A Fatal Debt

“That’s pretty harsh.”

“Is it? Men are assholes. Everything had to revolve around him, the great financier. He’s never cared about anyone except himself.”

We walked for a while, past boulders massed into artificial mounds and a tourist horse and buggy jingling around the park. I agreed with her about Harry-he was a narcissist-but I bridled at how she’d phrased it, bundling all men into the same category. I was devising a retort when she spoke again.

“He’d already betrayed her,” she said.

As she said the words, I went rigid with anxiety. It was the thing I’d been searching for, the truth that had been hidden from me, but I knew immediately in that moment that I didn’t want to hear it from her after all-I didn’t want Harry’s secret to get in the way of our relationship. Someone else should tell me, I thought, but it was too late.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think? He’d had an affair. I saw them together. She was a banker, had a place in Sag Harbor. He got me to drive her to the house when Nora was away on weekends. He didn’t even have enough respect for his wife to keep it a secret. You could tell by the way he looked at her.”

“You could tell? Is that it?” The words came out more fiercely than I’d intended-I was still irked by her condemnation of my sex.

“No, that isn’t it, Ben,” she said sharply. It was the first time she’d called me by my name. “There was something else. She knew the house. When we went in, she knew exactly where to go. And I could have sworn she had a key. When we got to the door, she reached into her bag for something, then stopped as if she’d just realized I was there.”

I heard her gulp in the darkness and realized she was upset. I sensed there was something more to her emotions than just the murder. She appeared to have taken Harry’s betrayal of Nora personally, as if he’d hurt her too.

“I’m sorry, A

“It’s okay,” she said, waving away my attention and composing herself. “The thing is, I did something I shouldn’t. Can I trust you?”

“Of course,” I lied again.

“There was something strange about the way they were together. He said she was there for work, but it didn’t look like that. I went for a walk and came along the beach at the back of the house. I climbed the dune stairs to take a look.”

Her words brought back the memory of ascending the steps myself after Harry and seeing the rear elevation of the house, with Nora sitting on a sofa reading a magazine. From that spot, you could see anything that was going on inside the house.

“They were in his study. Harry was in a chair, bending forward, his head in his hands. He looked as if he was crying. I’d never seen him like that. She was kneeling in front of him and she had her hands around his head as if she was trying to comfort him. I think she was crying, too. I watched them for a minute and they hardly moved. I went back down the stairs before they saw me.”

“When was this?”

“A month ago.”

A month. One week before Nora had found Harry in that same room with a gun and had brought him to the psych ER. Whatever had gone on between him and that woman must have still been on his mind. What was more, he’d never told me about it, and I couldn’t have known. Harry had lied to me, I realized, but instead of being disappointed I felt a glimmer of relief.

“Does Mrs. Shapiro know?”

“I don’t think she does. She keeps saying how sorry she is for him, what an awful time he’s had. If she only knew. It makes me so angry. You’re the only person I’ve told, Ben. You have to keep it secret.”

A

She wasn’t the only one who was upset. Her description of Nora’s faith in Harry had evoked a memory in me of my mother’s refusal to condemn my father. The compulsion she’d had to think the best of him had infuriated me. It was something A

“Who was this woman?” I asked.

“Do you promise me?” she insisted.

“I promise.” I didn’t want to bind myself, and A

“All I know is her name, Lauren Faulkner, and that she’d worked with him once. He told me that. She didn’t say much in the car, just hello, thank you. Oh, and she loved being by the sea, I remember her saying. She was there an hour and then I drove her home. At least I didn’t catch them fucking.”

We looped across the park and returned to Columbus Circle, where we stopped on the side of Sixty-first. She looked up at me, and the lights shining off the towers lit her face like a clown’s makeup.

“I’d better go,” she said. “I like talking to you.”

She faced me, placed one hand on my shoulder, and placed her lips briefly on mine. Then she turned and bolted through a gap in the traffic before I had a chance to respond, leaving that sweet memory behind.

13

I can’t recall everything that happened next, but I know I stood there thinking to myself for a couple of minutes, trying to process both the kiss and what she’d told me. Then I turned back the way we’d walked. I’ll cross the park and get the subway at Fifty-ninth and Lex, I thought. My mind was crammed with emotions-happiness at being with her, excitement at her revelation, and guilt at having deceived her.

I wandered back up to Sixty-third and went through a gap in the boundary wall and down the slope toward the joggers ru

It was quiet there, although the lights of the towers on Central Park South rose over the trees and made a vast stone mound to my right shine in the dark. There weren’t many people in the park, and I wasn’t noticing much. My mind was caught up in what A

I was worried about A

Cars were passing along a road near the east side of the park, and I walked through a tu