Stranger in Paradise

Jenn nodded.

“That, too,” she said.

Molly poured them both more coffee. Jenn added the sugar substitute and stirred slowly.

“How come you’re so interested?” Jenn said.

Molly colored a bit. Jenn squinted at her as if the room had suddenly become too bright.

“Molly?” Jenn said.

Molly was looking at the dark surface of the coffee in her cup. Jenn waited.

“I don’t feel guilty,” Molly said.

“You had an affair,” Jenn said.

Molly half-shrugged.

“Last night my husband was out of town. My mother had the kids, and I had sex with a man.”

Jenn smiled.

“Anyone I know,” she said.

“Crow.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jenn said.

“Have you ever met Crow?” Molly said.

“No, but I’ve heard.”

“And I don’t feel guilty,” Molly said.

“Except that you feel guilty,” Jenn said, “about not feeling guilty.”

Molly nodded slowly.

“I guess so,” she said.

“So why’d you sleep with him?” Jenn said.

“I wanted to.”

“Any trouble at home?”

“No,” Molly said. “I am happy with my husband. I love him. I love my kids. I love being married…. Hell, I love being a cop.”

“Lot of protect and serve there,” Jenn said.

“Maybe. But mostly it feels like I just wanted to. He is a very, very exciting man. He seems completely contained. There was no crap about love or anything. Just he wanted to have sex with me, I was a little flattered I suppose, and I wanted to have sex with him.”

“How was it?” Jenn said.

“It was fine. He’s adroit. I’m okay. And, if you’ll pardon the pun, it was a one-shot deal.”

“No commitments,” Jenn said. “No promises.”

Molly nodded.

“No when can I see you again,” Molly said. “There was something sort of honest about it.”

“One time only?” Jenn said.

“Yes,” Molly said. “He wanted to. I wanted to. We did.”

Jenn drank some coffee. Usually she was trying to figure out her own situation. This was kind of fun.

“Well,” Jenn said. “Here’s what I think. I think you did something for yourself, because it felt good. You don’t feel guilty about it, so you won’t confess to your husband—thank God. You are right where you were before Crow. And nobody has gotten hurt.”

“So how come I felt the need to confess to you?” Molly said.

“I think you were bragging,” Jenn said.

Molly reddened slightly. She laughed.

“Maybe,” she said.

“And maybe looking for a little advice from an experienced adulteress,” Jenn said.

“Maybe,” Molly said. “What’s puzzling me is, I’m an Irish Catholic mother of four and I’m not sure I can find any sense of sin in here.”

“Don’t let it make you unhappy,” Jenn said. “That would be the sin.”

Molly smiled.

“I like your theology, Jenn. I’ve committed adultery, but if I’m happy about it, I can still avoid sin.”

“Ruining a happy marriage is the sin,” Jenn said.

Molly nodded.

“And I haven’t done that yet,” Molly said.

“Not yet.”

60.

Miriam Fiedler lived on Sea Street a mile and a tenth past the Crowne Estate School in a shingle-style house with a large veranda. Jesse sat with her on the veranda and told her what he knew of her and the Crowne estate.

She looked at him as if he were speaking another language as he talked. When he was through she said nothing.

“What I want to know is where the money went,” Jesse said. “You used to be rich.”

She still looked blankly at him. And then, almost as if she were merely the conveyance for someone else’s voice, she began to speak.

“That was before I married Alex,” she said.

There was no affect in her voice. It sounded like a recording.

“I was forty-one,” she said. “My first marriage…”

They were each sitting in a wicker rocking chair. Neither of them was rocking. Jesse waited. Miriam didn’t say anything. It was as if she had forgotten what she was saying.

“And Alex?” Jesse said.

“He was a year younger,” Miriam said, “forty. He, too, had never married. I soon realized why.”

Again silence. Again Jesse prompted her.

“Why?” Jesse said.

“Alex is homosexual,” she said.

“But he married you.”

“For my money,” Miriam said.

“Which he spent?” Jesse said.

“Generally on his boyfriends,” Miriam said.

They sat quietly in their rocking chairs. Motionless. Looking at the slow unspooling of her story.

“He travels,” Jesse said after a time.

“Yes.”

“But he doesn’t work,” Jesse said.

“No.”

“And you pay.”

“He tries not to embarrass me,” she said. “That’s worth something.”

“Why not divorce him?” Jesse said.

“Then he would embarrass me.”

Jesse frowned.

“Embarrass?” he said.

“I cannot stand to be thought a dupe,” Miriam said. “I cannot stand having it revealed that I have been married all these years to a man who would only have sex with young men.”

“And spent all your money in the process,” Jesse said.

“Yes,” Miriam said.

It was the first word with a hint of feeling in it.

“If I will give him one million dollars,” Miriam said, “he will go away and get a quiet divorce—Nevada, perhaps—and I will be free of him.”

“If you had one million dollars,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

Jesse nodded and was quiet. The wind off the ocean brought with it the smell of salt and distance and infinite possibility.