“Are you all right?” Abe asked with a look of concern.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Mark answered vaguely, looking numb. His face even looked somewhat gray. He seemed exhausted and pale, and Abe was genuinely worried about him.

“You look like you've been sick. You've dropped a lot of weight.” Mark nodded, and didn't respond, and then after the meeting, he felt like a jerk for not reacting to Abe's concern. Abe was going to be the second person he'd told, the first being his therapist. He hadn't had the guts, or the stomach, to tell anyone else. It was too humiliating, it made him seem like such a loser, and he worried that people would think he'd been a shit to her. He wanted to explain, and he was torn between wanting to whine, and needing to hide.

“Janet left,” Mark said cryptically as they left the meeting side by side. It was nearly six o'clock. He hadn't heard half of what was said, and Abe had noticed that too. Mark looked like he was having an out-of-body experience, and felt like it. But at first, Abe didn't get his drift.

“On a trip?” he asked, looking confused.

“No. For good,” Mark explained, looking grim. But in a way, it was a relief to tell the truth. “She left three weeks ago. She moved to New York with the kids. I just sold the house. We're getting a divorce.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Abe said, feeling sorry for him. The poor guy looked destroyed. But he was young, he'd find another wife, maybe even have more kids. He was a good-looking guy, Abe had always thought. “That's really rough. I didn't know.” He hadn't heard a thing, although he did a lot of accounting work with Mark's firm. But they usually talked about tax law, or their clients, not about themselves. “Where are you living now?” It was funny how men asked each other what they were doing, not how they felt.

“In a hotel two blocks from here. It's kind of a dump, but it's okay for now.”

“Do you want to go out and get something to eat?” Abe's wife was expecting him at home, but Mark looked as though he needed a friend. He did, but he felt too lousy to go anywhere. Closing on the house had made everything seem even worse. It was tangible evidence that his life with Janet was over for good.

“No, thanks.” Mark managed to force out a smile. “Maybe another time.”

“I'll give you a call,” Abe promised, and left. He didn't know whose fault the divorce was, but it was obvious that Mark wasn't happy about it. He obviously didn't have anyone else. And Abe wondered if she did, she was a great-looking girl. They had looked like the all-American couple, the boy and girl next door. Both blond, both blue eyed, and their kids looked like poster children for the American way of life. They all looked like they were off a farm in the Midwest, although he and Janet had grown up within blocks of each other in New York. They had gone to all the same high school dances, but never met. She had gone to Vassar and he to Brown, and they finally met at Yale Law School. It was the perfect life. But no more.

Mark stayed at the office shuffling papers on his desk until eight o'clock that night, and then finally went back to the hotel. He thought about picking up a sandwich on the way, but he wasn't hungry. Again. He had promised both his doctor and his therapist that he would try to eat. Tomorrow, he promised himself. All he wanted to do now was go to bed and stare at the TV. And maybe eventually sleep.

The phone was ringing when he reached his room. It was Jessica. She had had a good day at school, and gotten an A on a quiz. She was a high school sophomore, but she hated her new school. And so did Jason, he was in eighth grade. The adjustment was hard on them. Jason was playing soccer, and Jessica was on the varsity field hockey team. But she said the boys in New York were all geeks. And she was still blaming Mark for everything she didn't understand about the divorce.

He didn't tell her the house had closed that day, or that they would never see it again. He just promised that he would come to New York soon, and told them to say hi to Mom. And after he hung up, he just sat there in bed, staring at the TV, with tears rolling silently down his cheeks.





Chapter 3

Jimmy O'Connor was lean and athletic and strong. He had broad shoulders and powerful arms. He was a golfer and a tennis player. He had gone to Harvard and been on the ice hockey team. He had been a superb athlete in school, and still was. And he was a great guy. He had gone to graduate school, and got a master's in psychology at UCLA, while he did volunteer work in Watts. He had gone back the following year to get a degree in social work, and had never left Watts. At thirty-three, he had a life and a career he loved, and still managed to get a little time in for sports. He had organized a soccer team and a softball team for the kids he worked with. He placed kids in foster care, and removed them from abusive homes, homes where they were beaten or molested or abused. He carried children who had had bleach poured on them, or been burned, in his own arms to emergency rooms, and more than once he had brought them home until the right foster home could be found. The people he worked with said he had a heart of gold.

He had classic black Irish looks, jet-black hair, ivory skin, and huge dark eyes. There was an almost sensual quality to his lips, and he had a smile that knocked women off their feet. It had knocked Maggie off hers. Margaret Monaghan. They were both from Boston, met at Harvard, and had come to the West Coast together when they graduated. They'd been living together since junior year. And grousing about it every inch of the way, they had gone to City Hall and gotten married six years before. Mostly to get their parents off their backs. It didn't make much difference to either of them, they claimed, and then grudgingly they admitted to each other that it was not only okay, it was nice. Getting married had been a good thing.

Maggie was a year younger than Jimmy and the smartest woman he'd ever known. There wasn't a woman like her in the world. She had a master's in psychology too, and was thinking about getting a Ph.D. She wasn't sure. And like him, she worked with inner-city kids. She wanted to adopt a flock of them, instead of having kids of their own. He was an only child, and she was the oldest of nine. She was from good, solid Boston Irish stock, originally from County Cork. Her parents had been born in Ireland and had powerful brogues which she imitated flawlessly. Jimmy's family had left Ireland four generations before. He was a distant cousin of the Kennedys, which she had teased him about mercilessly when she found out, and called him “Fancy Boy.” But she kept the information to herself, she just liked to rattle his cage. About anything and everything. He loved that about her. Brilliant, irreverent, beautiful, brave, with fiery red hair and green eyes, and freckles everywhere. She was his dream woman, and the love of his life. There wasn't a single thing he didn't like about her, except maybe the fact that she couldn't cook and didn't care. So he cooked for both of them, and was proud of the fact that he was a pretty decent cook.

He was packing the kitchen, and his frying pans, when the building manager rang the bell and walked in. He shouted out a greeting so Jimmy would know he was there. He didn't like to intrude, but he had to show the place. It was a tiny apartment in Venice Beach. They had loved living there. Maggie liked to roller blade down the streets, everyone did there. And they loved the beach.

Jimmy had given notice the week before, and was moving at the end of the month. He didn't know where. Just not there. Anywhere but there.

The building manager was showing the apartment to a young couple who said they were getting married. They were both wearing jeans and sweatshirts and sandals, and to Jimmy they seemed innocent and young. They were in their early twenties, had just graduated from college and had come from the Midwest. They were in love with LA and they thought the apartment was great. They thought Venice was the best. The building manager introduced them to Jimmy, and he nodded and shook hands, and went back to his packing, and left them to look at the apartment on their own. It was small, and in good order. There was a small living room, and a tiny bedroom, barely bigger than the bed, a bathroom you had to stand on each other's shoulders to use together, and the kitchen where he was packing. It had worked for them, they hadn't needed more space than that, and Maggie had always insisted on paying her half of the rent and couldn't afford more. She was stubborn about things like that. They had split all their expenses in half since the day they met, even after they were married.

“I'm not going to be a kept woman, Jimmy O'Connor!” she had said, imitating her parents' brogue, as her flame-colored hair danced around her face. He wanted to have babies with her just so he could have a house full of kids with red hair. They'd been talking about getting pregnant for the past six months, but Maggie also wanted to adopt. She wanted to give kids a better life than they might have had otherwise.

“How about six and six?” Jimmy teased. “Six of ours, six adopted. Which ones do you want to support?” She had conceded that she might be willing to let him support the kids, some of them at least. She couldn't afford to have as many as they wanted. But they had often talked about five or six.

“Gas stove?” the prospective tenant asked with a smile. She was a pretty girl, and Jimmy nodded, without saying more. “I love to cook.” He could have told her he did too, but he didn't want to engage in conversation with them. He just nodded and kept on packing, and five minutes later they left. The building manager called out thank you and Jimmy heard him close the door, and then muffled voices in the hall. He wondered if they were going to take the apartment. It didn't really matter. Someone would. It was a nice place, the building was clean, and they had a good view. Maggie had insisted on a view, although it had stretched her budget, but there was no point living in Venice if you didn't have a view, she had said with the brogue again. She played with the brogue a lot. She had grown up with it, and it was familiar to her, and always amused him. Sometimes they went out for pizza and she spent the entire dinner pretending to be Irish, and everyone was fooled. She had taught herself Gaelic too. And French. And wanted to learn Chinese, so she could work with immigrant children in the Chinese neighborhoods. She wanted to be able to talk to the kids.

“He's not very friendly,” one of the new tenants whispered. They had conferred in the bathroom and decided to take the place. They could afford it, and they loved the view, even if the rooms were small.

“He's a good guy,” the building manager said protectively. He had always liked them both. “He's had a tough time,” he said cautiously, not sure if he should tell them, but they'd hear it anyway from someone else. Everyone in the building loved the O'Connors, and he was sorry to see Jimmy go, but he understood. He would have done the same thing.

The new tenants had wondered if he was being evicted or asked to leave, he had looked so unhappy and almost hostile as he packed up his stuff.

“He had a beautiful young wife, a terrific girl. Thirty-two years old, with bright red hair, smart as a whip.”

“Did they break up?” the woman asked innocently, feeling slightly more sympathetic. Jimmy had looked almost fierce to her as he shoved his skillets into a cardboard box.

“She died. A month ago. Terrible thing. A brain tumor. She started having headaches a few months ago, she said they were migraines. Three months ago they put her in the hospital for tests, brain scans, I guess. MRIs, CAT scans, whatever they do. She had a lot of tests. They found a brain tumor, they tried to operate but it was too big, and it had spread all over the place. She was dead in two months. I thought it was going to kill him too. I've never seen two people more in love. They never stopped laughing and talking and kidding around. He just gave me notice last week. He says he can't stay, it makes him too sad. I feel so bad for him, he's such a good man.” The building manager had tears in his eyes.

“How awful!” the woman said, feeling tears sting her eyes too. It was a terrible story, and she had noticed photographs of the two of them all around the apartment. They looked happy and in love in the pictures. “What a terrible shock for him.”

“She was very brave. Right up until the last week, they went on walks, he cooked dinner for her, he carried her down to the beach one day because she loved it so much. It'll be a long time before he gets over it, if he ever does. He'll never find another girl like her.” The building manager, who was both known and beloved for his gruffness, wiped a tear from his eye, and the young couple followed him downstairs. But the story haunted them for the rest of the day. And late that afternoon, the building manager slipped a note under Jimmy's door to tell him the young couple had taken the apartment. He was off the hook in three weeks.