“since the first time
I cheated on you.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. He looked straight ahead at the snow
and the water.
“You haven’t either,” Jenn said.
Jesse nodded. The snow was falling faster. It was harder to see
the ocean. He could hear Jenn take a deep breath.
“I think we should try again,” she said.
Jesse didn’t look at her. The sentence hung in the silence.
“Why,” he said after a time,
“would it work better this
time?”
“We want it to,” Jenn said.
“We’ve changed. We’re older.
We’ve
had some therapy. We know that no one else will quite do.”
Jesse was silent.
“We could be on a trial basis.” Jenn was talking faster now.
“You know? Like a trial separation, only the reverse.”
Jesse’s throat felt thick. He cleared it.
“How would this work?” Jesse said.
“We wouldn’t have to even live together.
In fact it might work
better if we didn’t. We’d keep doing what we do, and see each other
on weekends, maybe some night during the week, you know, like a date.”
The lady or the tiger, Jesse thought.
“We wouldn’t have to get married again, or at least not right
away, we could see how this worked.”
She held his hand tightly.
“I need to get out of the car,” Jesse said.
Jenn nodded and let go of his hand and they got out. They walked
together through the snow to the little roofed pavilion at the edge of the beach. In its shelter they stood together, holding each other’s hand again. There wasn’t much wind and it wasn’t very cold.
All around the pavilion the snow fell straight down. The smell of the ocean was strong.
“We love each other, Jesse.”
Jesse nodded.
“I was learning to be without you,” he said.
“We love each other.”
Jesse nodded again. Jenn put her head against his shoulder.
The
only sound was the movement of the water. He cleared his throat again.
“I met a lot of women I liked,” Jesse said.
Jenn kept her head against his shoulder. The beach was snow-covered except at the margin where the waves rolled in and out, washing the snow.
“What about that?” Jesse said.
Jenn shook her head slowly against his shoulder.
“No other people?” Jesse said.
“Monogamous,” Jenn said softly.
Still holding her hand, Jesse turned toward her. She pressed her
face against his neck.
“The magic word,” he said.
“I know.”
