I’ve been here before, too, and I never felt comfortable dipping my pen in a client’s inkwell. But Elizabeth was also a social acquaintance, and not really a client, and… well, the line was already crossed. So… I mean, not to proceed at this point would be rude.

She held out her empty glass, and I refilled it.

It was past 7:00 P.M., still light outside, and the open window let in a nice breeze and the sounds of birds chirping. Now and then I could hear a vehicle passing on Grace Lane, but no one drove into the gravel driveway.

She finished her wine, put her feet on the floor, and raised herself up from the armchair.

I, too, stood, and she put her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in my bare chest.

I put my arms around her, and I could feel she was limp and barely standing – as opposed to Bad John who was not limp and standing fully erect. I lifted her and laid her down on the sheets with her head on the pillow.

She stared up at the ceiling, then tears welled up in her eyes.

I took some tissues from a box on the nightstand and put them in her hand, and Good John suggested, “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

She nodded, and I got the quilt from the foot of the bed and laid it over her.

She said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I want to… but it’s just… too much. Everything. I’m too sad.”

“I understand.” I also understood that Elizabeth was possibly considering her relationship with Susan, and that made two of us.

“Maybe later,” she said.

I didn’t reply.

“I like you.”

“I like you.”

I opened the small closet, found a pair of khakis and a golf shirt, and got a pair of shorts from the dresser. I took off my towel, and I saw she was watching me. She asked, “Where are you going?”

“Downstairs.” I pulled on my shorts, pants, and shirt and asked her, “Do you need anything?”

She shook her head.

“See you later.” I headed toward the door.

She said, “Kiss me good night.”

I went back to the bed, gave her a kiss on the cheek, then on the lips, and wiped her eyes with a tissue, then left the room and closed the door.

I went downstairs, got a beer from the refrigerator, and sat out on the back patio.

The night was getting cool, and the setting sun cast long shadows across the lawn. In the distance, if I cared to look, was Susan’s house, and I understood that it was Susan’s proximity and her literal and figurative presence that was causing me the same conflict that Elizabeth probably felt.

And my conflicts and indecisions went beyond the issue of women; my dealings with Anthony Bellarosa, for instance, were affected by Susan’s presence, as was my uncertainty about staying here, or returning to London, or going someplace new.

So, I needed to speak to Susan to put these issues to rest, to find out how much – or how little – she actually mattered.

I finished my beer, put my feet on the table, and looked up at the darkening sky. The light pollution from the encroaching subdivisions cast an artificial glow on the horizon, but overhead it was as I remembered it; a beautiful watercolor blue and pink twilight, and in the east the stars were starting to blink on in the purple sky.

The sound of a vehicle on the gravel broke into my stargazing, and I turned as the vehicle passed the gatehouse and saw that it was a white Lexus SUV. It stopped, then moved on slowly toward the guest cottage.

We had been separated for a decade by oceans and continents, and now we were a few minutes’ walk from each other, but still separated by anger, pride, and history, which was harder to overcome than continents and oceans.

I’d always felt that we’d parted in haste, without a full accounting of why we were going our separate ways, and as a result, neither of us, I think, was really able to move on. We needed to revisit the past, no matter how painful that would be. And the time to do that was now.

CHAPTER TWENTY

As the sun came over the estate wall and through the kitchen window, I brewed a pot of coffee and took a mug out onto the patio, where I counted four empty beer bottles on the table.

I’d slept in my clothes on the couch, and my only trip up the stairs was to use the bathroom. To the best of my knowledge, Elizabeth never came downstairs.

I sipped coffee from my steaming mug and watched the morning mist rise from the lawn and garden.

As we used to say in college, “Getting laid is no big deal, but not getting laid is a very big deal.”

On a more positive note, that was the right move. No involvement, no complications.

On the other hand, sex or no sex, Elizabeth and I had connected on some level. I liked her, and she was part of my past, and therefore possibly part of my future. I’d spent ten years sleeping with strangers; it might be nice to sleep with someone I knew. If nothing else, I now had a place to store my property, and a guest room if I needed one. And, hopefully, I had a friend.

I heard the screen door squeak open, and I turned to see Elizabeth walking barefoot across the dewy patio, wrapped in my old bathrobe and carrying a mug of coffee.

She gave me a peck on the cheek and said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

She asked, “Did you sleep well?”

“I did. How about you?”

“I… it was strange sleeping in my old room.” She added, “I had sad dreams… about being a young girl again… and Mom and Dad… I woke up a few times, crying.”

I nodded and looked at her, then we held hands. She still looked very sad, then seemed to shake it off and said, “Do you know this poem? ‘Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight; Make me a child again just for tonight.’”

“I’ve heard it.”

“That’s what I was thinking last night.”

I nodded and squeezed her hand.

She said to me, “I thought you’d come up.”

“Believe me, I thought about it.”

She smiled, then said, “Well, I don’t think I was in a very romantic mood.”

“No. You wanted to be a child again, just for one night.”

She looked at me, nodded, then said, “But… I wanted your company. So I came downstairs. You were snoring on the couch.”

“Do I snore?”

“God, I thought you were running the vacuum cleaner.”

I smiled and said, “Red wine makes me snore.”

“No more red wine for you.” She looked at the empty beer bottles and asked, “Did you have people over?”

I smiled again and replied, “I was killing garden slugs.”

We sat down at the table, still holding hands, sipping coffee. The sun was well above the wall now, and sunlight streamed through the trees into the garden and patio, burning through the ground mist. It was quiet except for the morning birds chirping away, and the occasional vehicle on Grace Lane beyond the wall.

Elizabeth said, “I love this time of day.”

“Me, too.”

We stayed silent awhile, appreciating the dawn of a beautiful summer day.

Finally, she asked me, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“Well… you might think this is silly… and I’m almost embarrassed… but when I was about… maybe sixteen, I developed a major crush on you.”

I smiled. “Did you?”

She laughed, then continued, “Even though you were married… I thought about you sometimes when I was in college, and whenever I came home and saw you… but then I grew up and got over it.”

“That’s good.” I added, “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. I never flirted, did I?”

I thought about that, and replied “No, you didn’t.”

“I was a good girl.”

“Still are.”

“Well… let’s not go there.”

I smiled.

Elizabeth continued, “And then, when all that happened with Susan and Frank Bellarosa, I couldn’t believe what I’d heard from Mom when you moved in here… then, after Susan shot him… I wanted to call you or come by. Actually, I dropped in to see Mom a few times, but you weren’t here… and then Mom said that you were leaving.”