“Arielle. My wife,” he responded with a look of outrage, and then he burst into a broad smile as he looked at Marya. He was happy to see her, and it showed.

“Your wife left you for the sous-chef?” Marya looked stunned.

“She’s divorcing me. I got a letter from her lawyer five days ago. He filed the papers. I got on the first plane here, but you were away.”

“Why didn’t you call me if you wanted to talk to me?” She looked totally mystified about why he was there.

“I wanted to talk to you in person,” he said insistently as she fished her house keys out of her bag and unlocked the door.

“What about? Our publisher is still on vacation. I added two more chapters last week, by the way. I think you’ll like them. One is entirely on spices, and how to use them, and the other is fish.”

“I didn’t come here to talk to you about fish,” he said, looking annoyed.

“Then why did you come here?” She looked vague as he followed her around the house, and she finally sat down on the couch, and he sat down next to her and looked her in the eye.

“I came to tell you in person that I’m a free man. For thirty years, you refused to take me seriously because I was married, and so were you”-a mere detail to him in the scheme of things, but neither of them was married now. “I’m not married anymore, or I won’t be. She wants to marry that idiot, but I don’t care. I haven’t loved her in years. I’ve been in love with you since the first time I laid eyes on you, Marya. I’m not going to let you brush me off anymore. I love you. You’re a great woman, a great chef. You’re the only woman I’ve ever met that I would be faithful to. I’m not leaving here until you agree to marry me. That’s what I came here to say.” And with that he kissed her, totally stunned her, and took her breath away. For a moment she didn’t know what to say, and then she laughed.

“Charles-Edouard Prunier, you are completely crazy. You’re insane. I don’t want to get married. I adore you too. But I don’t want to get married again at my age. I’m going to be sixty years old. Sixty-year-old people don’t get married. I’d be a laughingstock, and so would you.” She felt a flutter over what he was saying, and she had always loved him as a friend, but had never let herself be attracted to him. Now suddenly everything was different, and all obstacles had been removed.

“I don’t care,” he said firmly with a ferocious look in his eye. “L’amour n’a pas d’âge. Love has no age. I don’t care if you’re turning a hundred. I’m sixty-five, and I’ve been in love with you since you were thirty. And I’m not going to wait another thirty years.” And with that, he kissed her again, and much to her amazement, she kissed him back, and felt all the feelings she had ignored for years. And she had been deeply in love with her husband while he was alive.

She looked at him with a horrified expression then. “Oh my God, now what are we going to do?”

“You’re going to do the right thing after all these years, and marry me,” he said firmly, and she laughed at him again.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” he insisted. “I won’t relent until you do.”

“You’re crazy. We’re too old to get married,” she insisted.

“We are not. Besides, I want to have a baby with you.” She laughed even harder at that. “Or write books together. Or do whatever you want to do. I’m giving her the house in Ramatuelle, by the way, and the flat in Paris. I think we should get our own. I’ve never liked the neighborhood. I’ll buy a flat for you.”

“Wait a minute,” Marya said seriously. “Let’s slow down. Are you serious about all this?” She looked utterly amazed. She had no idea if he was kidding or not.

“Do you think I sat on your porch every day for a week for no reason? I’ve waited a lifetime for this, Marya.” She loved him too, as a friend. He was one of her closest friends, and she loved working with him and spending time with him, but she had never allowed herself to think of him as more than that. She had loved her husband deeply, and they had a wonderful marriage. But Charles-Edouard was certainly crazy and a joy to be with, and they got along wonderfully, and always had.

“I need time to think about this, if you’re serious. And I don’t know if I want to get married.”

“Why not? And don’t tell me you’re too old. That is not a reason I will accept.”

“I don’t know if we need to get married. You’re French. Frenchmen have affairs. We can have an affair for the next thirty years. Maybe that’s enough.”

“You’re not that kind of woman,” he said, pretending to be shocked.

“Maybe I am at this point in my life. I don’t know.” She had never intended to be with another man, and now she was talking marriage and affairs with Charles-Edouard. “Can we try this out for a while, and see how it works?” And then she looked at him seriously. “I don’t want to be married to a man who cheats on me, and I know you’ve done that all your life. You were never faithful to Arielle.”

“My parents made me marry her. She didn’t love me either. And I solemnly promise that I would be faithful to you.” He looked as though he meant it, but she wasn’t sure if he was capable of it.

“Prove it to me. If you’re faithful to me and don’t cheat on me, I’ll marry you. Maybe,” she added, and then laughed. She was being coy. This was suddenly a delicious moment in her life. At nearly sixty, a handsome Frenchman was in love with her, and proposing to her. She was beginning to like the idea. “Who’ll do the cooking if we get married?” she asked with interest, and he thought about it. It was an intriguing question.

“We both will. Together.”

“Who will be the sous-chef? Me or you?”

“You will. You’re the girl.”

“You’re a chauvinist,” she said, looking delighted. She was having a great time, and so was he. She suddenly felt very young.

He took her out to dinner that night, and they talked about their plans, about whether to live in Paris or New York. They both thought they’d prefer Paris. Marya had wanted to all her life. He thought they should find a flat on the Left Bank, in either the sixth or seventh arrondissement.

By the time they got back to her house, they still hadn’t settled the matter of whether to get married. But she was serious about wanting to see if he could be faithful. He certainly never had been in his entire life. She wanted to give it a few months to find out. She was talking about moving to Paris with him, if he behaved, by the end of the year. They could decide whether to get married after that. And in the meantime, they could enjoy each other. He offered to stay in New York for the next few months, where they could work on the book together.

He walked her into the house, and everything happened naturally after that. They wandered into her bedroom, their clothes seemed to disappear, and they wound up in bed in each other’s arms. And as he reached out to her, they felt as though they had been together all their life, and would be for the next hundred years. She felt like a girl again in his arms.

Chris’s time with his family was just what Ian needed, and it did Chris a great deal of good too, especially this year. Ian got to be a child again, playing with his cousins, and swimming every day. He learned to water-ski, and he made lots of new friends. It was so easy and carefree and normal that he almost forgot his mother was in jail. She called him once a week. And Chris dreaded the calls. They brought Ian back to reality and reminded him of all the pain he’d been through, all of it because of his mother. Chris was still furious with her for dragging Ian through it. But at the Vineyard, their wounds seemed to heal, although Chris’s conversations with his parents about Ian’s mother were always difficult for him. They thought Ian should be entirely removed from his mother, even if that meant sending him to boarding school, which Chris refused to even consider. Ian was far too young and Chris wanted his son with him. His parents didn’t agree.

“You’re not providing a proper home for him,” his mother said sternly one afternoon after lunch, after Ian scampered off. “I don’t understand why, but you’re not. You’re living in a house full of people, with ‘roommates,’ or a commune of some kind, like a student. You have a child, Chris, and if you can’t provide a proper home for him, you should send him away to school. Or at least get your own apartment and a nanny to take care of him. And the farther away you get him from his mother, the better off he’ll be. He should see as little of her as possible.” Chris didn’t disagree with that, but he was violently opposed to all the rest, and Ian was his son, not theirs. It was easy for them to sit on the sidelines and criticize him. They weren’t the kind of grandparents to want hands-on involvement, but they felt they had every right to comment on how Chris was bringing Ian up, and they didn’t approve.

“I don’t live in a commune,” Chris said hotly, “and my housemates are wonderful, intelligent people, who add a whole other dimension to Ian’s life, much more than any nanny. I moved in for convenience before Ian came to live with me, because I wasn’t ready to set up an apartment, but now I see what these people add to Ian’s life. It would be a real loss to both of us if we moved.” He believed it profoundly, but his mother wasn’t convinced.

“It’s all a bit too modern for me,” his mother said bluntly. “Children need a mother and a father and a proper home. In a case like yours, with a mother like Kimberly, Ian is certainly better off alone with you, but only if you can give him a sane, normal life in a real home, not living in a room in someone else’s house. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand that, Chris. It’s not like you can’t afford to get your own place. This is sheer laziness on your part. And Ian will pay the price for it later on. What does he tell his friends at school? Who does he say those people are? You’re too old to live with roommates, Chris, and you have a child.”