John wore jeans, but decent jeans without holes, and something resembling a polo shirt with a sweater over it. To look at them, no one would know how scared they both were of this meeting. And they were both terrified of the identical things, that their love affair would officially end—and that it would carry on from where they had left it. She had a glass of wine and he a beer. They were on their second round before their words began to work.

“So,” he started, “what happened?”

“When?”

“You came back, you said, and found out I was married. I’ll tell you what happened to me if you tell me what happened to you. So what happened before that, in Los Altos?”

“Oh, it was dreadful. Max, who was recovering from one heart seizure, almost had another one. He was furious with me.”

“Why?” he asked.

She just looked up at him with that blank, bewildered, aren’t-you-able-to-keep-up-with-this? look of hers.

“For being pregnant?” he asked.

She nodded. “He said he felt betrayed… That’s what he said. I couldn’t understand that at all. I mean, it isn’t as though I did it on purpose. And there I was…pregnant. Part of me was thrilled beyond my wildest dreams… The other half was amazed at how foolish I’d been. If it hadn’t been for my mother, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said, remembering the way Leigh could get so far ahead of herself, or begin her stories at the end and go backward. He had no doubt she could deliver a dissertation in clear language, but when it came to real life, she meandered. “Slow down, Leigh. He was angry about your pregnancy? Didn’t he want to be a father?”

“No,” she answered in apparent surprise. “Of course not. I know I told you that.”

“I know he didn’t think he wanted to, but after you told him you were… ” She was shaking her head, looking stunned. “That’s a damn shame,” John said sincerely. “Even men who think they aren’t ready for children usually act civilized when they find out their wife is expecting. I think I would.”

Her eyes grew amazingly round, and she looked at him strangely, as if she didn’t understand what he was saying. Finally, as though she had shaken herself free of some complex notion, she said, “You said you didn’t want to be a father.”

“Well, hell, I was being honest at the time. But I think I would have faced the prospect a bit more reasonably than Max did. I don’t think I would have accused you of betrayal.”

“Wait a minute here,” she began. “What do you think you would have done? If you’d discovered your wife, for example, was pregnant?”