Free Perfection by Julie Metz

some understanding. From Tomas, I expected nothing at all. After these conversations, I hung up, feeling rejected, wishing I could disappear.
    Now that our relationship was sexual, I noticed that Tomasspent less time at my house when Liza was around. Perhaps we both felt that some artifice would be required to hide the nature of our connection from Liza, an exceptionally perceptive child. I regretted this change; I felt like I was taking something valuable from her. She began asking for Tomas after several weeks of absence. When he finally came for dinner, she was delighted to see him again, and they returned to their comfortable ways. In one e-mail to me, Tomas wrote that being with Liza and me tempted him to consider being part of a more domestic life. I was thrilled to read this but didn’t dare hope for more than what we had. Within days of this e-mail, his mood again changed, and he seemed cautious and distant.
     
    We continued seeing each other in this back-and-forth, frequently confusing way. I had told a few close friends, he had told a few close friends. But in a small town, where everyone knows what car you drive, it is hard to keep a secret.
    One morning, Tomas’s truck was spotted parked in my driveway. The night before I had remarked to myself that he had chosen to park smack in the middle of the driveway, which faced a main town road. I thought about asking him to be more discreet but then checked myself. He was free to do as he pleased.
    Now the news spread quickly beyond the small group of friends who had known of our whatever-it-was these last months. The reaction was not always kind. Some people, who didn’t understand that Tomas and I had been friends long before our affair, felt that he was taking advantage of my widowhood to have an adventure with an older woman. Some speculated that our affair had begun before Henry’s death. Though Tomas and I knew differently, it was still painful to be the subject of gossip.
    In some ways, though, being more in the open was a relief.Perhaps we all want our secrets to be found out at last.
     
    My brother, David, had helped me wade through the piles of legal paperwork. Henry had a four-page will, leaving everything to me, yet the matter was crawling along, with his assets still frozen and bills unpaid. The final hurdle was imminent. Probate court required that a court-appointed lawyer, a guardian ad litem, interview Liza, alone in a room at the county seat. This was supposed to determine that Liza was being well cared for by me, her sole parent.
    For the weeks before the appointment, I descended into a vortex of anxiety, convinced that somehow, inadvertently, Liza or I would say something wrong and she would be taken from me. I called my brother in tears. David calmly reminded me that, while I had no choice in the matter, he was sure all would go well. Nevertheless, I lay awake at night, worrying. I tried to prepare Liza for the event without frightening her, but I could tell she didn’t like the idea that I couldn’t be in the interview room with her.
    The appointment date arrived in early April, and with it a freak snowstorm. As I prepared to drive to school to pick up Liza for the interview, Emily called me from her cell phone, asking if I could pick up her daughter, Zoe, as well—her train from the city was delayed by the weather. At this point, I was always happy to offer Emily help—anything to chip away at the mountain of emotional debt. Zoe was one of Liza’s more recent friends, a slightly older child who was easy to have around. Zoe’s companionship seemed like a windfall as we headed off for the forty-minute drive to the county courthouse through whirls of sometimes blinding snow.
    The attorney was late. We waited in the chilly hallway. Zoehelpfully kept up a friendly conversation, resorting to I Spy and Twenty Questions to pass the time, while I sat silently, willing the ordeal to be over. At last the lawyer arrived—a woman about fifty, only