“I love you, Augusta Rockwell.” The voice came out of the darkness. Augusta was in bed, wearing a nylon nightgown, just a thin sheet over her. She knew the voice. She’d wanted to hear it, longed to hear it—in this bedroom, coming out of the darkness—most of her adult life.

“You’re not allowed in my bedroom,” Augusta said.

“I could back out and stand in the hallway, but it won’t change anything.”

She sat up and pulled the string on her bedside lamp. “This is a very difficult situation. The girls—” She could see him now. He wore a T-shirt, a robe tied at his waist. He’d once been the man running alongside the bus in the snowstorm on the eve of Kennedy’s inauguration.

“I’m not talking about our daughters right now. I’m talking about us.”

“Well, we’re in a difficult situation too,” she said.

“Remember the hotel in Geneva with the Lilliputian elevator? Remember the Montreal massage?”

They’d had sex in that Lilliputian elevator. She’d had a double orgasm as a result of Nick’s Montreal massage.

“I’m the only other person who holds it,” Nick said.

“Who holds what?”

“Everything we ever were. And you’re the only other person for me. You’re my other person, Augusta. It’s just the two of us.”

She felt flushed. She nodded. “I know.”

“Without you in my life, everything that happened between us is just a shadow. It’s not real. You make the past real for me. Our past.”

“Remember Maine,” she whispered. “The wool blankets. The twin beds after the babies were asleep.”

“We’re still in love with each other.”

“It never made any sense,” Augusta said.

“No. It never did.”

It was quiet a moment. Someone started singing out on the streets somewhere. Someone drunk.

“How long should I stand here?”

She stared at him then shook her head. “Not yet.” And she lay back in bed, the down pillow puffing around her. “Not yet, Nick Flemming.”