The Final Judgment (14 page)

“I’ve always felt sorry about it.” Her voice was tentative. “Seeing you, I’m more sorry than ever.” He looked at her now. “Why is that?”

“Because I remember how fond of you I was.” Jackson’s eyes narrowed in thought, perhaps in remembered pain. “I didn’t know what to do with it: ‘Don’t call, don’t write, don’t try to see me—I’m never coming back.” I felt helpless.” He shrugged. “Helpless, and inadequate.” He spoke the words without emphasis or inflection. But Caroline felt how badly she had hurt him. She shook her head. “What’s so hard for me to explain is that it wasn’t about you—which, I know, only makes it worse. Because how I did it wasn’t kind. But I wasn’t a kind person then. Or, perhaps, now.” Jackson turned to her with questioning eyes. “All that you said then was that it was necessary. As if, somehow, you had no choice but to do everything the way you did.” He paused, and said in a lower voice, “All these years, I’ve wondered what it could possibly have been. You didn’t just

leave me—you left a place, a family, a life you had all planned out for yourself.”

“Which is why you can believe me, Jackson. It wasn’t about you.” He turned from her, gazing at the bright surface of the water. “You know,” he said quietly, I finally asked your father why. When I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore.” Caroline felt a tightness in her chest. “And what did he say?”

“That you had your reasons, and that they were your own. And that, in his own mind, there was nothing he could do to ever get you back. It was as if I only reminded him of someone he wanted to forget. After that, I rarely saw him.” He faced her again, voice quiet. “What happened to change you, Caroline?” Caroline gave a deprecating smile. “Please, I don’t want to be one of the self-regarding, self-referential singles to whom every tremor of their youth is worthy of a coming-of-age novel. That would be an embarrassment worse than shame.” Jackson did not smile. Simply studied her for a time and then said softly, “You didn’t ask for this conversation, Caroline. I did.” Caroline’s eyes were grave now. “If talking about my family made any sense, Jackson, I would. But it doesn’t. You’ll just have to believe me and, I hope, accept my apology. If it’s not too late for that.” Jackson seemed to consider her. “No,” he said at last. “It’s not too late.” In the silence, they looked at each other across the dinghy. “I think I’ll toss out a line,” Caroline said.

They fished together. To Caroline, the moments had a timeless quality, a ritual shared with a friend, that one could slip into within moments after years apart. “So you want a judgeship,” she said finally. “Uh-huh.” He paused. “Trying cases is a young man’s game, I’m beginning to think. And I believe—hope—that I

have the right temperament to run a trial.” He smiled briefly. “Not like you, of course.” Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Showy, you mean?” He gave her a first half grin, the one she remembered. I was thinking of your admirable shyness. And, of course, your erudition. As so admirably displayed on Court TV.” He looked at her sideways. “Remember when you decided to be a judge? Tall ambitions for a woman, then. No! to mention for a teenager.”

“Yes,” she said dryly. “I was much too sure of everything. Including my absolute entitlement to what I wanted.”

“Living on Masters Hill,” he replied with equal dryness, “would tend to give you that opinion.” Silent, they shared a moment’s remembered amusement, a joke of years past. The son of the Congregationalist minister in Connaughton Falls, Jackson had never had much money; while Caroline went to Dana Hall, Jackson attended the local high school, grinding out the grades to get a scholarship to Williams. So that, on Caroline’s return each summer, Jackson would gravely inquire about life among the upper classes. But even as a teenager, Jackson seemed remarkably free of envy or rancor—between them, it had been an affectionate game. “I always wondered,” he said after a time, “how much of your ambition for a judgeship came from Channing.”

“Then? Perhaps a lot. But a long time ago it became my own ambition. So that I no longer know or care.” He fluttered his line on the water, hoping to attract some imagined trout. “It means a great deal to you, then.” Caroline stared into the distance. “More than I can tell you,” she said finally. “So much that even talking about it scares me. Like I’m going to lose it.” His face was solemn now. “This thing with Brett. You’re serious about not handling it.” Caroline felt the warmth slip from her. “Yes,” she answered. “I’m serious about not handling it.” Quiet, Caroline gazed at him. After a time, she said,

“You’d be a fine judge, Jackson. You were always fair. And, it’s clear, still are.” Jackson seemed to examine his reel. In that moment, Caroline felt the absence of a woman in his life; then was embarrassed by how little she now knew about him, how little she had asked. Especially when Jackson, in some ways, had continued to care for her. “Tell me about your marriage,” she said. Jackson reeled some line. “Just like that.”?” Caroline smiled. “Not unless you’ve thought about it. Though I figure you have by now.”

“Well, I’ve worked on my rationalizations, at least.” He leaned back against the side of the dinghy. “Carole is one of those people who light up a party—she has a great smile, a ready laugh, and new places and people are a tonic to her. At first, I was charmed: later, I came to believe it was less an attribute than a symptom.”

“How do you mean.”?”

“My version of Carole—polished through many trips to a counselor—is that she’s a discontented woman: anything in the future will always be better, because’ in the present there’s always something wrong.” He turned to her. “Do you remember saying something like that about your mother?” Caroline felt a short, painful memory. “I believed that as a teenager. I’m not sure that I do anymore.” She forced a wry note into her voice. “But on the subject of your ex-wife, Jackson, you’re a qualified adult.” He shrugged. “In any event, we were different. My life pleased me; she thought I was having all the fun. So she decided to go to law school. But once I figured out how to scrape together the money—this was early in our marriage—she decided she despised lawyers. Which I suppose I took somewhat personally.” He half sighed. “As it turned out, perhaps I shouldn’t have. Carole was just like that—charming her way into a job, finding it dreary, finding another, then quitting that one. Which, I’m afraid, became my fault.

“The weekends were like something from Despair Comics—Carole lolling in bed, and then in her robe till noon, completely affectless. Until we went to some party, and she’d light up like a bulb. The more she smiled at strangers, the more I smoldered in silent anger at what a fraud she was. Which I was too afraid to even say. Because, like so many lawyers when they’re not in court, I loathe conflict. At least the kind of conflict where you don’t have any rules.” He paused, finishing quietly: “She also had a memorably violent temper. I never learned the rules for that.”

“What happened.”?” Jackson was silent for a time. “In a way, it was such a joke,” he said at last. “Like something from The New Yorker. I had food poisoning after lunch one day, came home unexpectedly, and found her in bed with her personal trainer. It was absolutely classic Carole, right on the cutting edge—I mean, she was far too trendy to screw the guy next door, or even her therapist.” His voice filled with remembered astonishment. “And do you know what I thought? That I hadn’t seen her on top like that for years ...” Caroline began laughing. ‘i’m sorry,” she managed. “I mean, why not the gardener ... ?”

“Because we couldn’t afford one, what with paying for the trainer. Anyhow, that’s when I knew I lacked the energy to try and save the marriage—there was no goodwill left in me.” His brief smile did not quite reach his eyes. “So what I was left with was a good story. Which, before today, I’ve never told to a soul.” Caroline considered him, unsmiling now. “I suppose it felt like a somewhat hollow joke.”

“‘Hollow’ is a good word. I felt empty—that I had loved her enough to marry her, and then felt nothing. Not even enough to try for our daughter’s sake.” Caroline fell quiet. “Do you know what bothers me now?” Jackson said at last. “Remembering how caught up I was in my own career. That maybe I was so careless that I got Carole—our

marriage—all wrong. That at the beginning, when it still mattered, I could have done something. And that I was the greatest cause of her unhappiness.”

Caroline considered him for a time. “I wasn’t there, Jackson. But I would guess not.”

Jackson shrugged. “Well,” he said, “it’s done.”

Caroline held her rod in one hand, facing him. “How old was your daughter?”

“Eight. Not a good age.” Hand on the tiller, he looped the dinghy in a lazy circle, to keep it away from shore. “She’s sixteen now. Which, for us, ‘also seems like not such a good age.”

“How so?”

He turned to her. “Really, Caroline, how many bad dinners with divorced men have you suffered through? Listening to these stories about children you don’t know and,

after you’ve heard them, don’t care to know.”

Caroline smiled. “Not nearly enough.”

“I’ll keep the story brief, then—it’s hardly original, so that won’t be hard. Carole made Jenny her little confidante, a surrogate adult. I wasn’t a strong enough—perhaps a frequent enough—presence to overcome that.” He shrugged. “Our relationship is more amiable now. But she is sixteen—her priorities are school, friends, boyfriend, and, of necessity, dealing with her mother. Which leaves Dad somewhere down the list, understandably enough.” He smiled a little. “Aren’t you glad you asked?”

“Yes, actually.” Caroline paused. “I’ve always wondered what I missed, not having children. I suppose it depends on the circumstances.”

His smile was more genuine. “It depends on the day. Even so, I wouldn’t do without her.”

Why? Caroline wondered. For a moment, despite everything, she envied Jackson this feeling. It was not a thought she could express.

They lapsed into silence. Caroline reeled her line in, flicked it again. The instinctive ease of things surprised her. The quiet between them felt deeper, sadder, surer.

There was a sudden jerk on the line.

”Jesus,” Caroline said. “A fish.”

As the line pulled away, Jackson turned to her, grinning. “That was the idea, wasn’t it? Do you remember what to do?”

“Of course,” she snapped, and jerked the rod to one side, holding the reel tight. From the side, Jackson watched with amused interest.

Whatever the fish was, Caroline realized, it was strong. She remembered the pitfalls—breaking the line, letting her quarry slip the hook—and as the pole bent with the straggle of the unseen fish, she took in the slack, wondering whether it was bass or trout. “Gently,” Jackson murmured.

The line drew closer, shortened in the water. And then the fighting fish broke the surface of the lake. Its colors glistened in the sun.

Caroline grinned. “A trout.”

Jackson cut off the motor. The pole bent to the water, Caroline leaning back. A second leap, then a third, as Caroline worked the reel, quickly now.

A sudden jerk of the pole, and then the trout lay at her feet, wide-eyed, sides puffing and trembling with the shock

of his defeat, the terrible absence of water.

“A beauty,” Jackson said.

Caroline gazed down at the trout. And then, with still expert fingers, she carefully removed the hook.

For a moment, she held the writhing trout in both hands. And then she half stood, tossing him above the water—a glistening flash of rainbow, silver, and then he disappeared.

Together, they watched the ripples spread across the water.

“I’m glad we came,” she said.

Jackson smiled a little. After a moment, he asked, “Care for dinner? At the Trout Club, of course. In honor of your humanitarian gesture.”

Caroline was quiet for a time. “Yes,” she answered. “I would.”

The Trout Club was a rambling one-story structure from the late nineteenth century, with canoes and kayaks on its beachfront, Adirondack chairs on the lawn, which faced the lake, and behind that, a screened porch with more chairs, lounges, and tables for cocktails and snacks. Caroline’s great-grandfather had put up money to help build it: his picture, complete with flintye eyes and a bristling mustache, was on the wall in the front room. Surrounding him were old bamboo fishing rods and photos of long-forgotten members, many of which celebrated the ancient bond between man and fish—triumphant men and the occasional woman from another era, holding aloft a bass or trout or salmon, some of extraordinary size. Caroline had come here since childhood: in her teens she had once remarked, to her father’s amusement, that to be on the wall the people had to be as dead as the fish were. Smiling, he had said that he hoped never to see his picture there. “Don’t worry,” Caroline had answered, “you won’t.” She stood in the lobby, quiet now. “It hasn’t changed,” she said at last. Jackson smiled. “This is New England. Reverse ostentation is a way of life.” It was true, of course. It took a kind of genius, Caroline thought, for a place always to seem as if it needed paint. “Do you want to savor the ambience,” Jackson asked, “or would you like a drink outside?”

“Outside, thanks. What are my choices?”

“Scotch. And Scotch.”

Caroline smiled. There was no bar; members kept liquor in their private lockers, beer and white wine in a giant refrigerator by the kitchen, maintained on the honor system. There was an ice machine on the porch. “I’ll take Scotch,” Caroline said, and picked a canvas chair on the lawn. Jackson tossed his windbreaker across the back of the chair next to hers, rolled up the sleeves of his cotton work shirt, and went to fetch them drinks. He came back moments later, with an ice bucket, two dishwasher-scarred milk glasses, and a bottle of Glenlivet. “Good Scotch,” Caroline said. When he filled her glass, she did not complain. They sat there, quiet again. Caroline took her first sip, felt the whisky glow inside her. Took another, gazing across the lawn at the kayaks and canoes, the lake as it turned gray blue with the sun of an early summer evening. “Amazing,” she said. “What is?”

“To be here at all.” He turned to her, as if trying to decipher her tone of voice. “Does it seem that strange?”