Daddy

“I know.” She put an arm around him and held him close, and for a long time, they just sat there. They stayed at his place that night, in case the children called again, and for the first time in a month, they didn't make love at all. All he could think about were his children. And slowly, the shock of it brought them both back to their senses. Their wild idyll was going to change when the children came home. He couldn't stay out all night, and she couldn't stay at the apartment with him, and they would have to be far more circumspect around his children. In a way, it made them want to do as much as they could, while they were still alone, and in another way, the realization of what was coming so soon had already changed things.

And by Thursday night, they were both nervous and depressed. They lay awake all night, making love and talking, and wishing that things could be different.

“We could get married one day,” he said, only half jokingly, and she looked at him with mock horror.

“Don't be silly. That's a little extreme, isn't it?”

“Would it be?” He had never known anyone like her, and he was totally under her spell for the moment.

“For me, it would. Oliver, I can't marry anyone. I'm not the type, and you know it.”

“You heat up a great moussaka.”

“Then marry the guy at the deli where they made it.”

“He can't be as cute as you, although I've never met him.”

“Be serious. What would I do with a husband and three children?”

He pretended to think it over and she laughed. “I could think of a few things …”

“You don't need to be married for that, fortunately.” They had had a glorious month, but she was already acting as though it was over. “I just don't want more than this.”

“Maybe one day you will.”

“If I do, you'll be the first to know. I promise.”

“Seriously?”

“As serious as I can be about subjects like this. I told you before, marriage is not for me. And you don't need another wife to run shrieking out the door. You need some wonderful, smart, beautiful girl who's going to love you to pieces and take care of your kids, and give you fourteen more babies.”

“What a thought. I think you're confusing me with your father.”

“Not quite. But I am definitely not what the doctor ordered, Oliver. I know what I am, and some of it's all right, and some of it isn't. In my own way, I'm probably a lot like your wife, and that's exactly what you don't need. Be honest.”

He wondered if she was right, and if he had found himself a newer, somewhat racier edition of Sarah. He had never thought of that, but it was possible, although the idea depressed him. “What happens now?”

“We enjoy it for what it is, for as long as we can, and when it gets too complicated for either of us, we say good-bye, with a kiss and a hug and a thank-you.”

“Simple as that?”

“Simple as that.”

“I don't buy that. You grow attached to people in life. Don't you think after a month of being together all the time we've grown attached to each other now?”

“Sure. But don't confuse great sex with good loving. The two do not always go hand in hand. I like you, I care about you, maybe I even love you. But it's going to be different when the children come home. Maybe too different for both of us, and if it is, we just have to accept it and move on. You can't kill yourself over things like that in life. It's not worth it.” She was so damn casual, so nonchalant, just as she had been when she picked him up on the train, and called to invite him to dinner. As long as it was fun, it was fine, but when it wasn't fun anymore, just toss it. She was right. He had told himself he was falling in love with her. But maybe she was right there, too, maybe what he was really in love with was her body.

“Maybe you're right. I just don't know.” And they made love again that night, but this time it was different. And the next morning she went back to her own place, taking with her all traces of herself that for the past month she had left at his apartment. Her makeup, her deodorant, the pills she used in case she got a migraine, the perfume he had bought her, her hot rollers, her Tampax, and the few dresses she had left in his closet. It made him lonely just seeing the empty space, and he was reminded again of the pain of losing Sarah. Why did everything have to end? Why did it all change and move on? He wanted to hang on to all of it forever.