Without taking his eyes off her, Adam took Ian’s hand and he made his way toward her. When he finally reached her all he could do was stand there staring up at her. Around him, the restless crowd pressed close. With a flourish of cymbals, a band began to play. Adam heard none of it. He didn’t feel Ian, tugging on his hand. He could see only Elizabeth, standing there above him.
Suddenly, as if she sensed the weight of Adam’s gaze, Elizabeth looked down. She saw him immediately. A look of shock crossed her face. It gave way quickly to an odd expression of joy and then sadness. He saw her mouth his name and he pushed his way to her. She bent down. For a moment neither of them could say anything.
“Elizabeth...how...why?”
“I never thought I’d see you again,” she said.
“I knew I would see you again,” he said quickly, without thinking. “I didn’t know when but I just knew.”
Elizabeth noticed Ian, standing behind Adam. “Is this your boy?” she asked.
Adam pushed him forward. “Yes, this is Ian,” he said. “Ian, this is...a friend of mine. Her name is Elizabeth.”
Her smile was wistful. “You said you wanted a son.” There was an awkward pause. “Is your wife here, too?” she asked.
“Yes, somewhere.”
They stared at each other. All around them, people were moving toward the bridge, a tide that threatened to carry Adam off in its wake. He gripped the railing.
Elizabeth began to search the crowd, as if looking for someone. She seemed disoriented.
“Are you here with someone?” Adam said. It was no time for small talk, yet he was afraid she might vanish somehow if he didn’t keep her here.
“Yes, my aunt. I seem to have lost her.”
Adam reached up and grabbed her hand. “Come with us.”
“What? Where?”
“Across the bridge. Let’s walk across the bridge.”
“Oh, Adam, I can’t.”
His grip tightened. “Come with us.”
She stared down at him for a long moment. Suddenly, she smiled and the melancholy dissolved from her face. Then she laughed, the same magical deep laugh Adam remembered. “Oh, what the hell,” she said. “Help me down from here.”
Adam hoisted Ian onto his shoulders and the three of them joined the human mass that was moving slowly toward the towering orange spans. A stiff wind was blowing up from the ocean as the crowd trekked north. Adam and Elizabeth walked along silently, side by side.
Adam didn’t know what to say. He felt out of sync with the buoyant crowd around him. He looked up at the fog pressing close and then he looked down over the railing, down to the green waters. He felt dizzy with wind and space.
When two girls whizzed by on roller skates Elizabeth grabbed Adam’s arm. Her touch made him pull in his breath. It brought him immediately back to earth.
“How far across is it?” she asked.
“We can go back,” Adam said.
“No, it’s wonderful out here.” She wove her arm through Adam’s, and they walked on.
Adam had millions of things he wanted to ask, things he wanted to say but he didn’t know where to start. So many years had passed -— had it been only eleven? It seemed much longer and he was different now, not the same young man who had sat at her feet and confessed his dreams. Not the same man who had been told by Charles Ingram that he had nothing to offer. He glanced at Elizabeth. And she was different, too. Still so beautiful, but subdued somehow, even sad.
Perhaps, he thought, it was only the black dress she wore. It was not a good color for her. She belonged in pinks and whites and silver.
Finally, they reached the northern end. Adam found a spot on the grass and left Ian and Elizabeth, returning with sandwiches from a lunch wagon. Ian sat in silence slightly away from Adam and Elizabeth. He nibbled on his sandwich, glancing at Elizabeth and Adam, who sat with their shoes off, barely touching their food.
“How long are you here?” Adam asked.
“A week or two,” she said. “My father thought the change of scenery would do me good.”
Adam stared at her, realizing suddenly she was very pale. “Have you been ill?” he asked.
“I’m in mourning,” she said. “My husband died three weeks ago.”
Adam was stunned. He had heard nothing about Willis Foster Reed’s death. Surely it had been in the newspapers. How had he missed it? He seldom had time to read every item in the news these days and his ongoing battle with the pressmen’s union lately demanded all his attention. He had missed the story. Willis Foster Reed was dead.
Adam glanced at Elizabeth. The words “I’m sorry” formed in his head but he couldn’t say them. It wasn’t true. He wasn’t sorry. He was...astonished, confused. Elizabeth was free. She was free and she was sitting here beside him.
“Why did you marry him, Elizabeth?” The words were out before he could think.
Her green eyes turned strangely opaque. “I had no choice, really,” she said softly.
“Yes, you did. There was me. There was us.” The words spilled out without thought.
“Oh, Adam. That was only one night, a long time ago.”
The sad finality in her voice made him fall silent for a long time. “It could have been us, Elizabeth,” he said finally. “We could have been together. I was in love with you. I wanted to marry you.”
Her eyes grew wide with astonishment. Then, abruptly, she looked away. After a moment, her eyes brimmed with tears. “Then why didn’t you fight for me?” she said.
For a moment, Adam was too stunned to say anything. “Fight for you? I did. I tried to reach you. I tried for so long to reach you, Elizabeth. I called you. I went to your aunt’s house. I followed you to Atlanta. Your father threatened to have me arrested if I didn’t leave you alone. I wrote you letters, dozens of letters. You never answered any of them.”
“I never got them, Adam,” she said softly. She looked out over the crowd, still coming across the bridge toward them. It was a long time before she spoke. “When I didn’t hear from you,” she said, “I started to think that my father was right. That you were like all the others, that you were only after my money.”
Adam’s eyes dropped to the ground. He plucked a handful of grass and watched the blades sift through his fingers and drift away on the wind. When he looked up, he saw that Elizabeth was crying.
“Why are you crying?” he asked softly.
“Because it might have been different,” she said. “If I had known that you really cared if I hadn’t listened to my father, it might have turned out different.”
In all the moments he had dreamed of her he had never imagined her crying. It was unsettling. His own emotions were a tumultuous mix —- joy over seeing her again, sadness over the lost years, and a piercing pang of guilt. The money —- it had been a factor then. He had never been able to separate what he felt for Elizabeth from the fact that she was wealthy. And even now, as he looked at her, he couldn’t separate it. Her incredible beauty still stirred him physically. But still, in the back of his mind, was the money. He stared at her, still the symbol of everything he wanted.
“It wasn’t the money,” he said. “It was you, Elizabeth. Just you.”
Her eyes were cautious, waiting. “I should have trusted you,” she said. She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and wiped her eyes. “I was so young,” she said with a sigh. “My father always said I was just a wild thing, with no sense. He wanted me to get married. He said I had to marry someone who didn’t need my money. He said it was for my own protection.”
She frowned slightly. “He kept after me, threatening to send me off to some women’s college. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get out. So I did what my father told me to do —- I protected myself. I married Willis. Needless to say, my father was very pleased with my choice.”
He stared at her. The wind whipped her red hair into a fan around her profile. “Were you happy with him?” he asked.
She brushed the hair from her
eyes. “Protection can be very expensive,” she said softly.
The light had left her eyes.
“I love you,” Adam said suddenly. “I never stopped loving you.”
She turned to him. “You have a son and a wife. It’s too late, Adam.”
“No,” he said. “I gave you up once. I won’t give you up again.”
CHAPTER NINE
Adam drove slowly along Mission Street, searching for the address. He found the number on a door sandwiched between a rundown dry-goods store and a butcher shop. He got out of the yellow Cadillac and looked up at the second floor window with its neatly painted letters: J. HILLMAN, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
Upstairs, he looked for a secretary but there was no one to be seen. An interior door opened and a young man with glasses looked out.
“Mr. Bryant?” he asked. “Please, come in.”
In contrast to the bare anteroom, the office was crammed with books. It was clean but dimly lit by an old overhead fixture. The young man extended his hand to Adam. “I’m Josh Hillman,” he said. “Please have a seat.”
Adam shook his hand and took quick stock of Hillman: about thirty, with a thatch of sandy brown hair atop an earnest face. His brown eyes were trained on Adam, also taking stock. Adam saw them flick over his expensive clothes and back to his face.
“I was very surprised when you called me yesterday,” Hillman began. “It’s not every day I get a call from someone like you, someone so well-known.”
“I appreciate your being able to fit me in.”
“That is no problem, I assure you.” Hillman sat down behind his desk. “What is it I can do for you, Mr. Bryant?”
“I need a lawyer. A good one.”
“I would imagine a man like you would have a squadron of them to help you run that newspaper of yours.”
“What I need help with has nothing to do with the Times. It’s a personal matter.”
Hillman leaned back in his chair. “A personal matter,” he said, “one requiring the utmost discretion. Something a little too touchy perhaps for the corporate boys.”
“Yes,” Adam said.
“Well, besides the fact that I’m a nobody, Mr. Bryant, why me? Did you just pull my name out of the phone book?”
“I remembered a case you handled a few years ago. You defended a longshoreman who was accused of attacking a cop during the Battle of Rincon Hill strike. I remembered your defense...brilliant. But I couldn’t remember your name so I had the clips pulled from the morgue.”
“I lost that case,” Hillman said.
“Everyone wanted the unions broken. You were fighting public sentiment, as well as some very powerful people.”
“Nonetheless, I lost.”
“It was an impressive defeat. Especially considering you were, what, twenty-seven at the time?”
“Twenty-eight. A year out of law school.” He paused. “What exactly do you want from me, Mr. Bryant?”
“As I said, I need a good lawyer. You’re right that this is something I can’t allow my usual attorneys to handle.” Adam locked eyes with Hillman. “I don’t know you but when it comes to people I rely on my instincts until I’m proven wrong. I feel like I can trust you, Mr. Hillman.”
Hillman folded his hands in front of his face. “Go on.”
“I want a divorce,” Adam said. “I know my wife won’t agree to it. I want to force the issue, whatever it takes.”
“Why do you want the divorce?”
“So I can marry someone else.” Adam told Hillman briefly about Elizabeth. “I don’t take this lightly,” he said. “I have a son to consider and I want custody because I believe his mother is turning him against me. And I’m Catholic, so I do not like the idea of excommunication. But I will do what I must to get this divorce.”
Over the bridge of his hands, Josh Hillman stared at the man across from him.
Bryant radiated such power, but it was a hard power with no warmth. This was a man, he decided suddenly, that he could respect, maybe even come to like but never be close to. His thoughts went to the task Bryant was asking him to do. He had always avoided domestic cases, and a contested divorce could be an ugly matter.
As for custody, the courts never went against the mother unless she could be proven unfit. Josh knew something about Bryant’s background. He had heard how he had wrested control of the Times away from his wife, the legal will notwithstanding. All things considered this case could make for a truly gruesome public spectacle.
He really didn’t need the hassle right now. He was struggling to build his practice, trying to develop his reputation as a crusader for the common man shut out by the legal system. He didn’t lack for clients. The problem was, he was finding, the common man was commonly broke.
It had been going on like this for four years now, and he was still heavily in debt from his law school loans. He could barely afford the rent on the office, the phone company was on his back, and he couldn’t even begin to think about paying a secretary.
He sometimes felt guilty about his preoccupation with money. His parents were German Jews who had settled in New York with virtually nothing. They had moved to San Francisco and opened a small tailor shop on Sutter Street. He was oldest of four children, the only one to go to college. When he decided on law, everyone said he was destined to do some good in the world. And he had. But he wished sometimes it were not always such a struggle.
He glanced at the photograph on his desk of his wife Anna. He didn’t long for money for himself. He wanted it for her. She deserved it after supporting him throughout law school. And a family, he wanted to give her that. She had been patient, waiting years to start a family, and now she was pregnant with their first child. He didn’t know how they were going to pay the hospital bill.
“I know this isn’t your usual line of work,” Adam said, interrupting his thoughts. “But I’ll make it worth your while. I intend to be a very important man in this state someday, perhaps in the country. If you help me with this one matter, Mr. Hillman, I promise you that you can be right by my side, as far as you want to go.”
Josh Hillman stared into Adam Bryant’s cool blue eyes -- not doubting for a second that he would do as he said -- and suddenly he had the strange sense that his life was never going to be the same.
He held out his hand. “You’ve got yourself an attorney, Mr. Bryant,” he said.
CHAPTER TEN
The performance of La Boheme was magnificent, but Adam barely paid attention. His mind was racing ahead, his nerves were wire taut.
It had been a week since his meeting with Josh Hillman, and the young lawyer had put together everything he needed to proceed with the divorce, including information that could, if necessary, cast shadows on Lilith’s character. Josh had advised Adam to convince Lilith to settle. Going to court meant an ugly protracted battle that could affect his reputation and Ian’s stability. Adam, realizing he was right, had agreed to talk to Lilith.
When he and Lilith got home, Adam went straight to the library, took off his tie and poured a brandy. He waited a half hour before he went up to Lilith’s room. She was at her dressing table, wearing only a black silk slip.
“I thought you went to bed,” she said.
“I was waiting to see you.”
“I didn’t think you knew where my bedroom was these days.”
He stood by the bed. “We have to talk, Lilith.”
She began to slowly brush her hair. “I didn’t think you even liked doing that anymore.”
“I want a divorce.”
The brush stopped in midair. Then it resumed.
“Lilith, did you hear me?”
The brush strokes grew more forceful.
“I want a divorce.”
She didn’t turn around, just continued to drag the brush through her hair with quick violent strokes.
“Our marriage is a joke, Lilith. We don’t love each other anymore —-”
She swung around and hurled the brush at him. It missed and smashed into
a lamp, shattering it. “You don’t love me! That’s what you mean!” she yelled.
“Lilith —-”
“You’ve never loved me!” She began to cry, great gasping sobs that made her bare shoulders shake. “You never, not for one moment, loved me. Don’t you think I’ve known that?”
Adam watched her, stunned by her outburst.
“You don’t care about my feelings, about what’s important to me,” she said. “You never have!”
Adam had anticipated every reaction except tears. He stood, unable to move toward her to offer comfort. “I never meant to hurt you, Lilith,” he said.
“Then why in the hell did you marry me?” she asked. When he said nothing, she picked up a handkerchief and blotted her eyes. “You married me to get the newspaper,” she said. “You made some sort of deal with my father, didn’t you? That’s all it ever was to you, just a deal.”
There was nothing he could say in his own defense. She was right.
She looked up at him, her face pale, her eyes black smudges. “I could always tell,” she said. “The way you looked through me, never at me. The way you touched me, never with warmth, never because you really wanted to. The way you made love to me. It was a duty to you, and you always held something back. Like you were waiting for something better.” She buried her face in her hands. “God, Adam, don’t you know what it’s been like? You’re so cruel sometimes, so ungiving.”
He had never seen Lilith this way, so vulnerable. It didn’t touch him so much as make him feel sad. All these years, he had assumed she was content with their arrangement. Now, for the first time he saw the pain in her eyes and a reflection of his own emptiness. Theirs had not been a marriage in any sense. It had been a sad, terrible match. Now there was nothing left to do but end it.
Lilith turned back to the mirror. He watched her reflection in the mirror as she struggled to compose herself. “I won’t give you a divorce, Adam,” she said.
The vulnerable Lilith was gone as quickly as she had come, making it suddenly easier for Adam to go on. “Lilith, what’s the point of going on like this?” he said.
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