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store? Did she visit Anne Beatty down the street? At what point would he realize that she never was to return? Would he realize that first night she was gone? The first sunrise without her?
    Timothy understood the secret that it takes newlyweds years to learn: the way to insure a long marriage is to fantasize about its being over. Timothy had tried, often, to imagine life without Katherine. Sometimes the thoughts came when he heard about yet another divorce of an old friend, information always imparted by a colleague who clucked about it in jealous tones. Sometimes the thoughts came when Timothy sat at his desk, and his mind drifted, and he realized that Tricia Fountain, with her twenty-three-year-old body, was mere feet away, and so available. He toyed with the scenarios: what would he do when single? Would he date many other women? Would he sell his Palo Alto house and move into a more manageable apartment, a bachelor pad, maybe something closer to the Stanford campus, with its bounty of sun-buffed co-eds? Would he date Tricia? What about the lithe, tall Asian hostess at Tamarine, who always smiled at him when Katherine’s back was turned?
    How long would he have to wait before it would be decent to be seen with another woman? Could he bring a new girlfriend tothe Circus Club? Would he be able to play golf every Saturday, and go sailing every Sunday, without guilt?
    But the fantasies, initially so appealing, quickly grew dreary. He tried picturing spending time with Tricia. After the sex, what would they do? What would they talk about? What woman, besides Katherine, would he enjoy a conversation with? Who would verbally spar with him? Who would keep him humble, would remind him to tithe to the church with a single deadpan comment like: ‘Where would any of us be without the Father?’
    Whom would he spend time with? Who would put up with – and then tease him about – his flaws, his arrogance, his egotism? Who would make fun of the limp in his left leg, teasing him in front of friends about his ‘war wound from ’Nam’ when in fact the injury happened thirty years ago on a Yale squash court. (‘Come, on, Gimpy,’ she would stage whisper at a dinner party, using her pet name for him. ‘Tell them what happened to your leg that night in the rice paddies.’)
    Who would remind him what he liked to eat when they ordered in a restaurant? Who would talk to him about work, would advise him about how to treat a prickly investor, would reflate him after Father knocked him down? Who would pack for him the night before he traveled? And with whom would he lie in bed and talk to in the dark about nothing in particular – about the latest neighborhood gossip, about the couple moving into the house down the street, about who had been refused a zoning variance, about whose kid had turned into a pot-head at Wesleyan, about who had totaled their car on Highway 101 but really wasn’t hurt?
    The fantasies about being single, far from weakening his will, always ended the same way: they made him more committed to their marriage, and reminded him that despite her bitterness and sadness, he loved Katherine more than any other woman, and that – after twenty years – he knew there would be no other woman, not ever, and that, chances were, he would die before she did, still married to her, and still very much in love.
    And now, standing behind her on their patio, with his arms onthe back of her chair, he said, ‘It’s hard to be spontaneous after twenty years. Twenty years is a long time.’
    â€˜Are you tired of me?’ she asked.
    â€˜A little,’ he admitted. ‘But that’s the point, isn’t it? You’re supposed to grow tired of each other. That means you’ve succeeded at staying married. Excitement is for young kids.’
    â€˜Timothy,’ she said. She looked up at him, squinted into the sun behind his shoulder. ‘I don’t know if