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God, how pathetic! No wonder Joe had had enough of her.

Braced by her self-contempt, she’d forced herself to stand, and clamber up the ladder. With an ax, she’d somehow managed to chop enough small branches off the Tom tree limb to be able to drag it off the roof. Then, exhausted, she’d staggered inside and taken a long hot shower-the first in days-and afterwards fixed herself and Adam breakfast, fresh-squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, toasted English muffins.

She realized that she would live after all. No matter how bad things got, she had Adam … and she had herself. And Annie, too. Yes, Annie. No matter how mad at Annie she sometimes got … they were joined forever. Sisters.

Even so, thinking ahead to when Joe would be free to marry someone else, Laurel felt gripped by a queasy weakness. That had to be why she’d put off discussing their getting divorced. Was it because she was afraid that if he was free, he’d marry Annie?

And, if he did, then what?

No, he couldn’t. She’d give anything for another chance with Joe. But Joe had to want it, too. She couldn’t make him want her. She’d already tried that, and look where it had gotten her.

/Yrriving at Dolly’s apartment, a bit late after being stuck behind a double-parked delivery truck, Laurel found the wedding reception in full swing. Bill Watley, a long-time member of his Chelsea AA chapter, was toasting the bride and groom with Pepsi, telling about the time he’d roared into Dolly’s shop dressed as Santa Claus, high as a kite,

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and instead of throwing him out on his ear she’d given him a bottle of Cherry Heering “to keep the chill off.” He ended up not drinking it, he said, and the very next day had gone straight to AA. He’d been dry ever since. And to this day, he kept that bottle in his kitchen cupboard as a reminder.

“Better watch out, Henri,” Bill bellowed, “or she’ll reform you, too.”

“Mais oui,” Henri replied with a chuckle. “But she already has done this.”

Laurel, depositing Adam with Henri’s eight-year-old twin grandsons, watched Adam immediately drag the pair off to the guest bedroom where Dolly kept a box of toys and games. Then, after dredging up enough of her highschool French to exchange pleasantries with Henri’s daughter-a pretty, plump woman in a fluffy pink dress that was all wrong for her-she walked over to the bar and poured herself a drink. Stolichnaya. Neat. She wanted to be happy for Dolly … but right now, even more, she wanted to be numb.

“Laurey.”

At the sound of his familiar voice, she turned too quickly, vodka splashing over the rim of her glass, stinging her knuckles. She looked up into a pair of round steelrimmed glasses, at reflected images of herself flickering in his lenses.

It was as if it had been a hundred years since they’d spoken. Yet he called at least once a day, to speak to Adam. But now his voice sounded different, softer. Or was she just imagining that?

“We need to talk,” he said in a low voice. “The terrace. We’ll have some privacy out there. I’ll get your coat. It’s a little chilly.”

Chilly? Did he know about cold-the bone-deep cold of waking up to find yourself reaching for your husband in bed and not finding him there? What it’s like when you can’t stop shivering, even with the thermostat pushed up to eighty and with three heavy blankets over you?

But now she felt too warm, her heart swollen, knocking against her ribs, a haziness clouding her thoughts, her

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carefully built-up rationalizations. Damn him. Why was he doing this to her?

But she didn’t argue. Just nodded, and waited quietly while he got their coats.

He’s going to tell me he’s seen a lawyer, that it’s time we got divorced. Oh, he’s right, of course … but, God, can I bear it?

Outside, she didn’t bother to button her coat. The October wind was whipping at her hem, but she wasn’t cold. She wondered if she might be running a fever. Her face felt hot and tight, her throat achy.

Standing on the wide rear terrace, looking west over the fall hues of Central Park, Laurel imagined she and Joe were alone on a raft together, sailing on a blue ocean. She wanted them to stay like this forever, never reaching shore, together, just the two of them. The Owl and the Pussycat, in their beautiful pea-green boat.

I hate endings, she thought. Even in books, I hate turning the last pages. It’s as if the characters you loved had died. Or abandoned you.

Don’t wait for him to say it. Get this over with while you still have a shred of dignity left.

“I think I know what this is all about, Joe, and I don’t…” She stopped, her throat tightening. She cleared it and began again. “I don’t want it to be any harder than it already is. You know, the way couples end up fighting over dumb things like who gets the martini pitcher.”

Joe smiled at her. Over his good blue suit, he wore an old but beautifully kept navy greatcoat that had been his father’s, its collar pulled up around his ears, its brass buttons twinkling. “We don’t have a martini pitcher,” he pointed out.

“Well … you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“I mean, things aren’t the issue here, are they? Oh, I suppose we’ll have to do some … sorting out. You know, like with Adam. He still asks me every night when you’re coming home. It’ll be hard enough on him as it is without us fighting.” She took a deep breath, and felt as if instead of air she was pulling salty water into her lungs.

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“It’s just as well, I guess, I never had those other babies.”

“Don’t say that.” Joe grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. In the sunset’s glare, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel his powerful fingers through her thick coat, gripping her tightly. “Don’t ever say that.” He sounded angry.

“Why not?” She felt herself glare at him, her own hurt welling to the surface. “It’s true, isn’t it? Another child would’ve been just one more thing standing between you and … and what you really wanted.”

The heat inside her was galvanizing her. She wasn’t going to be afraid. Because that was what it all boiled down to, wasn’t it? Adam. The reason Joe hadn’t asked for a divorce before this.

“What makes you so sure you know what I want?”

“How can I know when you never tell me anything! Dammit, Joe, you should have told me. About your father. About Annie. Everything. You should have told me in the very beginning that you were only marrying me because of Adam!”

“That isn’t true.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Of course it’s true. I knew it then, deep down, and I wanted you badly enough to marry you anyway. I thought I could make you love me. But you can’t make a person love you, can you?”

“I know I should have been more honest with you. I’m sorry.”

“I used to have this fantasy … oh, I know it was childish! … but I used to imagine you’d wake up one morning, and just like a fairy tale, you’d see me lying there … and it would be as if an evil enchantment had been lifted, and you were seeing me for the very first time. Falling in love with me. As if you had never loved”-her voice broke with a tiny gasping cry, and she felt the sting of hot tears against her icy cheeks-“my sister.”

“It wasn’t a competition. Believe me, it was never anything like that.”

“I know.”

How could I even come close to Annie’s charm and her brilliance?

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The sun’s glare abruptly dimmed, a passing cloud probably, and she could once again see his eyes, soft in contrast to the planes and angles of his face, and filled with tenderness. He didn’t let go of her, but his hands relaxed their grip. “Laurey …”

Say it, she pleaded silently. Please just say it and get it over with.

“I love you.”

God, he was killing her. Damn him!

She pulled away, and stepped back, trembling. “That’s not fair!”

“Laurey, wait. I know it hasn’t always been-“

“No!” she broke in. “I don’t want to hear it! Just pretend I’m dead! Because that’s how I want to feel about you, dead inside me.” Tears were running down her cheeks. “Joe, please, if you love me at all, even a little, then stop this. Just stop.”

Laurel, feeling desperate, walked away from him, going all the way around the terrace to the Park Avenue side. She needed to find a way … something … anything to save herself from this new, futile hope quickening inside her. Blindly, savagely, she wrenched the gold wedding band from her finger, and flung it over the wrought-iron railing. She watched it arc toward the street twelve stories below, becoming smaller and smaller, falling as if in slow motion, like a coin tossed into a wishing well. She imagined it simply dissolving into the air, a sorcerer’s spell, which she now had broken forever.

Looking back at Joe, she saw that the blood had drained from his face, leaving blotchy red smudges where the wind had scoured his cheeks. She expected him now to say how sorry he was, how he hoped they could stay friends … for Adam’s sake, if for no other reason.

Instead, he bolted across the terrace, flung open the sliding glass door, and disappeared inside the apartment.

Stunned, she stood there for a moment, puzzled, disoriented, as if now, working the very last piece of a jigsaw puzzle, she’d found it didn’t fit. Where had he gone? What did it mean?

Then, in a dizzying rush, it struck her. Her ring. He

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had gone after it. Like Jason charging after the Golden Fleece.

The air seemed to be sucked from her lungs, and she felt her legs wobble. She leaned over the wrought-iron railing, peering down. At first, she saw only the dizzying drop … then sidewalks the width of snail tracks, vehicles the size of Adam’s Matchbox cars, streaming in opposite directions along Park Avenue. Waiting, she began to feel chilled, then she spotted him, a tiny figure darting out from under the apartment building’s greenand-white canopy. At the curb, he appeared to be hesitating; then he was plunging headlong into the ongoing traffic. Laurel, terrified for him, felt as if she were falling, down, down all those stories toward the gray pavement, the traffic sounds swelling in her ears.

She blinked, and was back on the terrace.

Her blood drumming in her ears, she watched the tiny figure that was Joe stride before the oncoming cars, arms extended like a cop’s, bringing some to shrieking, squealing halts, while others swerved and fishtailed around him. A cacophony of angry horns blasted at her ears all the way up here.

Joe, like a man obsessed, ignoring them all, hunkered downright there in the middle of the chaotic avenue.

“Joe! Come back! Come back here!” She knew he couldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t stop herself from screaming.

Watching a taxi come straight at him, and then at the last second swerve to avoid him, Laurel gripped the railing so hard she could feel its rough edges pricking her.

With the traffic now surging around him, she lost sight of him. It couldn’t have been more than seconds, but it felt like hours. Then at last she spotted him-he was standing in the middle of Park Avenue on the dividing strip, legs apart, arms held high, his navy coat flapping out behind him, holding what had to be that damn ring up to the sky like it was an Olympic gold medal.

“Joe … you idiot,” she choked.

Minutes later, when he’d returned to her side, the

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ring clenched in his fist, his face red with cold and his eyes bright with triumph, she told him to his face exactly what she thought of him.

“You could have been killed! And for nothing!” “No, not for nothing,” he panted, his breath blowing out in white plumes. “Laurey, I can’t change what happened. Back when we got married, maybe I wasn’t feeling everything you were. Jesus, who even remembers? All I know is how I feel now. I love you. I can’t fall asleep at night without you next to me. I can’t get through a single hour without thinking of you, missing you. I’ve tried … believe me, I have. All these months I’ve been waiting for you to tell me you missed me, that you wanted me back, and when you didn’t …“He stopped, took her hand. “Oh, what difference does it make who started what? All I know is what I want… and it’s you. Laurel Daugherty, will you marry me?”

She stared at him, too stunned, too overflowing with happiness to know quite what he meant, or what she should say.

“Now. Say yes.” “Joe …”

“We’ll start over, from here, from this second.” ”Are you sure it’s me you want … not Annie?” “You, my sweet Laurey.” He touched her cheek. “Only you.”

Joe, breathing hard, his hair whipping about his coldbitten face, snatched up her left hand, and eased the ring back onto her finger. She felt its coldness encircling her … then he was kissing her hand … holding it to his lips… and she could feel his breath against her palm, warming her.

“Say ‘I do’,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms, his lips curving up in a teasing smile. “Say it quick before I do something really nuts like throwing myself over this balcony.”

Laurel pulled in a deep breath, frosty air that tasted of smoke and soot and exhaust fumes. Tiny cinders blew against her cheeks, stinging them. But inside, she felt new

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and clean and shining. As if she’d just now, this very minute, been born.

“I do!” she cried, loud enough for all of Park Avenue to hear her.

B

Oack inside, she found people clustered around the piano, where one of the neighbors was playing “Some Enchanted Evening,” one of Dolly’s favorites. A chesty lady from the Metropolitan Opera chorus, wearing a cream wool suit trimmed in mink, put her drink down on the piano’s ebony surface, and began to sing the words in a rich, boozy voice.

“Where’s Adam?” Joe asked, his eyes sparkling. “I want to tell him I’ll be home for dinner.”

“Playing the diplomat with Henri’s grandkids,” she told him.

While Joe went off to look for Adam, Dolly came over and slipped an arm about Laurel’s shoulders. “That song … it gets me every time.”

Laurel nodded, too filled with emotion to speak.