Blanton’s Kentucky single barrel, and didn’t bother with the monogrammed cocktail
napkins his wife liked so much. He knew he needed to be medicated because Hammer
wasn’t here to hand him good news. Dear Lord, don’t let anything bad have happened to either of the boys. Did a day go by when their father didn’t worry about their partying,
and flying through life in their sports cars or Kawasaki one-hundred horsepower Jet Skis?
Please let them be okay and I promise I’ll be a better person, Cahoon silently prayed.
“I heard on the news about your …” he started to say.
Thank you. He had so much amputated, Sol. ” Hammer cleared her throat.
She sipped bourbon and was soothed by its heat.
“He wouldn’t have had a quality of life, had they been able to clear up the disease. I’m
just grateful he didn’t suffer any more than he did.” She typically looked on the bright
side as her heart trembled like something wounded and afraid.
Hammer had not and could not yet accept that when the sun rose this morning and each
one after the next, there would be silence in her house. There would be no night sounds
of someone rattling in cupboards and turning on the TV. She would have no one to
answer to, report to, or call when she was late or not going to make it home for dinner, as
usual. She had not been a good wife. She had not even been a particularly good friend.
Cahoon was struck speechless by the sight of this mighty woman in tears. She was trying
hard to muster up that steely control of hers, but her spirit simply could not take it. He
got up from his leather wing chair and dimmed the sconces on dark mahogany that he had
salvaged from a sixteenth-century Tudor manor in England. He went to her and sat on
the ottoman, taking one of her hands.
“It’s all right, Judy,” he kindly said, and he felt like crying, too.
“You have every right to feel this way, and you go right on. It’s just us, you and me, two human beings in this room right now. Who we are doesn’t matter.”
“Thanks, Sol,” she whispered, and her voice shook as she wiped her eyes and took
another swallow of bourbon.
“Get drunk if you want,” he suggested.
“We have plenty of guest rooms, and you can just stay right here so you don’t have to
drive.”
She patted Gaboon’s hand, and crossed her arms and drew a deep breath.
“Let’s talk about you,” she said.
Dejected, he got up and returned to his chair. Cahoon looked at her and braced himself.
“Please don’t tell me it’s Michael or Jeremy,” he said in a barely audible voice.
“I know Rachael is all right. She’s in her room asleep.
I know my wife is fine, sound asleep, too. ” He paused to compose himself.
“My sons are still a bit on the wild side, both working for me and rebellious about it. I
know they play hard, too hard, frankly.”
Hammer thought of her own sons and was suddenly dismayed that she might have caused
this father a moment’s concern.
“Sol, no, no, no,” she quickly reassured him.
“This is not about your sons, or about anyone in your family.”
“Thank God.” He took another swallow of his drink.
“Thank you, thank you, God.”
He would tithe more than usual to the synagogue next Friday. Maybe he would build another child care center somewhere, start another scholarship, give to the retirement
center and the community school for troubled kids, or an orphanage. Damn it all.
Cahoon was sick and tired of unhappiness and people suffering, and he hated crime as if
all of it were directed at him.
“What do you want me to do?” he said, leaning forward and ready to mobilize.
“Do?” Hammer was puzzled.
“About what?”
“I’ve had it,” he said.
Now she was very confused. Was it possible he already knew what she had come here to
tell him? He got up and began to pace in his Gucci leather slippers.
“Enough is enough,” he went on with feeling.