"So you had an eventful afternoon," says Barbara.
"And there was more," I say. The declaration brings Anna's kiss back to mind, and fearing I may have flushed, I go on quickly to recount my meeting with Raymond. "Koll has offered to drop out of the primary."
Koll is N. J. Koll, both a legal genius and a vainglorious meathead, who once sat with me on the court of appeals. N.J. is the only opposition I expect in the primary early next year. Having the party's endorsement, I am sure to clobber Koll. But it will take a considerable investment of time and money. Because the Republicans so far have not even fielded a candidate in this one-party town, N.J.'s withdrawal would be tantamount to my winning what even the newspapers openly refer to as the "white man's seat" on the state supreme court, in distinction from the two other Kindle County seats customarily occupied by a female and an African-American.
"That's great!" says my wife. "What a nice birthday present."
"Too good to be true. He'll only drop out if I support his reappointment to the court of appeals as chief judge."
"So?" asks Barbara.
"I can't do that to George. Or the court." When I arrived on the appellate court, it was a retirement home for party loyalists who too often appeared amenable to the wrong kinds of suggestions. Now, after my twelve years as chief, the State Court of Appeals for the Third Appellate District boasts a distinguished membership whose opinions appear in law school texts from time to time and are cited by other courts around the country. Koll, with his zany egocentricities, would destroy everything I've accomplished in no time.
"George understands politics," says Barbara. "And he's your friend."
"What George understands," I counter, "is that he deserves to be chief. If I helped put Koll in his place, all the judges would feel I stabbed them in the back."
My son had Koll in class at Easton Law School, where N.J. is a revered professor, and reached the standard conclusion.
"Koll's a fucking nut-job," Nat says.
"Please," says Barbara, who still prefers decorum at the dinner table.
N.J., a person of little subtlety, backed up his offer with a threat. If I don't accede, he'll change parties and become the Republican candidate in the general election in November '08. His chances will be no better, but he will increase the wear and tear on me and exact maximum punishment for not making him chief.
"So there's a campaign?" Barbara asks, somewhat incredulous when I explain all this.
"If Koll wasn't bluffing. He might decide it's a waste of time and money."
She shakes her head. "He's spiteful. He'll run for spite." From the lofty distance she maintains on my universe, Barbara sees deeply, like a kingfisher, and I know instantly she's right, which brings the conversation to a dead end.
Barbara has brought home the remains of Anna's carrot cake, but we are all still recovering from the sugar coma it nearly induced. Instead we clear and wash. My son and I spend another twenty minutes watching the Trappers boot away a ball game. The only time I ever spent with my father, outside the family bakery, where I worked from the age of six, was moments once or twice a week when he would allow me to sit beside him on the divan while he drank his beer and watched baseball, a game for which he had an unaccountable fascination as an immigrant. It was more precious than treasure when, a couple times a night, he would venture a comment to me. A fine player in high school, Nat seemed to abandon any interest in baseball when he lost his starting position junior year. But by whatever transitivity there is across the generations, he will almost always spend a few minutes beside me in front of the TV.
Aside from our expressions of anguish about the ever-hapless team, or conversations about law, Nat and I do not tend to talk. This is in deliberate contrast to Barbara, who beleaguers our son with a daily call, which he generally limits to less than a minute. Yet it would violate some essential compact if I did not probe his current state now, even knowing he is going to deflect my questions.
"How's your note coming?" Nat, who aspires to be a law professor, is going to publish a student article in the Easton Law Review about psycholinguistics and jury instructions. I have read two drafts and cannot even pretend to understand it.
"Just about done. In type this month."
"Exciting."
He nods several times as a way to avoid more words. "Okay if I go up to the cabin this weekend?" he asks, referring to the family place in Skageon. "I want to get away to look over the note one more time." It is not my place to ask, but it's nearly certain Nat will go only with his favorite companion-himself.
With two gone in the ninth, Nat has finally had enough. He calls out his good-byes to his mother, who by now is zoned in to the Net and does not answer. I close the door behind him and go to find my briefcase. Barbara and I have resumed our normal mode. There is no sound, no TV, no dishwasher rumbling. The silence is the absence of any connection. She's in her world, I'm in mine. Not even the radio waves that come out of deep space could be detected. Yet this is what I chose and more often still believe I want.
In my little study, I download from my flash drive and mark up draft opinions, then check my personal e-mail, where I find several birthday greetings. Around eleven, I creep to the bedroom and discover that Barbara unexpectedly has remained awake. It is, after all, my birthday. And I guess I am going to be the birthday boy.
I suspect that sexual practices in long marriages are far more varied-and thus, in an abstract way, interesting-than among the couples who hook up in singles bars. From some friends our age, I hear occasional comments suggesting that sex is largely passe in their relationships. But Barbara and I have maintained a robust sex life, probably as a way to make up for the other deficits in our marriage. My wife has always been a great-looking woman and is even more striking now, when so many of her peers have been laid low by the years. Still a 1960s girl, she has allowed her tight natural curls to gray, and goes largely without makeup despite the pallor of age. But she remains a beauty, with precise features. She works out for two hours five times a week on the equipment in our basement, a routine that both counters the ailments that run in her family and keeps her girlishly shaped. I always feel the surge of male pride that comes from escorting a very attractive woman when I enter a room with her, and I still enjoy the sight of her in bed, where we find ourselves making love two or three times a week. We remember. We coalesce. It's prosaic most often, but so is much of life at its best-with the family around the table, with buddies at a bar.
Not that there will be any of that tonight. Once I'm in our bedroom, I realize I have entirely misread the meaning of Barbara waiting up. Steel hardens her face when she is upset-the jaw, the eyes-and right now, it's all iron.
I ask the simple yet eternally dangerous question: "What's the matter?"
She frumps around beneath the covers. "I just think you could've talked to me first," she says. The remark is incomprehensible until she adds, "About Koll."
My jaw actually hangs. "Koll?"
"You think this doesn't affect me, too? You made a decision, Rusty, to put me through months of campaigning, without even speaking to me. You think I'll be able to go to the grocery store after a workout with my hair plastered to my cheek and smelling like a gym sock?"
The truth is that Barbara orders most of our groceries online, but I skip the debater's point and ask simply why not.
"Because my husband would be pissed off. Especially if somebody sticks a microphone in front of my face. Or takes a picture."