Scott Turow - Personal injuries

"It's Your Loss Anyway," Rainey said. "That's What He Would Tell You." Humor. Evon smiled. She was sure he would, she thought. Rainey's eyes darkened in the labor of a more serious effort.

"You Would Think I Wouldn't Mind Now. Finally. Sick And Twisted As My Body Is. But I Still Want Him. All Ways Too. I Can Still Feel That. There. And Do It. Did You Know That?"

Hardly. The astonishment must have crept through her face.

"It's The One Thing Left. I Think I'm Homier Than Ever. It Probably Sounds Vulgar. Or Perverted. But It's Not. It's Wonderful. To Feel Him Around Me. To Think He Wants Me. Even Now. So Broken And Ugly. They Say It's The Partner Who Loses Interest. But He Hasn't. And I'm So Grateful. We Love Each Other You Know."

"I know," Evon said and found a tissue to blot Rainey's tears, creeping to the pillow even while her hand clicked away on the mouse.

"He Hurt Me. Too Much. And I Hurt Him Back. We Hurt Each Other Every Way You Can. But I Love Him. And He Loves Me. I Never Knew It The Way I Did After This Happened. But That's Why I'm Living. Isn't That Strictly Amazing? I'm Not Alive Really. And I'm Still Living For Love."

The new nurse's assistant entered energetically, talking in an accent that Evon could barely decode, but she greeted Rainey lovingly and clearly knew her business. She propped up Rainey and straightened the sheets, transforming the bed in such short order that Evon was predictably embarrassed by her relative incompetence. After an uncertain moment, she leaned over the bed and embraced Rainey quickly.

Downstairs a short time later, through the large living room windows, Evon saw Robbie arrive in a long limo. His mother's younger sister from Cleveland was with him and he held tight to the older woman's arm as she wedged herself out of the car. Evon caught them in the foyer. Bobbie was pale and his features appeared loosened by a bleary uncertainty. His elderly aunt, humpbacked from age, seemed temperamental and largely unmoved by the day's proceedings. Somewhat crossly, she asked for directions to the powder room. When he returned, Robbie offered to walk Evon out. He was on automatic pilot again, talking as they drifted down the drive.

Once, he said, when he was eight or nine, his mother had taken him fishing during the white bass run up near Skageon. He'd been getting in trouble, lifting stuff from the five-and-dime, and his mother was convinced the problem was a lack of manly activity and attention. In the retelling, Robbie marveled over the sight of Estelle, who would never leave the house with so much as a wrinkle in her nylons, appearing that morning in a flannel shirt and old hat. She later told him that after two hours rocking in the river she'd become seasick to a point where suicide seemed sensible, yet she'd given him no clue that day.

They were near Evon's car, parked at the foot of the property. The neighbor's lilacs, white and soft purple, were open and as sweet on the air as cologne. His mother had been laid to rest on a glorious day. Evon turned her face up to the perfect sky and found him watching her when she looked back.

"This was spectacular of you," he said. "I can't even tell you what it means to me, I really can't. This is one of the nicest things anybody's ever done for me in my life."

She answered with the thought that had been circulating unvoiced most of the morning. "You'd have done it for me," she told him and that harp string in her center sang out, plucked by the truth. You could never count on him for honesty, assuming he even knew what it was. He was unruly and incorrigible. But if she stumbled, he'd come running. She couldn't even say for sure she'd be able to reach out when he extended a hand. But he'd be there. She wasn't going to forgive him, really. But she had to stop pretending with herself. Nine hundred people had just turned out, all there to buoy Robbie Feaver in his grief, nearly every one a friend who'd experienced his openness and the soothing warmth of his care. And she was one, too. You couldn't fight facts.

She asked how he was holding up.

"Eh," he answered, and let feeling swirl him off elsewhere for a moment.

"Losing my dad was something," she said, "but my mom, being last and my mom-I can't even imagine."

"Yeah," he said. "But I read something once and I keep thinking about it now. `Every little boy loses his mother the first time, the day he realizes he's a man."'

Evon didn't understand and Robbie said he hadn't either. Not originally. But the idea seemed to be that boys had to come to terms with the fact that they couldn't be like their mothers, they had to be somebody else. He was still and his face was heavy in the light. He didn't seem entirely happy with these thoughts.

She had decided long ago she wasn't going to be like her mother, probably because her mother had let Evon know she was nothing like her. But the notion of her mother actually disappearing from her life still seemed to suck the center out of the world. It would be as if the force of gravity, which was down there at the midpoint of the earth and which kept it from flying apart, was suddenly missing. Her mother, past seventy, still hung out her wash every day, except in blizzards, preferring the touch of mountain air to the hot breath of the dryer. In her mind's eye, Evon saw her there, with the clothespins in her mouth, securing a tattersall shirt or a sheet to the line, standing her ground, asserting her intentions, while the wash gave in and snapped on the wind.

He asked if Evon got along with her.

"Some. She judges. You're always being weighed on her scales. But you know, she's strong." Her arms went out. "She's big, You know what I mean?"

He drifted down the curb line with her. They were interrupted by a neighbor who had awaited his return before bringing another huge tray, piled up like the others with pale mounds of foods Evon had never really seen and suspected she couldn't stomach. The woman paid her respects and then proceeded up the driveway.

He hugged Evon then, before she could withdraw. That was apparently going to be standard now. She only hoped he had the good sense not to do this in front of McManis or Sennett. When he was halfway to the house, he turned and shouted as he walked backwards, just before he disappeared into shadow, "You're great. I love you, I really do."

She realized that somewhere nearby there was probably a surveillance agent, covering her. God knows what he'd seen. Or heard. That'd be some 302. `The cooperating individual then stated to UCA Miller, I love you.' Great. She'd recognize the agent by the size of the shit-eating grin he'd throw her through the driver's window. And what was she to respond? `We're just friends'?

But when she settled in the Chevette she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and spied traces of a cheerful look. How could that be, amid all this anguish and misfortune and flat-out confusion? She took herself to task, then gave up. What the hell, she thought suddenly. Really. What the hell. She put the car into gear, and felt the spry, lively wind of spring as soon as she lowered the window.

The next morning when I came in, Danny, my receptionist, had taken a message from the U.S. Attorney, Stan Sennett, asking if I could arrange to see him in my office at 12:30, with my colleague, which was how he referred to Robbie. Feaver, who was at the nursing home to begin the dismal business of sorting through his mother's effects, was cranky about being summoned, but he arrived on time, still with bleared eyes and appearing vaguely disheveled, as he'd been when I'd made a condolence call the prior evening.

"What's this about?" he asked.

I hadn't a clue.

Stan's mood, when Danny showed him in, was quite formal. He was in his usual immaculate blue suit and he took the trouble to shake Robbie's hand, which I didn't recall him bothering with before. He expressed his sympathies and, finding them tepidly received, put himself down in the maroon chair Robbie usually occupied. Sennett spent a moment arranging himself, reaching down to straighten the crease on his trouser leg, before beginning.