“You are so sweet,” she said. “It’s as if you’ve been in suspended animation all this time overseas, doing your brave deeds. You don’t realize what a rotten business this is. But you shouldn’t worry another minute. Abelard will get over it; or maybe he won’t. Who knows? In any event, it’s not your problem. He’s a grown-up. He can make his own decisions. If you ask me, he had no business being in the race. You were just doing your job.”

Her confidence amazed me. She seemed to know exactly where everything belonged. Perhaps it was only men who could afford the luxury of self-doubt. But I had started now; I couldn’t stop.

“The funny thing is, maybe I don’t like being a reporter anymore.” That was the first time I had ever let that thought form clearly in my mind, and it had a surprising solidity. “I’ve always just assumed that we were the good guys, because we were going after the truth. But I didn’t feel good when I left Abelard’s office. I ran into a bathroom and scribbled down all the private things he had told me. That’s what reporters do, but I knew it was wrong.”

She paused a moment, to consider what I had said. “Maybe you should be an editor. Good reporters are supposed to do that, when they get tired of reporting.”

“That’s what Ed Weiss thinks. He wants me to come to New York. But that’s the last thing I want to do right now. I’m sick of being a bystander as it is. Becoming an editor would be like moving from the sidelines to a skybox. I still want to connect.”

She smiled at my word. Her word. “Poor Eric,” she said. “You know what I think? You’re—what’s the opposite of homesick?—abroadsick. You miss the freedom of being overseas. You want to go find another war somewhere. You’re not ready for peacetime.”

“Maybe I’m just lonely,” I said, gazing at her.

Annie came over to the love seat and sat down beside me. I watched her walk those few feet, and let myself remember. I reached out my hand and touched her cheek. It had that downy softness of a woman’s skin, warmed by the heat of the fire.

“Let’s make love,” I said.

“No,” she answered. “I have a rule never to make love with ex-boyfriends who are in the midst of an identity crisis.”