Jenny crumbled the note and shoved it in her pocket. “No, love, I’m fine. I just didn’t feel so well for a minute.”

She was not reassuring Beth. A wave of nausea had come over her as she read the note. Dear God, she thought, he can’t mean this. He won’t let me go to the church meetings. He won’t let me use the car. Now he won’t let me even learn to ride when he’s painting.

Erich, don’t spoil it for us, she protested silently. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t hole up and paint and expect me to sit with my hands folded waiting for you. You can’t be so jealous that I’m afraid to be honest with you.

She glanced around wildly. Should she take a stand, pack and go back to New York? If there was any chance to keep their relationship from being destroyed, he’d have to get counseling, get some help to overcome this possessiveness. If she left, he’d know she meant it.

Where could she go? And with what?

She didn’t have a dollar in her pocketbook. She had no money for fare, no place to go, no job. And she didn’t want to leave him.

She was afraid she was going to be sick. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered and hurried upstairs. In the bathroom she wrung out a cold cloth and washed her face. Her reflection had a sickly, unnatural pallor.

“Mommy, Mommy.” Beth and Tina were in the hallway. They had followed her upstairs.

She knelt down, swooped them to her, hugging them fiercely.

“Mommy, you’re hurting me,” Tina protested.

“I’m sorry, Moppet.” The warm, wiggling bodies close to hers restored her balance. “You two certainly got yourselves one brilliant mother,” she said.

The afternoon dragged slowly. To pass the time, she sat with the girls at the spinet and began to teach them to pick out notes. Without the curtains it was possible to look out the parlor windows and see the sunset. The clouds had been blown away and the sky was coldly beautiful in shades of mauve and orange, gold and pink.

Leaving the children banging on the keyboard, she walked to the kitchen door that opened onto the west porch. The wind was making the porch swing move gently. Ignoring the cold, Jenny stood on the porch and admired the last of the sunset. When the final lights were ebbing into grayness, she turned to go back into the house.

A movement in the woods caught her attention. She stared. Someone was watching her, a shadowy figure, nearly concealed by the double trunk of the oak tree that Arden used to climb.

“Who’s there?” Jenny called sharply.

The shadow receded into the woods as though trying to step back into the protection of the underbrush.

“Who’s there?” Jenny called again sharply. Aware only of her anger at the intrusion on her privacy, she started down the porch steps toward the woods.

Erich stepped out from the shelter of the oak and with outstretched arms started running toward her.

“But, darling, I was only joking. How could you have thought for a minute that I wasn’t joking?” He took the crumbled note from her. “Here, let’s throw that out.” He shoved it in the stove. “There, it’s gone.”

Bewildered, Jenny looked at Erich. There wasn’t a trace of nervousness about him. He was smiling easily, shaking his head at her in amusement. “It’s hard to believe you took that seriously, Jenny,” he said, then he laughed. “I thought you’d be flattered that I pretended to be jealous.”

“Erich!”

He locked his arms around her waist, rubbed his cheek against hers. “Umm, you feel good.”

Nothing about the fact that they hadn’t seen each other for a week. And that note wasn’t a joke. He was kissing her cheek. “I love you, Jen.”

For a moment she held herself rigid. She had vowed that she would have it out with him, the absences, the jealousy, her mail. But she didn’t want to start an argument. She’d missed him. Suddenly the whole house seemed cheerful again.

The girls heard his voice and came running back into the room. “Daddy, Daddy.” He picked them up.

“Hey, you two sounded great on the piano. Guess we’ll have to start lessons for you pretty soon. Would you like that?”

Jenny thought, Mark’s right. I’ve got to have patience, give him time. Her smile was genuine when he looked at her over the children’s heads.

Dinner had a festive air. She prepared carbonara and an endive salad. Erich brought a bottle of Chablis from the wine rack. “It gets harder and harder to work in the cabin, Jen,” he said. “Especially when I know I’m missing dinners like this.” He tickled Tina. “And it’s no fun being away from my family.”

“And your home,” she said. It seemed a good moment to bring up the changes she’d made. “You haven’t mentioned how you like the way I’ve moved things around.”

“I’m slow to react,” he said lightly. “Let me think about it.”

It was better than she’d hoped for. She got up, walked around the table and put her arms around his neck. “I was so afraid you might be upset.”

He reached up and smoothed her hair. As always the feel of his nearness thrilled her, pushed away the doubts and uncertainties.

Beth had just left the table. Now she came running back. “Mommy, do you love Daddy better than our other daddy?”

Why in the name of God had she thought to ask that question now? Jenny wondered despairingly. Desperately she tried to frame an answer. She could only find the truth. “I loved your first daddy mostly because of you and Tina. Why do you want to know that?” To Erich she said, “They haven’t mentioned Kevin for weeks.”

Beth pointed at Erich. “Because this daddy asked me if I love him better than our first daddy.”

“Erich, I wouldn’t discuss that with the girls.”

“I shouldn’t,” he said contritely. “I guess I was just anxious to see if their memory of him was beginning to fade.” He put his arms around her. “How about your memory, darling?”

She took a long time with the children’s baths. Somehow it was calming to watch their uncomplicated pleasure splashing in the tub. She wrapped them in thick towels, rejoicing in the sturdy little bodies and brushing back the freshly shampooed ringlets. Her hands trembled as she buttoned their pajamas. I’m getting so nervous, she fumed at herself. It’s just I feel so dishonest that the smallest thing Erich says I take the wrong way. Damn Kevin.

She heard the girls’ prayers. “God bless Mommy and Daddy,” Tina intoned. She paused then looked up. “Should we say God bless both daddies?”

Jenny bit her lip. Erich had started this. She wasn’t going to tell the children not to pray for Kevin. Still… “Why not tonight say God bless everyone?” she suggested.

“And Fire Maid and Mouse and Tinker Bell and Joe…” Beth added.

“And Randy,” Tina reminded her. “Can we have a puppy too?”

Jenny tucked them into bed, realizing how every night she was becoming more and more reluctant to go downstairs again. When she was alone, the house seemed too big, too silent. On windy nights there was a mournful wail from the trees that penetrated the quiet.

And now when Erich was here she didn’t know what to expect. Would he stay overnight or go back to the cabin?

She went downstairs. He had made the coffee. “They must have been pretty dirty for you to be so long with them, sweetheart.”

She had planned to ask him for the keys to the car but he didn’t give her the chance. He picked up the tray with the coffee service. “Let’s sit in the front parlor and let me absorb your changes.”

As she followed him she realized how well the white cableknit sweater he was wearing set off his dark, gold hair. My handsome, successful, talented husband, she thought, and with a tinge of irony remembered Fran saying, “He’s too perfect.”

In the parlor she pointed out to him how moving some furniture and putting away the excessive bric-a-brac made it possible to appreciate the lovely pieces in the room.