It was close to the centre of the city, on a little-travelled street, with a luxurious acre of land all on its own. It had trees and hedges and gardens, and the people who lived there before us had had a gardener come in to look after it all. I believe they also had a cook. We did not live like that, although I had a woman in once a week to clean the house. I mowed the lawns, the gardens went wild, and now and then Stephen would clip the hedges. It seems now that there must have been something very out of kilter with me then, for I rarely bothered with the gardens, did not enjoy them; and yet now the garden is the centre of my life.

But then so many things were different.

The furniture we bought was sturdy and simple and not especially elegant. We said it was practical, while the children were young and tearing around, pursued by a large and never very clean dog, and that things would change when they were grown. I don’t mean to imply that we were shabby; we were not that, by any means. We were a family. We were simply — lived in.

Stephen seemed to me a kind man and gentle. I learned from his friends that at work he was crisp and efficient and intolerant of mistakes, but at home he was loving, and extraordinarily good with the children, for I knew other men who were too tired for theirs. But Stephen tried always to have time for them, and on the weekends, when he could see that I needed a break, he would take them out, to the park, to the zoo, for a swim, or just a walk. He enjoyed them, and they were comfortable with him.

Perhaps now he is like me, almost gray. But then he had dark hair with tinges of deep red, and he was tall and straight. He wore suits and patterned shirts and ties to work, and slacks and pullover sweaters at home. I remember he wore some distinctive kind of after-shave, but I can’t recall now what it was called. I know that whenever I went somewhere in those days and smelled that after-shave, I thought of him.

I think I loved him, although I do not know, now, what that means. Other people, whose marriages were disintegrating around us, envied us because we seemed to enjoy each other’s company. I remember believing then that I loved him, so I must have.