'No. Brad's been married several times; I only knew the next woman. But you must understand that the Brad I knew needed to be with a woman. Since many women would find him initially attractive, but finally insufficient, I imagine there have been quite a few.'
'His parents alive?'
'No.'
'You mentioned a sister, went to Bryn Mawr.'
'Yes, Nancy.'
'Know where she is?'
'Bedford. She's married to a dentist.'
'Know her married name.'
'Ginsberg.'
'I guess she's not trying to pass,' I said.
Susan didn't comment. She ate a clam instead.
'Any other family,' I said.
'He has children,' Susan said, 'from other marriages. I don't know anything about them.'
We finished our supper. I got out and emptied the clam cartons and other debris into the trash barrel. The rain seemed a little harder now, and the wet smell of it mingled with the strong smell of the salt marsh. I stood for a minute and smelled it, and felt the rain, and looked at the swamp water, its obsidian surface dappled by the rain. Then I took a deep breath and got back in the car.
'Obviously none of my business,' I said. 'And obviously a sore spot, but if you knew what he was, why did you marry him?'
Susan didn't reply for a while. I could see her imposing control on herself. I knew her so well I could think along with her. Hard questions were part of what she did every day. If she could regularly ask them, she ought to be able to answer one or two. And even though the question was out of line, she had opened the door to all of this by inviting me in that evening when we sat in the Bristol Lounge listening to music and liking each other. She imposed patience upon herself and it showed in the tone of her answer.
'Of course I didn't know his failures when I married him,' she said. 'He seemed a great catch. Football player. Big man on campus. Money in the family. I learned of his shortcomings during our marriage and finally they were enough to cause our divorce.'
'How about me?' I said.
'Excuse me?'
'What was there about me that made you love me, besides my reputation as a world-class lover?'
'I didn't know that about you,' she said.
'But you soon learned, didn't you, my proud beauty.'
'Oh my,' she said.
'But besides that?'
'I've never thought about it,' she said.
'Aren't you in the think-about-it business?' I said.
'About other people,' she said softly.
I waited. This was risky. But the whole thing was risky. If I was going to help her get through this, I needed her to think about herself. She was smart as hell, and she was tough as hell, and if she thought about herself in this context for a while good things would emerge… Maybe. The rain came down hard on the roof of the car. A station wagon with fake wood sides pulled in beside us and a man and woman and three children piled out and scooted through the rain for Farnham's. Far out at the edge of the salt marsh I could see the running lines of a power boat as it edged along toward where Hog Island would have been had the day been sunny and clear. I waited. Me and Carl Rogers.
'You were, are, the most dangerous person I've ever known,' she said.
''That was it?'
'I don't know. That's what seems to bubble up when I think about you. I'd never met anyone like you. You were obviously a good man, and you were nice, and I found you attractive, but you were so dangerous,' she said.
'So it wasn't just my open Irish punim.'
'No.'
'Did you know that when you, ah, consummated our relationship?'
'I knew it the second time around.'
'After Russell,' I said.
'No, after Dr. Hilliard.'
'The San Francisco shrink.'
'Yes. It was Russell's attraction too.'
