The breakup was hard for her, too, surprisingly hard. She didn’t miss him as much as she missed the idea of him, of having something exciting and unpredictable in her life. Suddenly being home with Adam felt excruciatingly dull; she felt like a prisoner serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole. She was back in her old rut, in her empty, meaningless, lonely life, living day to day, with nothing to look forward to.

Tony had left two phone messages and six text messages on her cell. He wasn’t taking the breakup well, and she wanted to call him, tell him she’d made a mistake, but she resisted and deleted all the messages without playing or reading them. God, this was even harder than when she’d quit smoking, but she knew she had to treat it exactly the same way, like she was breaking an addiction. The first days of getting over the addiction were always the hardest, and the trick was to stay strong, not give in. She was glad that she and Adam and Marissa were planning to go to Florida to visit Adam’s mother. Getting away from New York for a few days would be a huge help.

The next day she was home alone, and she felt the familiar intense urge to call Tony and arrange to meet at his place for a quickie during his lunch break. She fought it and called her friend Sharon instead and went over to her house a few blocks away for coffee. Keeping the fling a secret for so long had become draining, and Dana needed to talk to someone about it.

Opening up to Sharon was a big help. It made her feel like she’d done the right thing, ending it when she did, before it snowballed out of control.

Sharon told her, “You and Adam have invested so much time together, whatever you do don’t throw it away, especially for some guy you don’t even really like.”

Sharon’s words were like a refreshing blast of reality. Dana continued to delete all of Tony’s messages and managed to make it through the most difficult first few days. She spent more time with Adam; she met him in the city one night and they went out to their favorite Spanish restaurant in the West Village, and another night they stayed home and watched a movie together, cuddling on the couch.

They had to cancel their trip to Florida because of the tropical storm, but Dana didn’t feel the desperate need to get away anymore. Tony had gone a whole day without trying to contact her, and she was starting to think of the fling in the past tense. It had been fun for a while, but it had ended, and now it was time to repair her marriage.

Then the robbery happened, and now here she was, relapsing, going back to Tony, about to mess up her life all over again.

She knew that restarting something that had been so hard to end was a huge mistake. It was wrong to take her anger about the shooting out on Adam in this way, and it definitely wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Despite everything they’d been through and how angry she was, she loved Adam and wanted to improve their marriage and work out their differences. She knew that if she didn’t get herself to turn back she could ruin her life, but the pull to be with Tony and screw things up was so intense. She felt like something beyond her was controlling her, making her decisions, and she was just a witness to it all.

On the stairs, going up to his apartment, she was still trying to talk herself into turning back, reminding herself how much Adam meant to her, how this wouldn’t resolve anything, how it could make things worse, much worse, and then she saw Tony- in tight black boxer briefs and nothing else- and a few seconds later they were in his apartment and he was kissing her neck, pushing her up against the back of the front door. Her pants and turtleneck were off and he was sliding his hands up under her red lace panties, over her ass, saying, “I love when you wear this shit,” and she was moaning, “Oh, God, baby. Oh, God…”

Then, afterward, under his body on the floor, she thought, What the hell am I doing?

Tony looked into her eyes, smiled, and asked, “You want some Gatorade or somethin’?”

“I… I have to go,” she said, bending down, reaching for her jeans.

“What’s the hurry?” Tony said. “We got all night.”

“This was a mistake,” she said out loud, but to herself. “This was a huge mistake.”

“What’re you talking about?” He sounded seriously confused. “I thought you said you missed me.”

She pulled her jeans on, not bothering to zip or snap them. She was muttering to herself like a mantra, “Gotta get home, gotta get back, gotta get home, gotta get back…”

When she was about to put her turtleneck on Tony grabbed her wrist hard and said, “Come on, what’re you doing?”

“Please let go of me,” she said.

“Why? I don’t get it.”

He let go of her wrist, and she finished getting dressed.

“Was I too rough on you?” he asked. “I thought you like it like that.”

When she left his apartment and was going downstairs he screamed after her, “When am I gonna see you again? Don’t do this to me, baby! You know how much I love you, baby!”

She walked fast, saying to herself, “What an idiot, what a fuckin’ idiot.” She didn’t know if she was talking about herself or Tony, but she couldn’t believe she’d done such a stupid, impulsive thing. What the hell was she doing? She was forty- seven years old, acting like she was seventeen. It was no wonder Marissa had been giving them so much trouble lately- look who she had for a role model.

Several minutes later, as she approached her house, she was a little calmer- less emotional, anyway. Okay, so she’d had one minor slipup, but she could forget it ever happened; it didn’t have to mean anything. She just wondered about Tony. There was a tone in his voice, anger she’d never heard before. He’d already sent those flowers; what was he going to do next?

Damn it, she usually showered after having sex with Tony, and now she reeked of his cologne.

She opened the front door quietly, hoping Adam wasn’t home.

“Honey, that you?”

“Fuck me,” she muttered.

ten

When Adam saw all the news trucks and reporters out in front of the house, he thought, Oh, no, not again. He just wanted to get away from the house for a little while, de- stress, not have another pointless argument with Dana. He didn’t want to go through all of that having- to- defend- himself- tothe- reporters nonsense again.

He was planning to be curt, answer a question or two, then say, Sorry, in a hurry, and walk away. But surprisingly, the questioning today seemed to have a much different tone than last night. Even while asking questions like “Do you think your maid’s murder was related to the break- in last night?” and “Who do you think killed your maid?” and “Do you think your maid robbed your house?” the reporters seemed almost apologetic.

One reporter asked, “In the wake of the shooting this morning in Jackson Heights, do you feel vindicated, Dr. Bloom?”

“No, I don’t feel vindicated,” Adam said. “I feel justified, yes, but I felt justified yesterday, too. In my mind, nothing’s changed.”

Adam didn’t feel nearly as self- conscious as he had during last night’s questioning. He even ended making an impromptu speech, looking right into the camera, saying, “My family’s very saddened by the death of Gabriela Moreno. I don’t know if she was involved or wasn’t involved in the robbery of our house, but she was a wonderful woman, and I hope whoever killed her is brought to justice as soon as possible.”

Walking to the gym, he was proud of the way he’d handled himself. If there was a bright side to all of this, he was definitely overcoming his glossophobia. He thought he came off as confident and well- spoken, and the last bit was a perfect touch, not publicly blaming Gabriela, showing people that, despite everything, he was compassionate and forgiving. Okay, so maybe he was letting his ego take over and he was enjoying the attention a bit more than he ought to, but was there really anything so wrong with this?