"Of course you are in trouble," Dorfman snorted. "You have been in trouble all week. You only noticed now?"
"They're setting me up."
"They?"
"Blackburn and Meredith."
"Nonsense."
"It's true."
"You believe Blackburn can set you up? Philip Blackburn is a spineless fool. He has no principles and almost no brains. I told Garvin to fire him years ago. Blackburn is incapable of original thought."
"Then Meredith."
"Ali. Meredith. Yes. So beautiful. Such lovely breasts."
"Max, please."
"You thought so too, once."
"That was a long time ago," Sanders said.
Dorfman smiled. "Times have changed?" he said, with heavy irony. "What does that mean?"
"You are looking pale, Thomas."
"I can't figure anything out. I'm scared."
"Oh, you're scared. A big man like you is scared of this beautiful woman with beautiful breasts."
"Max-"
"Of course, you are right to be scared. She has done all these many terrible things to you. She has tricked you and manipulated you and abused you, yes?"
"Yes," Sanders said.
"You have been victimized by her and Garvin."
"Yes."
"Then why were you mentioning to me the flower, hmm?"
He frowned. For a moment he didn't know what Dorfman was talking about. The old man was always so confusing and he liked to be-
"The flower," Dorfman said irritably, rapping his knuckles on the wheelchair arm. "The stained-glass flower in your apartment. We were speaking of it the other day. Don't tell me you have forgotten it?"
The truth was that he had, until that moment. Then he remembered the image of the stained-glass flower, the image that had come unbidden to his mind a few days earlier. "You're right. I forgot."
"You forgot." Dorfman's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "You expect me to believe that?"
"Max, I did, I-"
He snorted. "You are impossible. I cannot believe you will behave so transparently. You didn't forget, Thomas. You merely chose not to confront it."
"Confront what?"
In his mind, Sanders saw the stained-glass flower, in bright orange and purple and yellow. The flower mounted in the door of his apartment. Earlier in the week, he had been thinking about it constantly, almost obsessing about it, and yet today
"I cannot bear this charade," Dorfman said. "Of course you remember it all. But you are determined not to think of it."
Sanders shook his head, confused.
"Thomas. You told it all to me, ten years ago," Dorfman said, waving his hand. "You confided in me. Blubbering. You were very upset at the time. It was the most important thing in your life, at the time. Now you say it is all forgotten?" He shook his head. "You told me that you would take trips with Garvin to Japan and Korea. And when you returned, she would be waiting for you in the apartment. In some erotic costume, or whatever. Some erotic pose. And you told me that sometimes, when you got home, you would see her first through the stained glass. Isn't that what you told me, Thomas? Or do I have it wrong?"
He had it wrong.
It came back to Sanders in a rush then, like a picture zooming large and bright before his eyes. He saw everything, almost as if he was there once again: the steps leading up to his apartment on the second floor, and the sounds he heard as he went up the steps in the middle of the afternoon, sounds he could not identify at first, but then he realized what he was hearing as he came to the landing and looked in through the stained glass and he saw
"I came back a day early," Sanders said.
"Yes, that's right. You came back unexpectedly."
The glass in patterns of yellow and orange and purple. And through it, her naked back, moving up and down. She was in the living room, on the couch, moving up and down.
"And what did you do?" Dorfman said. "When you saw her?"
"I rang the bell."
"That's right. Very civilized of you. Very non-confrontational and polite. You rang the bell."
In his mind he saw Meredith turning, looking toward the door. Her tangled hair falling across her face. She brushed the hair away from her eyes. Her expression changed as she saw him. Her eyes widened.
Dorfman prodded: "And then what? What did you do?"
"I left," Sanders said. "I went back to the . . . I went to the garage and got in my car. I drove for a while. A couple of hours. Maybe more. It was dark when I got back."
"You were upset, naturally."
He came back up the stairs, and again looked in through the stained glass. The living room was empty. He unlocked the door and entered the living room. There was a bowl of popcorn on the couch. The couch was creased. The television was on, soundless. He looked away from the couch and went into the bedroom, calling her name. He found her packing, her open suitcase on the bed. He said, "What are you doing?"
"Leaving," she said. She turned to face him. Her body was rigid, tense. "Isn't that what you want me to do?"
"I don't know," he said.
And then she burst into tears. Sobbing, reaching for a kleenex, blowing her nose loudly, awkwardly, like a child. And somehow in her distress he held his arms out, and she hugged him and said she was sorry, repeating the words, again and again, through her tears. Looking up at him. Touching his face.
And then somehow . . .
Dorfman cackled. "Right on the suitcase, yes? Right there on the suitcase, on her clothes that were being packed, you made your reconciliation."