into the dining room, where she'd sat at the mahogany table that had been a housewarming gift from her parents. She'd let the phone ring as somebody called, then somebody else, and a third person. She felt nauseous and disoriented, as if she was seasick. Through the French doors she could see the back yard, the brilliant living green of the grass. When she and Todd had decided on the house, they'd remarked to each other about the yard, which was well removed from traffic and offered plenty of room for a swing set, a sandbox, a wading pool. A tree house could have been built among the limbs of the celebrated elm. It all rushed in at her, how much she was risking, how selfish she'd been. She saw now—how could she ever have failed to see?—how fragile everything was. She'd made a terrible mistake, and she couldn't offer it as a lapse, a brief failure of flesh. She'd lied. She'd done it again and again. Though she wasn't religious she prayed now, sitting in her empty dining room. Please, let this go unpunished and I'll be good for the rest of my life. She stayed where she was, in a mahogany Queen Anne chair, for almost two hours. She didn't move and after a while she stopped thinking about anything. She couldn't imagine where to go, what to do with herself, and so she did nothing. When Todd came home he found her sitting in the dark. He rushed up to her and said, “Sweetheart, what are you doing?” He brought his smell, his concern, his vocabulary of gestures.
“Sitting,” she said. “I'm just sitting here.”
“Why? What is it? What happened?”
“My mother called today. She and Daddy are splitting up.”
“What?”
“Splitting up, separating. He's gone off to a hotel.”
“Jesus,” Todd said. “What do you know?”
“I just, I can't.”
“Darling. Oh, darling, it's a shock, I know.”
“I. There's too much.”
“Come on,” he said. “Come in the kitchen with me, I'll make us something to eat, and then I'm putting you to bed. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He made scrambled eggs and bacon for both of them, and after she'd eaten he took her upstairs and drew back the covers on their bed as tenderly as Joel had once done in the guest room. Her face burned with shame. “Get in bed with me,” she said. “Okay? Don't stay up and work, don't read.”
“Sure,” he said. He undressed and got into bed beside her. His body was exactly that, his body, almost as familiar as her own. She tried not to stare at his penis, the marvelous commonplace of its shape and color.
“I thought they'd gotten through the worst of it,” she said. “I really thought that if they went this far—”
“Give them time,” Todd said. “I'll bet old Constantine'll be back home within the week.”
“Maybe. I'm not so sure.”
“Trust me. What'd they do without each other?”
She put her hand on the smooth soft plane of his chest. An emptiness was opening in her, a fear like nothing she could remember. Forgive me, she said silently. I'll never do it again. She kissed Todd, ran her fingers along his ribs. She whispered, close to his ear, “Oh, I love you, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, sweetie,” he said.
She kissed him tenderly on the mouth. He was her only true friend and she'd betrayed him. The kiss held and he worked himself around, got on top of her. She parted her legs and he slid himself in for the first time in—what?—a year? Longer? Here he was, pumping, and here came the old familiar flush, the red shadow. She lay as she always did, clutching the hard muscles of his back, smoothing them out. She put grateful kisses on his cheek and ear. The old warmth filled her, the sweet flickering agitation. She was careful not to do anything unusual, not to practice any of what she'd learned from Joel. She might have asked Todd to thrust more slowly, to give her time to catch up with herself. She might have asked him to touch her, down there, with his tongue. But then he'd know, he'd figure it out. She felt translucent, her faithlessness ticking just under the surface of her skin. Her greed and lasciviousness; her capacity for destruction. She whispered, “Todd, oh, I love you.” He grimaced, sighed, and fell away, his outer arm resting companionably across her breasts. He kissed her and she lay beside him, praying silently. In another three weeks,