Fifty-Eight

FIFTY-EIGHT

THE DAY I TAKE him home from the hospital Ben Kalinsky continues to tell me he won't let me end our relationship.

"What if I told you I'm just not into you anymore?"

Dr. Ben grins. "Then I'd be convinced you'd suffered a traumatic brain injury."

He's recovering nicely, Dr. Byrne has told him, but he still needs rest, and a lot of it.

Of course he ignores her prescription of no work for at least a week and makes his first trip into the office this afternoon.

"If you'll be serious for a minute," I say, "I can't live my life worrying about protecting you."

"Not asking you to," he says. "And by the way? You couldn't protect Jimmy from getting shot and nearly run over. You couldn't protect yourself when your house got broken into. You couldn't protect your client from getting shot when he was going for a beach walk. Should I go on?"

We're in his living room. Maybe he thinks he's eventually going to talk me out of this, and that we'll be back together when he's fully recovered. But he can't because I'm not going to let him. It may not be the best thing for him. But it's the safest.

"You got shot in the head because of me," I tell him now. "Now somebody takes a baseball bat to the same head. I'm just trying to save you…"

"What, from myself?"

"From my self!"

"I knew what I was signing up for."

"The hell you did, doc. Even I didn't know what you were signing up for, and that means on top of my cancer."

He shakes his head, once, twice, very slowly and very carefully. "Not accepting your proffer, to put it in legal terms."

"Not a proffer. It's an offer I'm not letting you refuse."

He gets out of his chair and comes over and leans down and kisses me lightly on the lips. There's still a small bandage near his hairline.

"If I was going to run, I would have run when you finally told me about your diagnosis."

He kisses me again.

"Counsel is leading the witness, Your Honor."

He smiles. It is still some smile. "Now please go into the kitchen and start banging around some pots and pans for that dinner you promised me. Doing that woman's work thing."

"Sexist pig."

"What are you going to do, dump me?"

"I give up."

"Finally."

After my world-famous chicken pot pie, and after I've insisted on cleaning the kitchen, he kisses me one more time. What I've always thought of as his heater. When I finally pull back, I say, "Not tonight, dear. You have a headache."

I'm driving home past the East Hampton Golf Club when I get an incoming call.

UNKNOWN.

I answer it anyway.

"It's Claire."

Her voice is barely above a whisper, as if she's afraid of being overheard.

"What's wrong?"

"You told me to call if I was ever in trouble," she says. "I think there might be someone in the house."

"Then call 911 and get out of there," I say, letting her hear the urgency in my own voice. "I'm on my way."

When she speaks again, it's clear she's no longer talking to me.

"What are you doing here?"

Then the line goes dead.