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“It’s okay. It’s just … boring without you.”
    “I don’t believe it. This is your moment.”
    “It doesn’t feel like my moment. It all feels very—removed, somehow.”
    “It’s a damn good book. You know that, don’t you?”
    “What book?” Claire could hear Annie asking in the background.
    “Nothing, sweetie,” he answered, his voice muffled again. “Just something I read. Go help Noah with the train tracks. I’ll be there in a minute.”
    “You finished it already?” Claire asked.
    “Just this afternoon, on the train.” He paused, and Claire guessed he was waiting for Annie to leave. Then he said, “It’s an incredible story. It makes me—oh, never mind. We’ll talk about it later.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Honestly—it makes me like you even better.”
    “Oh.” She smiled into the phone.
    “So relax. Enjoy this.”
    “Urrr.” She groaned. “I’d rather be with you.” She held the phone to her ear, listening to the static between them. “When can I see you?”
    “Soon.”
    “When?”
    “It’s the weekend,” he said. “I don’t think I can get away.”
    “Before I leave on tour? Monday?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Charlie … ”
    “What?”
    “I just … I want to be with you.”
    “Yes,” he said again.
    When the call was done she clicked off and held the warm phone to her chest for a moment, as if it were a piece of him. Then she slipped it back into her bag and opened the door. Surveying the room, she watched as Alison caught Ben’s eye and he nodded and held one finger out—wait—so that the person he was with couldn’t see. After a moment he extricated himself with a deft turn and started to make his way over to her. Claire saw Alison’s features soften and her shoulders drop. Now she could relax—Ben wouldn’t desert her until she found her footing.
    All evening, Claire had watched Ben work the room as only Ben could, seeking out the uncomfortable and the socially awkward, refilling drinks and matchmaking commonalities. Every now and then he’d look over at her and lift his glass, offering to refill hers, or raise his eyebrows in a bid to rescue her if she needed it. More than once, feeling the warmth of his gaze, Claire wondered how it could be possible to love someone as much as she loved Ben, and yet no longer be in love.

Chapter Three
    Ben needed a drink . For the past fifteen minutes he’d been listening to Martha Belle Clancy, Claire’s mother’s best friend, talk about her hobby—a series of needlework dioramas she was making of major Civil War battles (she’d completed six already, through Fredericksburg)— and for at least twelve of those minutes, his glass had been empty. Feigning interest in Martha Belle, a challenge to begin with, was getting harder by the second. Ben had already chatted pleasantly with Claire’s mother about all the things she disliked about New York—the weather, the traffic, the noise—and by now he figured he had just about fulfilled his husbandly obligations.
    Surreptitiously, he glanced around the room—wasn’t a waiter supposed to be circulating? He’d settle for another blue martini, though what he really wanted was a Scotch. Where might Colm have hidden the hard stuff? If Ben could somehow extricate himself, maybe he could hunt it down.
    Just then Alison emerged from a crowd in the hall, and Ben was momentarily distracted. He watched as she moved across the room to the drinks table, where the bartender poured her a martini. My God, she’s lovely, he thought—those fine features, bright inquisitive eyes. She seemed flooded with quivering energy, like a doe standing in a clearing. The gray sweater and black pants she was wearing reminded him of how she’d looked in England ten years ago. With faint creases around her eyes, her slim body softened slightly by motherhood, she was still, he thought, gamine, with an Audrey Hepburn–like grace.
    Why was she alone? Why hadn’t Charlie come? Being present at