Pitch Dark by RENATA ADLER

an affair. You said you wouldn’t be having an affair with either of the last two, but the truth is, we would probably be better off if you were. If I were that secretary or that blonde, though as you say your life is built, you would have to find room, make some kind of room. The weeks on the north island in summer, the other island in winter, the hunting and walking weekends, even the occasional junket to the Riviera or to London. Somehow not with me, not with me. Not Christmas, of course, or birthdays, which I know don’t really matter. I just don’t know quite how I let it happen. Perhaps I had no choice, or perhaps you never loved me quite enough, and I didn’t want to know.
    So here we are. Or rather, there you are and here I am. And maybe the thing is simply not to think about it, and grow old, older still, like this. What we have now, it is true, is that you come to see me almost every day, and you bolt your morning tea, or your evening Scotch, and when I said the phrase that occurred to me, for the first time, to characterize the way you sometimes leave as Making good your escape, you did laugh. And you often spend the nights. But I may as well confess that, though I love you and seeing you changes the character of my mood and day, I sometimes dread, I don’t know how else to put it, sometimes dread a kind of visit that you make to me. I long for you to be here, miss you when you are gone, but sometimes to wonder whether I can amuse you, or whether you will be bored, tired, called away for bridge, or work, or tennis, or because one of your daughters has had a whim, well, sometimes I dread what will follow such a visit, and so I’ve come to dread a bit the visit, too. And while that may be true of any couple, any marriage, we have reversed it somehow. In the scheme of things, the mistress has something of the island; some of the strain, routine, and sense of long, cold winter belongs with the wife.
    When you are away, there are these traces: a few notes left on my front door, saying you’ll be late or asking where I am; a French pocket knife with a single all-purpose blade; two Liberty scarves bought with leftover currency at foreign airports; and, of course, the passage of the years, and the location of my house. You’ve moved the whole arsenal of the Other Woman, somehow, into your own house, and at my place, when you come, there’s only me. I wonder if you know at all what is happening in my heart, what a word. I suppose you don’t. You’ve so many females, wife, sisters, daughters, cousins, dog, in your life that you’ve probably confused me with them all. I guess I like to think that you love me more than you know, though I suppose the grounds are pretty slim for saying that. Well, a child’s thing. But you are, you know, you were, the nearest thing to a real story to happen in my life. Also, look at it this way, just what is it that I, that we are going to have, to look forward to, to look back on, after all. I mean, here I am, for the first time and yet again, alone at last on Orcas Island. What are you going to do? What you’ve always done, I guess. But what am I going to do, what shall I do, now?
    “I’ll get over it.”
    “Will you?”
    “Yes. And you’ll find somebody else.” Your face froze. You said, “I won’t.” I said, “You will. The thing is, I won’t mind so much. Because I won’t know.”
    Look here, you know. I loved you.
    Well, the question occurs, so many times, clearing desks, doing income tax, looking for letters, documents, some are missing, one doesn’t know for sure which are lost, doesn’t dare even to look too carefully, time and time again, there is this, Did I throw the most important thing perhaps, by accident, away?

II. PITCH DARK
    Q UANTA , Amy said, on the train, in that blizzard, in answer to my question, Quanta.
    Not here, Diana said, to her lasting regret, to her own daughter, who approached her, crying, in front of all those people. Not here.
    Just ax