18   In the morning the cramps made a return visit, but it was mercifully brief. When I arrived at the office I found that there already was a message on my answering machine. It was from George Mandros’ secretary, asking me to call back as soon as possible. When I did so, she told me that I was to come to the Courthouse to look over some paperwork related to the Peter Hart estate. It was, she told me further, a response from Peter’s siblings. It surprised me that there was a response from the three siblings. When I arrived at George’s office, the secretary handed me a FedEx envelope bearing the return address of Peter’s sister Melissa, in North Carolina. The envelope contained three letter-size sheets of paper. Two of them were notarized photocopies of declarations by Peter’s brothers, made several years before and addressed to Melissa, that they willingly and in full knowledge of the facts renounced and waived any and all interest in or claim to the estate of Peter Marshall Hart or any part thereof, in perpetuity. The third was a personal letter – with the signature notarized – from Melissa, addressed to the Honorable George Mandros, Probate Commissioner, Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco, California.   I, Melissa Caroline Hart (also known as Melissa C. Hart Higby), am taking this opportunity to inform you that, unlike the rest of the family, I never rejected my brother Peter or his lifestyle. I have been in regular, if infrequent, contact with him for the past eighteen years. Since my brothers, David and Richard, renounced any claim to Peter’s estate, I was given to understand by my attorney that, absent any issue, I would be Peter’s sole heir if he were to die intestate. I accordingly agreed with Peter that upon his demise I would immediately transfer all the assets to a nonprofit foundation to be set up by his friend Andy Stone in Peter’s memory. I was further informed by my attorney that there is precedent for such a transaction to be treated as a charitable contribution from the decedent and that therefore no estate tax would apply. The appearance of Peter’s daughter – I was going to write “putative” but the evidence that she is my niece by blood is convincing – changed the situation. I am therefore joining my brothers in renouncing and waiving any and all interest in or claim to the estate of Peter Marshall Hart or any part thereof, in perpetuity. Sincerely, Melissa C. Hart   Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The agreement between Peter and his sister, combined with his desire to keep the extent of his wealth secret, explained the absence of a will. But other gaps remained. Was Andy privy to the agreement, or even to the fact of the contact between Peter and Melissa? For that matter, was Margo? Andy had evaded my question about what might happen to the estate once his marriage to Peter was invalidated. Did he even know how rich Peter was? Margo and I had been, informally but seriously, sworn so secrecy, and I did not expect Margo to have violated her oath. Since the matter was now moot, I decided not to ask Andy about it, and to speculate about it instead. My speculation was that, if the matter of inheritance ever came up, Peter said to Andy something like don’t worry, I’ve got it covered, you’ll find out after I’m gone, or words to that effect. And, from what I now knew about Andy, he was one to take things as they came. Nothing seemed to faze him. He trusted fate. And fate seemed to have served him well, most recently in the shape of an old flame – Libby Schlemmer – that seemed on the verge of rekindling. “Mister Mandros would like to talk to you,” the secretary said when I handed the papers back to her. I stepped into George’s office. We shook hands. “I just heard from Margo,” he said. “She’s dropping the case on behalf of Andy Stone. I told her that since she had never filed, there was nothing to do. She said she knew, she was just letting me know as a courtesy. She didn’t sound happy.” “Of course not.” “Does it have to do with you?” “I don’t think so. Andy was supposed to be a poster boy for gay rights. It turns out he’s not as gay as all that. He’s just a great human being.” “Really?” “Really. You’ll find out about it. Or maybe not, if he’d rather keep it private. Anyway, in case you need DNA evidence, Andy has a lock of Peter’s hair that he’d let us use.” “I don’t think so. The case looks solid. I’m working on the decree, and I’ll be issuing it in the next few days. By Thursday, certainly. Congratulations!” “Thanks, George. I appreciate your efficiency.” “It’s justice. I just try to follow the ethics of my fellow Greek Aristotle.” “Then I appreciate it all the more. I was a philosophy minor.”   In the afternoon I called Libby. She did not pick up, and, rather than leave a message, I called Andy instead, since I was trying to reach them as a… well, a couple, since that was what they now seemed to be. Again. Andy answered the phone. “Hi, Gary. How are you feeling?” “I’m fine. It was just a little case of nervous stomach, probably from stress.” “I hope you don’t mind my asking, Gary, but have you been tested for IBS, or IBD, or whatever it’s called?” “I appreciate your asking, Andy. Actually, IBD and IBS are two different things, and I do have a slight case of IBS, IBS-hyphen-D to be precise, and you can guess what the D stands for.” Andy chuckled. “It’s so slight that it takes care of itself, and I don’t need treatment.” “The reason I asked was that a cousin of mine has it, one or the other.” Andy chuckled again. “Is it your cousin Tommy?” I asked. “You’ve heard of him! From Libby, I’ll bet.” “Yes.” “No, it’s one of my Louisiana cousins. Too much fried crawfish.” “Speaking of food, I meant it when I said soon to our dinner date.” “Okay. But guess what! The restaurant that I mentioned to you closed two years ago. I’ve been too busy to keep in touch. I’ll find another place for us, and I’ll call you. But a lot of places are closed Monday and Tuesday.” “And I’m going to Hawaii Friday. I’ll need to pack Thursday evening, so that leaves Wednesday.” “Okay. I’ll check with Libby and get back to you with the time and place.” “Okay. Thanks, Andy. Bye!”   I spent most of the afternoon making a draft of the software developer’s and his wife’s marital settlement agreement, to be submitted to the wife’s attorney, who fortunately was someone that I was on good terms with. His office is on my way home, so that I left mine early and left a copy there. He, too, had already left, but his secretary was there and placed my draft on his desk. The settlement was quite generous on my client’s part and I expected no difficulties in coming to terms quickly. I was still feeling anxious. I wondered if Chris had told Jeff about our dud of a date. I thought back to my lunch with Jeff and his idea about an opportunity to get to know each other from different perspectives than the sexual. The opportunity was there, and I bungled it. I brought up sexual matters inappropriately. But, in view of Rose’s advice, it was worse than that. I did not give Chris her due as a woman. I did not court her. I did not let her know that I found her beautiful, that she was special, that I cared for her. I acted like a jealous jerk without the standing for being one. When I got home I turned on NPR to get my mind off myself. On All Things Considered, the opening of the confirmation hearing for John Roberts was being covered. The nominee promised to be open-minded and fair, respectful of his colleagues and of precedent, and mindful that his job to call balls and strikes. The vision of a home-plate umpire in a Chief Justice’s robes was soon replaced by one of the Chief Justice in a cap and chest protector. In his final remarks Roberts dwelled on the umpire metaphor even more. I felt deeply troubled by the analogy between the arena in which human life and death are played out and the playing field of professional baseball, as though the law were just a set of – in Roberts’ words – rules of the game. I felt grave worries about the future of the Supreme Court under Roberts’ stewardship. I was sure that Margo, who is much more of a baseball fan that I am, would feel the same. I have gone to a few games, both at Candlestick Park and at Pac Bell Park, with Greg, who in this regard takes after his mother. I have also, on occasion, watched some games with him on television. That summer, though, he had hardly been home, and Barry Bonds was out with injuries, so I didn’t bother. But I suddenly remembered that on this evening Bonds was due to return to the lineup, and so I turned the radio off and the television on, just in time to see him hit a double that was almost a home run. A fan tried to catch the ball, but the umpire – the one at second base, not home plate – ruled that it was a double regardless. I wondered if John Roberts would admit rulings on fan interference into his purview. During the sixth inning my phone rang, but I didn’t answer. I heard the answering machine recording a message from Andy, giving the name and address of another African restaurant, and confirming seven o’clock on Wednesday. After the game I felt tempted to call Margo and chat with her, as I had done several times since our divorce, about baseball and the law. But the temptation did not last long. Libby Schlemmer had, intentionally or not, unmoored most of my lingering attachment to my ex-wife.   Late Tuesday morning the software developer’s wife’s attorney called me to let me know that his client had agreed to the settlement, except for some very small changes that were actually in her husband’s favor, so that I could go ahead with filing my client’s petition for dissolution of marriage. I e-mailed my client with a request to come in for a signature, and immediately got an out-of-office auto-reply telling me that he would not be available before Wednesday. Fine, I thought, let him come in Wednesday, and than I can take it to Court on Thursday when I go there to get George Mandros’ decree in re the Estate of Peter Marshall Hart. I spent most of the rest of my office time on routine busywork, intermingled with some listening, on my office radio, to the live coverage of the Roberts hearings. Gone, on this day, were the baseball metaphors. I now saw Roberts as a nimble tightrope walker, dipping ever so slightly when confronted by a challenging question from a Democrat but quickly righting himself, to the applause of his Republican fans. The new New Yorker that I found in my mailbox had several good articles about Hurricane Katrina: one about the effect of the Government’s neglect of the environment, and others about the hurricane’s impact on a pub in New Orleans and on a high-school student who moved from there to Brooklyn. There was also a four-thousand-word short story by Thomas McGuane. Enough to keep me busy all evening.   A little after eight o’clock, when I was about a quarter of the way through Cowboy, Ann Mason called. “Hi, Gary. I heard that it didn’t work out between you and Chris.” “That’s an understatement,” I said. I was curious about what she had actually heard, in all likelihood from Jeff. I thought that if I really wanted to know, I would need to ask Jeff. “That’s too bad. We had hopes for you two.” By we I presumed that she meant her and Jeff, though he had made it clear to me that the idea was Ann’s. All that day I had managed to steer my mind clear of Chris, indeed of all women. I now felt as if I had run aground on an unseen shoal, with images of Chris, Libby and Ann circling the waters around me. “I messed it up,” I said. “Maybe I’m just not ready.” “How long have you been single now?” “Seven years.” “I’ve known you for… what is it… four or five of those years. To me you’ve seemed ready as long as I’ve known you. Maybe scared, but ready if the right woman came along.” “Maybe.” I was not comfortable with the conversation, and I didn’t know where Ann was leading it. I decided to be frank. “I appreciate your reaching out to me, Ann, but I’m not sure I feel like talking about this now.” “I understand, Gary. I didn’t mean to intrude. If you ever do feel like talking, you know who to call.” “Of course. Thanks, Ann. Say hi to Jeff for me.” “I will, when I see him. Another security issue.” She laughed. “Bye!” she said, and hung up before I replied. Had this call been, I now wondered, like the one eight days before, an invitation to go to bed with her? If so, it would have been the third time that she would so use my frustrating experience with Chris in conjunction with her own frustration with Jeff. I tried to get back to my reading, but I still had women swirling in my head, and now the trio became a quartet when Margo joined the crowd. I needed to talk to someone, but not another woman. Who then? Why, Jerry Brucker, of course. He knows about women, and, according to Rose Bargallo, he knows how to talk to them. Jerry and I, along with Barbara and Nina, almost never call one another. We see one another at The Ash and the Unicorn, and we make arrangements for getting together in person. But I wanted to be sure that I would have time alone with him, over coffee or lunch, so that I could talk about my problems. If his response was to be one of ridicule or condescension, so be it. I called him. He did not answer. I left a message saying that I wanted to have lunch with him in the next day or two, just the two of us, so that I could unload some private business on him. There was no need to call back, since I would see him in the morning. The simple act of leaving Jerry a message had a relaxing effect on me. I was now able to read to my heart’s content.