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couldn't write you or anything," Michael said. "You have to understand that before

anything else."

"OK," she said.

"I've got a place in the city," Michael said. "Is it all right if we go there or should it be

dinner and drinks at a restaurant?"

"I'm not hungry," Kay said.

They drove toward New York in silence for a while. "Did you get your degree?" Michael

asked.

"Yes," Kay said. "I'm teaching grade school in my hometown now. Did they find the

man who really killed the policeman, is that why you were able to come home?"

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For a moment Michael didn't answer. "Yes, they did," he said. "It was in all the New

York papers. Didn't you read about it?"

Kay laughed with the relief of him denying he was a murderer. "We only get The New

York Times up in our town," she said. "I guess it was buried back in page eighty-nine. If

I'd read about it I'd have called your mother sooner." She paused and then said, "It's

funny, the way your mother used to talk, I almost believed you had done it. And just

before you came, while we were drinking coffee, she told me about that crazy man who

confessed."

Michael said, "Maybe my mother did believe it at first."

"Your own mother?" Kay asked.

Michael grinned. "Mothers are like cops. They always believe the worst."

Michael parked the car in a garage on Mulberry Street where the owner seemed to

know him. He took Kay around the corner to what looked like a fairly decrepit

brownstone house which fitted into the rundown neighborhood. Michael had a key to the

front door and when they went inside Kay saw that it was as expensively and

comfortably furnished as a millionaire's town house. Michael led her to the upstairs

apartment which consisted of an enormous living room, a huge kitchen and door that

led to the bedroom. In one corner of the living room was a bar and Michael mixed them

both a drink. They sat on a sofa together and Michael said quietly, "We might as well go

into the bedroom." Kay took a long pull from her drink and smiled at him. "Yes," she said.

For Kay the lovemaking was almost like it had been before except that Michael was

rougher, more direct, not as tender as he had been. As if he were on guard against her.

But she didn't want to complain. It would wear off. In a funny way, men were more

sensitive in a situation like this, she thought. She had found making love to Michael after

a two-year absence the most natural thing in the world. It was as if he had never been

away.

"You could have written me, you could have trusted me," she said, nestling against his

body. "I would have practiced the New England omerta. Yankees are pretty

closemouthed too, you know."

Michael laughed softly in the darkness. "I never figured you to be waiting," he said. "I

never figured you to wait after what happened."

Kay said quickly, "I never believed you killed those two men. Except maybe when

your mother seemed to think so. But I never believed it in my heart. I know you too

well,"

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She could hear Michael give a sigh. "It doesn't matter whether I did or not," he said.

"You have to understand that."

Kay was a little stunned by the coldness in his voice. She said, "So just tell me now,

did you or didn't you?"

Michael sat up on his pillow and in the darkness a light flared as he got a cigarette

going. "If I asked you to marry me, would I have to answer that question first before

you'd give me an answer to mine?"

Kay said, "I don't care, I love you, I don't care. If you loved me you wouldn't be afraid

to tell me the truth. You wouldn't be afraid I might tell the police. That's it, isn't it? You're

really a gangster then, isn't that so? But I really don't care. What I care about is that you

obviously don't love me. You didn't even call me up when you got back home."

Michael was puffing on his cigarette and some burning

ashes fell on Kay's bare back. She flinched a little and said jokingly, "Stop torturing me,

I won't talk."

Michael didn't laugh. His voice sounded absentminded. "You know, when I came

home I wasn't that glad when I saw my family, my father, my mother, my sister Connie,

and Tom. It was nice but I didn't really give a damn. Then I came home tonight and saw

you in the kitchen and I was glad. Is that what you mean by love?"

"That's close enough for me," Kay said.

They made love again for a while. Michael was more tender this time. And then he

went out to get them both a drink. When he came back he sat on an armchair facing the

bed. "Let's get serious," he said. "How do you feel about marrying me?" Kay smiled at

him and motioned him into the bed. Michael smiled back at her. "Be serious," he said. "I

can't tell you about anything that happened. I'm working for my father now. I'm being

trained to take over the family olive oil business. But you know my family has enemies,

my father has enemies. You might be a very young widow, there's a chance, not much

of one, but it could happen. And I won't be telling you what happened at the office every

day. I won't be telling you anything about my business. You'll be my wife but you won't