair. "All right."

"It's about Emma."

She reacted as if he'd shot her. "I don't-!"

"Just let me-" He held up his hands. "Please, Shar, just let me say what I have to say."

"I've heard everything you need to say about Emma."

"Not this you haven't." He took a deep breath, let it out. He wanted to tell her, and he didn't. But this time seemed as good as any-better, in fact, than any of their recent meetings. "The fact is-" He seemed to have lost his voice. He cleared his throat. "-I've seen Emma."

"What!"

"I've seen her a number of times in the past week." Jack rushed on at breakneck speed, lest he lose his nerve. "The last time she was sitting in the backseat of my car. She said, 'Dad.'»

Sharon's expression told him that he'd made a terrible mistake.

"Are you insane?" she shouted.

"I tell you I saw her. I heard her-"

She jumped up. "Our daughter's dead, Jack! She's dead!"

"I'm not saying-"

"Oh, you're despicable!" Her brows knit together ominously. "This is your way of trying to weasel out of your responsibility for Emma's death."

"This isn't about responsibility, Shar. It's about trying to understand-"

"I knew you were desperate to crawl out from under your guilt." Her wildly gesticulating hands knocked over her wineglass. Then she deliberately knocked over his. "I just didn't know how desperate."

Jack was on his feet. "Shar, would you calm down a minute? You're not listening to me."

"Get out of here, Jack!"

"C'mon, don't do that."

"I said get out!"

She advanced and he retreated, past the seashells and the colored glass, the postcards Emma had sent to them from school, the photos of her as a child. He scooped up his coat.

"Sharon, you've misunderstood everything."

This, of course, was the worst thing he could have said. She flew at him with raised fists, and he backed out the front door so quickly that he stumbled over the top step. She got to slam the door on him once again. Then all the downstairs lights were extinguished and he knew she was sitting, curled up, fists on thighs, sobbing uncontrollably.

He took a convulsive step up, raised his fist to hammer on the door, but his hand flattened out, palm resting on the door as if by that gesture he could feel her presence. Then he turned, went heavily down the steps, returned to his car.