8.

CORY GREGORY WAS NOT THE FIRST WOMAN TO DITCH ME ON Cape Cod. Marion had left me with a three-bedroom house, a two-vehicle carport, and a third-of-an-acre yard.

The first time she came down the Cape I took her to the dunes at the National Seashore. I had gotten a fire permit, and we went to Marconi Beach and walked far away from the guarded area to a spot where we could lay out a blanket and have nobody within a hundred yards of us. As it grew dark, we dug a pit and filled it with driftwood. Then we spent hours huddled next to the flames while she told me all of her frustrations and I told her none of mine. Later, when ours was the only light on the beach and there was nothing else around us but millions of stars in the sky and the sound of waves crashing on the shore, we made love in the sand and she proclaimed it the most perfect moment of her life.

By the time she went back to Boston on the Sunday of that weekend she had determined to leave her big-city job with its preposterously large paychecks and seventy-hour workweeks and move in with me. She would apply to all the firms on the Cape; somebody would want her. Or she would get a job with a government office, like I did. Or she would just chuck the law altogether and open a tea shop. Wouldn’t that be great, never having to worry about billable hours again?

I did nothing to encourage or discourage her. I liked Marion. She was smart and funny and fun, and I had been lonely, especially during the winter months.

So I let her make her plans and tell all her friends, and I didn’t complain when she never gave her notice at work. I didn’t complain when we bought our house and she only came down on weekends. I didn’t even complain when she started skipping weekends.