Love the one youre with

'Sounds good,' Andy says, frowning as Tiger attempts a long putt. The ball heads straight for the hole, drops in, but then pops back out. Andy slams his fist on the coffee table and shouts, 'Dammit! How does that not go in?'

'So, what, he's like one shot behind now?' I say.

'Yeah. And he really needed that one.' Andy shakes his head and bends the rim down on his green Masters cap, which he superstitiously wears to bring good luck to his idol.

'Tiger always wins,' I say as the camera zooms in on his doting, gorgeous wife.

I find myself wondering just how solid their marriage is as Andy says, 'Not always.'

'Sure seems like it. Give someone else a chance,' I say, and although I'm somewhat annoyed with Andy, I'm also disgusted with myself for trying to drum up a debate about something as uncontroversial as the universally adored Tiger.

'Yeah,' Andy says, as if barely hearing me. 'I guess so.'

I turn my head to look at him, studying the faint, sexy hair growth along his jaw, his ears that seem to jut out a bit when he wears a cap, and the soothing blue of his eyes-a dead match for the azure stripes in his polo. I sidle closer to him on the couch, so there is no space between us and our thighs are touching. I rest my head on his chest and intertwine our arms. Then I close my eyes and tell myself to stop being so irritable. It's not fair to put Andy on trial-particularly when he has no clue he's being judged. Several minutes pass and we stay in that cozy position, as I listen to the lulling sound of the commentators and the occasional ripple of applause from the otherwise respectfully silent crowd and tell myself, over and over, that I am happy.

But, a few minutes later, when something else goes awry for Tiger, and Andy is up like a shot, waving his arms and talking to the television, offering more support than he has given me in weeks-'C'mon, buddy. You never miss these when they matter!'-I can't help feeling a fresh wave of indignation.

No wonder we're having trouble, I think, now putting an official label on what seemed to be only a one-sided undercurrent before. My husband shows more passion for golf-even golf on television-than he does for our relationship.

I watch him for a few more minutes, stoically observing the domestic scene that single-handedly assuages any guilt I have for going to New York. Then I stand, head upstairs, find my cell phone, and call Leo.

He answers on the fourth ring, sounding slightly out of breath, as if he ran to get the phone.

'Don't tell me you changed your mind,' he says before I can say hello.

I smile and say, 'No way.'

'So you're coming?'

'I'm coming.'

'For sure?'

'Yes,' I say. 'For sure.'

'When?'

'Next Monday.'

'Cool,' Leo says-the exact same way Andy ended our conversation downstairs.

I stare up at the ceiling, wondering how the very same word can sound so different coming from Leo. How different everything feels with Leo.

The next morning, I catch Suzanne on her morning commute to the airport, and fill her in on the latest chapter in the seemingly never-ending Leo saga. When I come to the part about Margot, she is predictably outraged.

'Who does she think she is?' Suzanne demands.

I knew my sister's focus would be on Margot, and I feel simultaneously riled and defensive as I say, 'I know. She should have told me… But I really do believe she had my best interest at heart.'

'She had her brother's best interest at heart,' Suzanne says, sounding disgusted. 'Not yours.'

'They're one and the same,' I say, thinking that in the best relationships, both interests are perfectly, inextricably aligned. And, despite our problems, I like to think that Andy and I still have such a bond.

'They're never one and the same,' Suzanne says adamantly.

As I reheat my coffee for the second time, I consider this statement, wondering who is right. Am I being too idealistic-or is Suzanne just bitter?

'Besides,' Suzanne says, 'who is she to play God like that?'

'I would hardly call it 'playing God,'' I say. 'This isn't euthanasia… She simply spared me-'

Suzanne cuts me off and says, 'Spared you? From what?'

'Spared me from Leo,' I say. 'From myself.'

'So you would have picked Leo?' she asks with a note of jubilance.

I feel a pang of frustration, wishing she could be more unbiased in moments like these. Wishing she could be more like our mother, whose first instinct was always to see the good in people, look on the bright side. Then again, maybe our mother's death has made Suzanne the way she is-why she always seems to look for the worst and never really believes that things will turn out well. I push these thoughts aside, realizing how often my mother's death complicates things that really have very little to do with her. How much she colors everything, even in her absence. Especially in her absence.

'I like to think I would have told him the same thing,' I say, struggling to be honest with my sister-and myself. 'But I don't know… I also might have… revisited my feelings enough to screw things up with Andy. I could have made a horrible mistake.'

'Are you sure it would have been a mistake?' she asks.

'Yes,' I say, as I think of an ancient journal entry I recently read-an entry that I had logged around the time Andy and I started to date, right when Leo came back. I hesitate and then tell Suzanne about it. 'I was so happy to be in a healthy, stable, even relationship.'

'You wrote that?' she asks. 'You used those words?'

'More or less,' I say.

'Healthy and stable, huh?… That sounds… pleasant,' Suzanne says, clearly implying that pleasant isn't something to strive for in the hierarchy of relationships. That passionate is better than pleasant, every time.

'Pleasant is underrated,' I say, thinking that half of America would kill for pleasant. These days, I'd take pleasant.

'If you say so,' Suzanne says.

I sigh, and say, 'It's better than what I had with Leo.'

'And what was that?' Suzanne says.

'Turmoil,' I say. 'Worry… Insecurity… Everything felt so different with Leo.'

'Different how?' she asks automatically, relentlessly.

I open the back door and settle down on the top step of our back deck with my cup of coffee, struggling to answer her question. But every time I try to put it in words, I feel as if I'm selling Andy short, somehow implying a dichotomy of passion versus platonic love. And it really isn't that way. In fact, just last night, Andy and I had sex- great sex-which I initiated, not from a sense of guilt or obligation, but because he looked so irresistible in his boxer briefs, stretched out in bed next to me. I kissed him along his golfer's tan line, admiring his ripped stomach that looks like it should belong on a teenager. Andy kissed me back as I thought of how so many women complain that their husbands skip the foreplay-and how Andy never forgets to kiss me.

'Ellen?' Suzanne rasps into the phone.

'I'm here,' I say, glaring across our hazy backyard. It is not yet nine o'clock, but already approaching one hundred degrees. Too hot for coffee. I take one sip and pour the rest of the mug into a bed of mulch.

'Different how?' Suzanne asks again-although I have a feeling she knows exactly how it's different-that all women know the difference between the one you marry and the one that got away.

'It's like… the mountains and the beach,' I finally say, grasping at straws for some sort of adequate analogy.