Free Middle Age by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

“There were circumstances.” Marina said, “Why didn’t you get witnesses to his signature, at the time?” “Because, as I said, Marina, there were circumstances.” Marina blinked, not understanding. The night before had been such a misery, she’d returned home from her futile search for Apollo to fall onto her bed exhausted, too demoralized to remove most of her clothing and her brain racing on the edge of madness; no wonder now she was having difficulty understanding simple things. There were Roger’s evasive eyes, and Roger’s small bruised-looking mouth, a curious mouth for a predator, what was he saying? Something about the will being “not quite complete”—“not quite fully executed.”
    “Marina? Look here.”
    Roger was sounding annoyed. He explained to Marina that though this was the will Adam had wanted, in every detail, yet Adam had postponed having Roger draw it up for years; after Roger prepared it in April, Adam had postponed coming in to sign for weeks, and then months, until it was too late. “But isn’t this Adam’s signature?” Marina asked naively. A moment later realizing He has forged this signature. That’s it! Roger was say-Middle Age: A Romance
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    ing, with the air of a man arguing a case, “It was the damndest thing.
    Adam would make an appointment, then fail to come in. We’d have used, of course, witnesses from this office. For an intelligent man he could behave very stupidly. Stubbornly. Well, you know Adam.”
    M  the final pages of the will, seeing how the scrawl Adam Berendt on page twenty-one closely resembled, but wasn’t identical with, the scrawl Adam Berendt on page twenty-two. The signature was skillfully executed but hadn’t been traced. For some time she contemplated the signatures, and the blanks above witness, not knowing, yet certainly knowing, what was expected of her. Why Roger Cavanagh had so urgently called her in. Roger said, “Legally speaking, Adam has died intestate. This will isn’t binding. It would be sent to probate court to languish for years.
    Much of the estate would go to death taxes, and since Adam’s next of kin may never be located, the bulk of it would go to the State of New York.
    Adam’s special wishes would be completely thwarted, do you see? Marina?
    For Adam’s sake, not for our own, we have to help him.”
    “Isn’t this—illegal? Criminal?”
    The question hovered in the air unanswered. Roger sighed, and smiled his quick mirthless smile.
    “But you’ve done it, the signature, for him. For Adam.”
    “Someone has done it.”
    “Am I to be a witness, then? And who will be the notary public?”
    Roger said, “I’m a notary public.”
    “And the date today is—?”
    “June twenty-second, a Wednesday. The date of Adam’s most recent appointment, which is in the firm’s computer.”
    “Roger, this is—a criminal act?”
    “We have no choice, Marina. You know that Adam would be desperate for us to do it.”
    “What would happen if you, a lawyer, were—”
    Roger said sharply, “Marina? Will you sign?”
    “Yes.”
    Marina took up the pen Roger was offering her, and signed.
    How Death enters your life. And all is altered hereafter . In separate cars they drove to Adam Berendt’s house on the river, a mile and a half from Shaker
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    Square. Marina’s new mood was elation, hope; floating upon the older mood of despair and desolation. For now she was a criminal, for her dead lover’s sake.
    Impossible not to imagine the dead observing us. Our love for them a soft shimmering gossamer trailing behind us.
    When Marina turned up the long rutted gravel driveway between stands of slatternly trees, she felt her old quickening of excitement, coming to Adam’s house, though telling herself No! not now . Yet she watched anxiously for the silver-haired dog to come bounding out to greet her, as Adam’s dog would have done under normal