“Me, too. Now we don’t have to be afraid.”

“No.” I said to her, “I thought you would call me.”

“I was playing hard to get.” She added, “I was going to give it another forty-eight hours before I called you. Then I saw Elizabeth’s car there overnight, and I was… what’s a good word?”

“Destroyed? Devastated? Pissed off?”

“That’s it. But I was ready to forgive you.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Do you like her?”

“I do.”

She didn’t respond for a few seconds, then said, “She likes you. She told me that when we had lunch. Well, she was coy about it, considering the circumstances, but I could tell.”

“She’s a nice lady.”

“I think so, too. So, we can all be friends.”

“Great.” A lot seemed to have been decided in the last thirty minutes that I wasn’t aware of, but that’s what sometimes happens after you have sex with someone. I mean, you go from a polite “hello” to naked in bed, engaged in the most intimate acts with a person you may or may not know that well, and then – if you’re not pressed for time – you need to engage in pillow talk. And talking is where you usually get into trouble, sometimes without even knowing it.

In this case, however, with Susan, Fate had long ago decided that I’d be here, so I might as well get with the program. I said to her, “I never thought we’d be apart for the rest of our lives.”

“I knew we would not be.”

I confessed to her, “I saw you on Tuesday in Locust Valley.”

“You did? Where?”

“At that food place, a few doors from Rolf’s.”

“Oh, right. I was having lunch with Charlie Frick.”

“It looked like a woman.”

“Charlene. Charlie Frick. She’s one of the Fricks.”

“Apparently, if that’s her name.”

“John, you just got laid. Can you tone down your sarcasm?”

I didn’t see the connection, but I was certain there’d be more of these post-coital non sequiturs. I said, “Sorry.”

She asked me, “Where were you? I hope you weren’t getting one of your awful sandwiches at Rolf’s.”

And then there’s post-coital criticism of my life. I replied, “Actually, I just got a coffee at Rolf’s, and I came out and saw you and Mitzi.”

“Charlie. Why didn’t you say hello?”

“Because that wasn’t how I wanted to meet you for the first time after four years.”

She squeezed my hand and said, “Me neither.” She asked me, “How did you feel? What were you thinking?”

“I felt… I think, sad. And I thought you never looked so beautiful.”

She snuggled up to me and put her arms around me. She said, “I love you, and we’ll never be apart again, and never be sad again.” She kissed me and said, “Can you believe this? Can you believe we’re together again?”

“It is hard to believe.”

“Will you marry me again?”

I was actually prepared for that question, so I replied, without hesitation, “If that’s what you want.”

That must not have been the correct answer because she moved away from me and asked, “What do you want?”

I tried again and asked her, “Will you marry me?”

“Let me think about it. Okay, I’ll marry you.”

“You’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”

“I know I have. But let’s live together for a year, to make sure.”

“All right. No, I mean, let’s get married as soon as possible.”

“If that’s what you want. What are you doing tomorrow?”

Clearly, Susan was happy, and when she’s happy, she’s funny. I was happy, too, but this was a little sudden, and I wasn’t processing it at the speed it was happening, and I really wanted at least ten minutes to think about completely changing my life. But then I remembered what I’d said to Elizabeth about using more heart and less brain, and about taking chances. At this point in my life, I didn’t have much to lose by marrying my ex-wife. I suppose I could do worse. On a more positive note, I was in love with her, and I was being given a second chance to be happy.

Susan, who knows me, asked, “Are you talking yourself into or out of marrying me?”

I replied, “I would like nothing more than for us to be married again, and to be a family again.”

She sat back against the headboard, and I saw tears welling up in her eyes. She said, “I am so sorry, John, for what happened.”

“I know. Me, too.”

We sat there for a while, and I watched the fan sweeping the room and felt the breeze on my body. Being here, in our old bedroom, with our old furniture, brought back good memories of making love, lazy Sunday mornings, the children when they were young coming in to snuggle with us, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day breakfast in bed, and staying up and talking late into the night. I remembered the anniversary card she’d written me: John, You don’t know how many times I wake up in the morning and just stare at you lying beside me, and I will do this for the rest of my life.

I could dwell on the past, and on the ten-year gap between now and the last time we’d made love here, but I’d done that, and it had gotten me nothing but anger, resentment, and a troubled soul. So I took her hand, looked at her, and said, “I forgive you.”

She nodded her head and said, “I knew you would.”

So did I.

She moved closer to me and put her head on my shoulder, and we both sat there, enjoying the moment and thinking ahead into the future.

It was, indeed, time to move forward.

Unfortunately, the past was not really dead and buried; it was alive, and it lived at Alhambra, and it was about to catch up with us.

Sex in the shower is my kind of multitasking.

Afterwards, we dressed and went downstairs into the kitchen, and Susan asked me, “Are you hungry?”

I looked at the regulator clock and saw it was a little after 1:00 P.M., and I remembered my Sunday spaghetti and meatballs at the Bellarosas’.

I also remembered I was supposed to call Elizabeth for a possible 7:00 P.M. rendezvous. A lot had been set in motion before this unexpected turn of events, and I wished now that I’d called Susan last week. But who knows what would have happened last week if we’d met? I wasn’t really ready then for what just happened, and in fact, I wasn’t sure I was ready now for what was happening. But clever people, like me, can change plans as the situation changes. As for my plans with Elizabeth, for instance, people who are getting married should cut down on their dating. As for dinner with the Bellarosa family, that decision wasn’t as simple.

“John? Hello?”

I looked at Susan and said, “You know, I could go for a Bloody Mary.”

“I don’t think I have tomato juice.”

“Even better. Vodka on the rocks.”

She opened the freezer, retrieved a bottle of Grey Goose and poured it in a glass, then added ice and filled the glass with orange juice, saying, “You can’t drink straight vodka this early in the day.”

I thought I could. I was starting to remember things from my first marriage, which was also my last.

Susan poured herself an orange juice and handed me my drink. We clinked glasses, and I said, “Here’s to us.”

“To us.”

I sipped my drink and couldn’t taste the vodka.

She asked again, “Would you like something to eat?”

“No, this is fine.”

“What did you have for breakfast?”

“Uh… let me think…” I almost had Elizabeth on the patio table, but I shouldn’t mention that. I said, “An English muffin.”

“Is that all?”

“Crabapple jelly. Coffee.”

“And did you dine alone?”

“I did not.”

She inquired, “How is it that you and she slept in the same house overnight, and nothing happened?”

I was getting a little impatient with the Elizabeth questions, and I said, “It doesn’t matter how or why nothing happened. What matters is that nothing happened.”

She sensed I was annoyed and said, “I’m sorry. I can’t believe how jealous I am. I won’t mention it again.”