Page 50 of Offside

I nodded. He came to me and stopped within my reach, his hands at his sides.

"I want to show you something," I said, turning to him. "How she used to teach me. Will you stand here? Face the desk."

He looked at the space I indicated, then turned into it. I moved behind him.

"Keep your hands low. Just where they're comfortable."

He rested them near the front edge of the desk, close to his body, his right elbow at his side. I reached around his sides and laid my hands over his. I leaned my chest into him.

"This all right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I let my palms settle against the backs of his hands. I could feel their warmth and the small movement of his breath through his back. He hadn't turned to look at me. That made it easier to speak.

"She was a good teacher. I'd watch her work, but some things I couldn't get from watching. She'd stand behind me like this and guide my hands so I could feel what she meant. Where to put my fingers. The right amount of pressure."

My fingers rested along his.

"She'd talk beside my ear. I could feel her against my back. I was supposed to be concentrating on what she was teaching me. I was, but I was concentrating on her too."

Bishop's left thumb moved once against the wood. He waited for me to go on.

"I wanted her. Before either of us said anything about it. I'd get something right and she'd tell me how smart I was, and I'd feel good for the rest of the day. Sometimes I wanted her to show me again even when I understood."

I looked down at my hands on his. Remembering that pleasure was harder than telling him about the meetings. I could still feel how much I'd wanted her attention, and how young I'd been when getting it had seemed to settle every doubt I had about myself.

"I learned a lot from her. I loved being close to her. Those two things happened together, and I didn't think I had to separate them."

"And in her office?" he asked quietly.

"It still felt good when she touched me, even then. I was frightened about the review, and she came up behind me. For a minute, I thought we were going to be all right. She knew what to do. I could stop trying to work it out."

I swallowed. Bishop's hands were warm beneath mine. He hadn't moved them or asked me to hurry.

"I needed to ask what would happen if I stayed. Whether there was another way to do it. But with her hands over mine, I couldn't seem to get any of it out. I didn't want her to let go."

"You trusted her."

"I did. And I wanted her to keep wanting me. I knew how to listen to her. I was good at it. I would agree before I'd even worked out what I really thought."

I lifted my hands from his and stepped back. Bishop straightened his fingers, then turned around. He left the space between us.

For a moment I couldn't look at him. I had wanted to give him the whole truth. That included having been happy with her, and still wanting her while she helped arrange a future without me in it.

"There's something else," I said.

Bishop moved aside when I turned toward the desk. I opened the drawer. The envelope lay beneath old tax records and a packet of spare keys. It was cream paper, with my Chicago address written in Marguerite's hand. It had arrived six months after I left Rochester. The seal was still unbroken.

I placed it on the desk where we could both see it.

"She wrote to me. I've never opened it."

Bishop looked at the envelope and then at me. "Do you think the answer's in there?"

"I used to."

I could open it. I could find an apology or a justification, a confession or another offer of protection. Marguerite might explain why she'd accepted a solution that removed me and left her authority intact. Nothing inside the envelope could tell me what I'd wanted when I was twenty-six. I picked up the letter. For one second, Bishop's attention tensed, as if he expected me to tear the seal.