Running From The Law

Yes. “No.”

He walked to the end of the table, his mouth a small circle of concern. It was his strongest feature, full and sweet, and then his eyes, a deep blue behind rimless glasses. An intelligent face with a strong chin, framed by sandy brown hair. And longish sideburns, at my request.

“I’m surprised you’re home,” he said. “I thought you’d be working late.”

“Why would I do that? I worked all day, all month.”

“But you have the deposition tomorrow in Dad’s case.”

“I get to eat, don’t I? I thought we could go out to dinner. Maybe to Carolina’s for a Caesar salad. And puffy rolls and butter shaped like flowers.”

He sighed. “Sorry, honey. I ate already.”

“Where?”

“On the road.” He eased into a captain’s chair and crossed his legs. Long, thin legs, with nicely defined knees. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I love you.”

He smiled faintly. “I love you, too.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. What’s gotten into you?”

I almost laughed out loud, but it wasn’t funny. “A virus, actually. HPV. Not HIV, HPV. Human papilloma-virus. It’s a whole different thing.”

His smile faded. “Are you serious?”

“It’s highly contagious. Some people even get warts, of all things. I don’t have that strain, thank God. There are lots of strains, apparently. I know all about it, now that I have it for sure.”

“Is this a joke? Rita?” He paled under the tan he got visiting job sites. Looking up at buildings, figuring out why concrete cracked or glass panes popped out.

“Dr. Ehrlmann can’t tell for sure when I was infected because the virus can remain inactive for months or years. Even ten years, in rare cases.”

“A virus?”

“There’s no real treatment. Ehrlmann tells me that 10 percent of his patients have it. It showed up in my last Pap test, then they retested for it.”

“Are you okay? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine, but it’s a risk factor for cervical cancer, so Ehrlmann says I’ll have to have three Paps a year instead of one. He’ll monitor it. I’ll be fine.”

He raked a slim hand through his hair and it flopped back into place. “Can I do anything?”

You already did, handsome. “Now that I have it, you probably do, too. But there’s no risk factor in men, or the risk is so low it’s insignificant.”

“Risk factor for what?”

“Penile cancer.”

“What did you say?” He swallowed hard, which I enjoyed. His Adam’s apple went up and down like a little elevator.

“Penile cancer. Cancer of the penis,” I said, at risk of putting too fine a point on it.

His forehead dropped into his hands.

“It’s not going to fall off, Paul.”

He shook his head in the cup of his hands. I guessed he was mulling over the falling-off part. Clunk.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He looked up and laughed, his face flushed. “Me? Oh, I’m just peachy.” He reached across the table and grabbed my glass of wine. “May I?”

“Be my guest, but it’s jailbait.”

Paul downed the wine without noticing its youth. “You can make jokes about anything.”

Almost anything. “People who have HPV generally don’t know they have it. So they don’t know if they pass it on.”

“How do they get it?”

Did he really not know? If so, I hesitated to say it, because that would make it real. “It’s sexually transmitted,” I said anyway.

“Like gonorrhea?”

“Right, like gonorrhea, from the good old days when STDs didn’t kill you. So there’s only one outstanding question, as I see it. Where did we get a sexually transmitted disease when I have never been unfaithful to you?”

He set the empty glass down and his face fell, collapsing into deep lines around the mouth and eyes. Lines formed by forty-odd years of laughter and sorrow, both fraudulent and authentic. “What are you saying?” he asked, his tone quiet.

Watch the cards, not the player. “I’m asking you if you’re having an affair. I want you to tell me the truth.”

His mouth fell open and he was speechless. It reminded me of myself standing in front of Judge Kroungold. Suddenly I realized what had pissed my father off about my fake mourning in court. I had cheated. It wasn’t a bluff, it was a cheat. A fine line, and I hadn’t seen it. Had Paul cheated? Had he crossed the line, too?

“How can you ask me this?” he was saying.

“Tell me the truth, Paul. It’s not like we’ve been getting along so well, I know that.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m fooling around!”

“You work late a lot.”

He stood up. “So do you and I’m not accusing you of anything.”

Which is when it occurred to me. He wasn’t accusing me. It didn’t even occur to him to accuse me. Maybe because he already knew how we got it.

“Rita, I am not having an affair. I’m not, I swear it.”

I didn’t look at him. I was too busy looking at the cards.

“You must have contracted it before we met. You just said it could lie dormant for years, even ten years. You didn’t cheat on me and I didn’t cheat on you, so that’s how you got it. From before. Didn’t he say that was possible?”

“He said the odds were low.”

“But it’s possible. That’s what happened, babe.”

I nodded. I know a lot about odds. So much I still couldn’t look at him. My mind was reeling.

“Rita,” he said, touching my hand, “I love you, I swear it.”

I looked up then. His eyes were stone blue and desperate. His forehead seemed damp, but his grasp was dry and certain.

“I did not cheat on you. I would never cheat on you. You have to believe me. Do you believe me?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

I didn’t answer him. Couldn’t force out a yes, but couldn’t quite say no. A feeling of exhaustion swept over me, telling me to fold. Making me toss even a terrific hand into the muck pile. Hoping he wouldn’t turn them over like Uncle Sal.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Rita. Nothing.” Paul gave my hand a final squeeze, and oddly, I drew some comfort from it.

I needed the comfort. I had sustained a loss. I was in mourning, complete with