for you?”

He pursed his lips. “Anne, you know I have work to do.”

“I know you say that, and I know you’re gone all the time. I wish I knew what you did and where you went, but you never tell me.” I wasn’t goading him or accusing him, I was simply stating a fact.

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t. You say you have a meeting, or a conference, or a route to inspect. That’s all. You don’t give me your itinerary, you don’t tell me when you’ll be home, I have no way of contacting you except through Pan Am. But you expect me to be here, waiting for you, anyway.”

“Did your psychiatrist tell you to say that?”

“No, and don’t even try to pretend you know what a psychiatrist does. This is me talking. Anne. Your wife.”

He continued to eat, and I had to wonder if he’d heard; he was growing deaf, after all those years of sitting in noisy airplanes. He had always looked down on those—like me—who put cotton in their ears. “It diminishes the experience,” he’d snort. But he was too proud now to admit he’d been wrong.

“You don’t know what it means to me, to know that you’re here,” he said after a moment, his voice soft and unexpectedly appealing, and I knew that he had heard me, after all. He came around the table and pulled out the chair next to me, taking my hand in his, and I couldn’t prevent a gasp at the touch of flesh against my own. It had been so long since he had touched me; I hadn’t realized how long. Days, weeks, months; endless, yearning Arabian nights. It had been ages since anyone had touched me; I didn’t even get the halfhearted hugs of teenagers anymore.

“It’s precisely because you’re here,” Charles continued, murmuring, low and throaty like a perfectly tuned engine, “and that you’ve always been here, running things, keeping us all going—that I can do the work I need to. I couldn’t accomplish half so much without you, Anne. I thought you knew that. You’re my crew.”

Damn him! I retrieved my hand, pushed myself away from the table and stomped into the kitchen, where I stared out the window. Oh, he knew exactly what to say, and when to say it. Just when I wanted, needed, to believe that he didn’t understand the workings of my heart so I could take it back for good—he proved, once more, that he could master anything.

I picked up a chocolate layer cake, store bought, even though I knew he didn’t like that. But I was used to simple eating these days; poached eggs, toast, soup. With so little to do, I no longer employed a full-time cook. Then I strode back to the dinner table; he had returned to his seat at the head. I plopped the cake in front of him. Charles frowned, but sliced into it, anyway.

“What are we going to do, Charles?” I took my seat again, and carefully folded my napkin, placing it next to my coffee cup. “Realistically. Logistically—that, I know you understand. I don’t want to stay here alone. If you want me to remain at your beck and call, waiting for you occasionally to remember me, I can very well do that somewhere else.”

“Anne, you’re being ridiculous. I fly—I work. That’s what I do.”

“That’s what I used to do, too,” I reminded him. But what did I do now? I waited, fretted, longed, simmered. Meanwhile, I received letters from women envying me my perfect marriage—the one I had conjured up in the pages of my book. My prayer, which was, as yet, unanswered. Perhaps because I had wasted too many years praying to the wrong deity.

“It’s different now.” Charles was warming up to one of his favorite themes: the Dangers of the Modern World. “The world is changing—too fast, I think. Someday, I’ll want to step back and simplify. I need to know that this place will be here, then. I need—” His voice faltered, and he took a sip of milk to disguise it. “I need to know where you are,” he continued, pushing at his cake with his fork. “I just need to know where you are, and I like to know that you are here, safe, where I put you. I would think that you, of all people, would understand that.”

I opened my mouth, but my heart was suddenly in my throat, preventing speech. I slumped back in my seat, stunned.

I’d never told him about having to explain to our children, one by one, about their murdered brother, after they first found out about him in school. I’d never told him about the box of pictures I still kept beneath my bed.

But my husband had not moved on as thoroughly as he had tried to convince us both he had. And I hurt for him, just as I had hurt for my children at his hands; for the first time, I saw myself in the stronger role. Anger and resentment aside, I had healed; I shared my grief with others who wrote me to share theirs—countless women over the years, seeking my counsel. And I had loved our surviving children, fully participated in their lives, risking my heart over and over again for them.

But Charles—

The distance he put between himself and us; the pushing, the cajoling—was it his way of protecting himself? For so long I had wanted to believe that our baby’s death had not sundered us; I had thought it had drawn us together, made us rely upon each other, only. But now, I saw with eyes as clear as my husband’s, that it hadn’t.

I couldn’t help him now, not even if he’d asked me to, which he never would. Once, maybe; once upon a long time ago. But not now.

Sipping my coffee, I chose my next words very carefully.

“We don’t have to sell,” I said. “I have money, of course, from Mother and Daddy. We can keep this place until Reeve has graduated, at least, and then—for the future, for holidays. I might like to rent an apartment in the city, though. I would like to be closer to people, to the theater, shopping—things like that.”

“What on earth would you want to be closer to all that for?” He was genuinely surprised. He laid his fork down, peering at me as if he’d never seen me before—and I was reminded of how he used to look at me, back when we were courting. Clinically, scientifically; as if he needed to try to figure out the inner workings of my brain.

I smiled at the memory, and his face flushed red as he looked away again, caught. “Charles, I am fifty years old. I was a city girl when you met me, remember? I have never lived in a home of my own choosing. You’ve always chosen. Your life, your fame, have always dictated where I live. I do think it’s time that I get to live for myself, don’t you? Choose my own friends, at least?”

“You’ve read your own book, haven’t you?” He frowned, but I caught the admiring little gleam in his eyes, and now it was my turn to blush.

To his credit, Charles had been nothing but proud—if slightly puzzled—by the success of Gift from the Sea. He’d even consented to pose for a pictorial for Time magazine when it came out. I’d only had to remind him once how I’d done the same thing for his book.

“Perhaps,” I admitted. “I am serious, though.”

“I know you are. I’ve never known you not to be that. Well, I suppose that sounds like a reasonable plan. Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes, this is what I want.”

He stared at me, hard; I stared back. Once, a lifetime ago, our gazes had met and it was immediately electric, powerful—so powerful that it frightened us both. There were times, even now, when our eyes would meet and I would feel a thrill jolt through me, shocking my entire being into overdrive.

But this gaze was not like that; it was an assessment. An acknowledgment that I was taking a step that neither of us had ever thought I would, but that he had been pushing me toward, unconsciously, for years now. He’d trained me, he’d taught me—too well, I could almost hear him thinking.

Finally, I was strong. I was able. Able to separate my life from his; able to separate myself, from him. Like all surgical procedures, it would not be without pain and regret.

We continued to eat without talking. Silence, after all, had been the thing that brought us together, all those years ago; he’d said he’d never met a girl so comfortable not talking, as I was.

But now that I had found my voice, I wanted to use it; I had the feeling that once I started talking, I might never shut up. And to that end, I wanted to find someone who wanted to listen to me as much as I wanted to talk to him.

And I knew, sadly, finally, that that someone was never going to be my husband.

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