The City of Mirrors

He decides to call Olla, his ex-wife. Perhaps she can shed some light on their son’s perplexing plans. Olla lives at the edge of the city in a small house, a cottage really, that she shares with her partner, Bettina, a horticulturalist. Olla insisted that the relationship did not overlap with the marriage, that it began later, though Logan suspects otherwise. It makes no difference; in a way, he is glad. That Olla should take up with a woman—he had always known her to be bisexual—has made things easier for him. It would be more difficult for him if she were married to a man, if a man were in her bed.

Bettina is the one who answers. Their relationship is wary but cordial, and she fetches Olla to the phone. In the background Logan can hear the chirps and squawks of Bettina’s collection of caged birds, which is voluminous—finches, parrots, parakeets.

“We just saw you on TV,” Olla starts off.

“Really? How did I look?”

“Quite dashing, actually. Confidence-inspiring. A man at the top of his game. Bette, wouldn’t you agree? She’s nodding.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

This light, easy banter. Very little has changed, in a way. They were always friends who could talk.

“How does it feel?” Olla asks.

“How does what feel?”

“Logan, don’t be modest. You’ve made quite a splash. You’re famous.”

He changes the subject. “By any chance, have you talked to Race lately?”

“Oh, that,” Olla sighs. “I wasn’t really surprised. He’s been hinting at it for a while, actually. I’m surprised you didn’t see it coming.”

Just one more thing he has missed. “What do you make of it?” he says, then adds, jumping the gun, “I think it’s a huge mistake.”

“Maybe. But he knows his own mind—Kaye, too. It’s what they want. Are you going to sell it to them?”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Logan. But if you’re asking my opinion, you did the right thing. The place has been sitting there too long. I always wondered why you didn’t let it go. Maybe this was the reason.”

“So that my son could toss his career away?”

“Now you’re being cynical. It’s a nice thing, what you’re doing. Why not let yourself just look at it that way?”

Her voice is even, careful. Her words, not rehearsed exactly, are nonetheless things that have been imagined in advance. Logan has the unsettling sense, yet again, that he is a step behind everyone, a quantity to be managed by those who know better than he does.

“Your feelings are complicated, I know that,” Olla goes on, “but a lot of time has passed. In a way, it’s not just a new start for Race. It’s a new start for you.”

“I wasn’t aware I needed one.”

A pause at the other end of the line; then Olla says, “I apologize. That didn’t come out right. What I mean to say is that I worry about you.”

“Why would you worry about me?”

“I know you, Logan. You don’t let go of things.”

“I’m just afraid that our son is about to make the worst error of his life. That this is all some romantic whim.”

In the silence that follows, Logan thinks of Olla standing in her kitchen, telephone receiver pressed to her ear. The room is cozy, low-ceilinged; copper pots and dried herbs, tied into bunches with twine, hang from the beams. She will be twirling the phone cord around her index finger, a lifelong habit. Other images, other memories: the way she pushes her eyeglasses up to her forehead to read small print; the reddish spot that flares on her forehead whenever she is angry; her habit of salting her food without tasting it. Divorced, but still the keepers of shared history, the inventory of each other’s lives.

“Let me ask you something,” Olla says.

“All right.”

“You’re all over the news. You’ve been working toward this your whole life. The way I see it, you’re getting more than you ever could have asked for. Are you enjoying any of this? Because it doesn’t sound as if you are.”

The question is peculiar. Enjoying it? Is that what one is supposed to do? “I haven’t thought about it that way.”

“Then maybe it’s time you should. Put aside the big questions for a while and just live your life.”

“I thought I was.”

“Everyone does. I miss you, Logan, and I liked being married to you. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. We had a wonderful family, and I’m very proud of all you’ve accomplished. But Bettina makes me happy. This life makes me happy. In the end, it isn’t very complicated. I want you to have that, too.”