And by Thursday night, they were both nervous and depressed. They lay awake all night, making love and talking, and wishing that things could be different.

“We could get married one day,” he said, only half jokingly, and she looked at him with mock horror.

“Don't be silly. That's a little extreme, isn't it?”

“Would it be?” He had never known anyone like her, and he was totally under her spell for the moment.

“For me, it would. Oliver, I can't marry anyone. I'm not the type, and you know it.”

“You heat up a great moussaka.”

“Then marry the guy at the deli where they made it.”

“He can't be as cute as you, although I've never met him.”

“Be serious. What would I do with a husband and three children?”

He pretended to think it over and she laughed. “I could think of a few things …”

“You don't need to be married for that, fortunately.” They had had a glorious month, but she was already acting as though it was over. “I just don't want more than this.”

“Maybe one day you will.”

“If I do, you'll be the first to know. I promise.”

“Seriously?”

“As serious as I can be about subjects like this. I told you before, marriage is not for me. And you don't need another wife to run shrieking out the door. You need some wonderful, smart, beautiful girl who's going to love you to pieces and take care of your kids, and give you fourteen more babies.”

“What a thought. I think you're confusing me with your father.”

“Not quite. But I am definitely not what the doctor ordered, Oliver. I know what I am, and some of it's all right, and some of it isn't. In my own way, I'm probably a lot like your wife, and that's exactly what you don't need. Be honest.”

He wondered if she was right, and if he had found himself a newer, somewhat racier edition of Sarah. He had never thought of that, but it was possible, although the idea depressed him. “What happens now?”

“We enjoy it for what it is, for as long as we can, and when it gets too complicated for either of us, we say good-bye, with a kiss and a hug and a thank-you.”

“Simple as that?”

“Simple as that.”

“I don't buy that. You grow attached to people in life. Don't you think after a month of being together all the time we've grown attached to each other now?”

“Sure. But don't confuse great sex with good loving. The two do not always go hand in hand. I like you, I care about you, maybe I even love you. But it's going to be different when the children come home. Maybe too different for both of us, and if it is, we just have to accept it and move on. You can't kill yourself over things like that in life. It's not worth it.” She was so damn casual, so nonchalant, just as she had been when she picked him up on the train, and called to invite him to dinner. As long as it was fun, it was fine, but when it wasn't fun anymore, just toss it. She was right. He had told himself he was falling in love with her. But maybe she was right there, too, maybe what he was really in love with was her body.

“Maybe you're right. I just don't know.” And they made love again that night, but this time it was different. And the next morning she went back to her own place, taking with her all traces of herself that for the past month she had left at his apartment. Her makeup, her deodorant, the pills she used in case she got a migraine, the perfume he had bought her, her hot rollers, her Tampax, and the few dresses she had left in his closet. It made him lonely just seeing the empty space, and he was reminded again of the pain of losing Sarah. Why did everything have to end? Why did it all change and move on? He wanted to hang on to all of it forever.

But the point was driven home with even greater force when he saw his children get off the plane, and Sarah behind them. She had a look of shock on her face he'd never seen there before, and grief and loneliness. It was worse than any pain she'd ever felt for him, and her eyes looked woefully out at him, surrounded by two vicious shiners, and a bandage on her chin that covered fourteen stitches. Sam looked frightened as well, and he was clinging to his mother's hand with his good arm, the other was in a cast from fingertip to shoulder. And Melissa started crying the moment she saw him. She flew into his arms, sobbing incoherently, and a moment later, Sam was there, too, the awkward arm in a sling, as he clung to his daddy.

And then Oliver looked up at the woman who had been his wife, and was no more, and he knew with full force how much she had loved the boy who had died in San Remo.

“I'm sorry, Sarrie … I'm so sorry …”It was like losing a part of himself, seeing her so broken. “Is there anything I can do?” They walked slowly to the baggage claim as she shook her head, and Melissa talked about the funeral. Jean-Pierre had been an only child and it had been awful.

Oliver nodded, and tried to comfort them, and then looked over Sam's head at Sarah. “Do you want to stay at the house in Purchase? We could stay in town, except for the Labor Day weekend.”

But she only shook her head and smiled. She seemed quieter, and not older, but wiser. “I start school on Monday. I want to go back. I have a lot to do.” And she didn't tell him that that summer she had finally started her novel. “But thank you anyway. The kids are going to come up in a few weeks, and I'll be all right.” But she dreaded going through his things when she got back to the apartment in Cambridge. It suddenly made her more aware of what Oliver had gone through when she had left. In a way, that had been a little bit like dying. She had loved Jean-Pierre like a son and a friend, a lover, and a father, and she had been able to give him everything she had denied Oliver in recent years, because he wanted nothing from her. He had taught her a lot about giving and loving … and dying …

Sarah flew straight on to Boston, once the children were in Oliver's hands, and they took a cab into the city. They were quiet and subdued and upset and Oliver asked Sam if his arm hurt, and told him he wanted to take him to an American doctor. He already had an appointment for later that afternoon, but when they went, the orthopedist assured him that the arm had been properly set in San Remo. And Mel had grown taller and blonder and lovelier over the summer, despite the trauma.

And it was so good being back with them again, it suddenly reminded him of how much he had missed them, without knowing it. And suddenly he wondered about the madness of his affair with Megan. They were going to the house in Purchase the next day, for the weekend, and he had invited Megan out for the day on Sunday, to meet his children. And Aggie was coming back on Monday. In the meantime, they were going to fend for themselves. And he cooked them scrambled eggs and toast when they got back to the apartment. And little by little, they told him everything they'd done that summer. They'd had a great time until the accident. And listening to them made him realize again how distant from his life Sarah was now. He wasn't even sure anymore if he still loved her.

The children went to bed right after they ate, and Sam even fell asleep at the kitchen table. The time difference had caught up with him, and they were both exhausted.

Oliver tucked Sam into bed, careful to prop the arm on a pillow as they'd been told to do by the doctor, and then he went to check on Melissa, who was wearing a puzzled frown as she held up a mysterious object in her bedroom. “What's that?” It was a woman's blouse, with a bra tangled in with it, and as she held it up, his face froze and he could smell Megan's perfume. He had forgotten the time he had chased her into Mel's room and almost torn her clothes off as they laughed, and then rushed back to his bedroom eventually to make love in the bathtub.

“I don't know …” He didn't know what to say to her. He couldn't begin to explain what had gone on in the past month, not to his sixteen-year-old daughter. “Is it yours?” He tried to look innocent, and she was almost young enough to believe him.

“No, it's not.” She sounded like an accusing wife. And then he slapped his head, feeling like a fool in a sitcom.

“I know what that is. I let Daphne stay here one weekend, when I was in Purchase. They were painting her apartment.” Melissa looked instantly relieved, and he kissed her good night, and retreated to his own room, feeling as though he had just escaped a life sentence.

He called Megan late that night and told her how much he missed her. He could hardly wait until Sunday. And the next morning, the three of them left for the country. They opened the house, which smelled hot and musty, and put the air-conditioning on, and went to buy groceries, and after lunch they went to his father's to pick up Andy. And they found their grandfather looking extremely well, and once again puttering around his wife's garden, but this time his neighbor, Margaret Porter, was helping. She had a new haircut, and he was wearing a new pale blue linen blazer, and as Ollie and the children drove up, they'd been laughing. It was nice seeing him so happy again. And Oliver was relieved. Every time he saw him now, he couldn't get the picture out of his mind of his father holding his mother's hand when she died, and kissing her good-bye. It broke his heart, but finally, after three months, George was looking a lot better.

“Welcome home!” he shouted to the kids, and Margaret went inside to get lemonade and homemade cookies. It was almost like old times, except that Sam said the cookies were better. And Margaret smiled, and stuck up for her late friend.

“Your grandmother was the best cook I ever knew. She made the best lemon meringue pie I ever tasted.” George smiled thinking about it, and it brought back memories to Ollie of his childhood.